A walk in the rain would be ideal, but lately, weather predictions are meaningless. Whatever the rain in the forecast, it’s more likely to go around us than to pay us a visit. It remains tantalizingly just out of reach — visible among the peaks and valleys visible from the land, but stalled there.
Clouds, though . . . those we have in abundance.
This morning, the sky overhead is clear and blue, but around us on all sides, the clouds are already forming at the horizon, encircling us with soft, elongated masses of white edged with bits of telltale blue-gray. To the northeast, though, they thunderheads have already massed, and a wall of them is already boiling up over the peaks at this early hour. By midday, anyone lucky enough (or careless enough) to be on some of the higher mountain trails will be caught in episodic showers, although the valley below will still be washed only by the sun.
It’s a busy time of year, made all the more so by the rapidly shortening days and need to dodge the weather. In the old village, they’ve finished with the summer ceremonial and many of the traditional duties of the season, but finishing touches are no doubt still be put on the facades of the church and those old homes that were remudded and resurfaced in advance of the upcoming feast days. The Feast of San Geronimo will occur at the end of the month, and people are busy preparing for the needs of those days, and of their families and fiends, while squeezing their everyday duties into days now ending too early. Here on this bit of land, we’re scrambling to complete the last projects of summer and make time to begin preparing for the snows’ arrival.
At a time like this, despite the impending feast day, it’s easy to lose sight of the stories and symbols on which our histories, our very existences, rest. Oh, they’re still there, in the back of our minds and the depths of our hearts, but without primacy of place in our consciousness as we deal with the telescoping constraints of time. And so reminders become all the more important.
Every piece that Wings has ever given to me, made for me, carries its own series of reminders, its own symbolic stories and lessons that I keep with me at all times. It’s one of the reasons why I feel protected wearing his work, and why I never go anywhere without wearing at least one piece. When I begin to feel too harried by the outside world, when the forces and influences of the dominant culture threaten to untether me from my roots, even momentarily, I find myself involuntarily reaching for them: tightening my fingers around a pendant, checking my earrings, tightening a cuff here, twisting a ring there. It grounds me, reminds me not only of what is important but simply of what is, and the earth ceases to shift beneath my feet, the trail firming and reaffirming itself once again.
The simple little ring in the photo above, one he created for his recent one-man show, is a perfect example of the symbolic power such pieces hold. From its description in the Rings Gallery here on the site:
Thunderhead Trail
The foundation of traditional cultures exists in the stories and lessons found in ancient symbols and patterns. Stories writ small carry large symbolism, like the thunderhead: A sign of rain, water in the desert, it can represent fertility, abundance, prosperity, harmony, well-being, and a host of other virtues and blessings, all entwined and interconnected. It can also represent power at its wildest and most fierce. Here, the stories play out in matched thunderheads that form a trail of power and balance. centered amid the gently sloping sides of the anticlastic band. A random scattering of stars lights the trail of the inner band; the finger-cuff design keeps it fully adjustable.
Sterling silver
$255 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Its a style he’s been doing for a few years now, and it’s one that is especially attractive to me. I love rings, lots of them, but they are sometimes difficult for me now. I spend too much time doing the kind of work, with the horses and otherwise, that can make wearing them a risk, and too many decades of autoimmune disease have done their own infernal work on my joints. Sliding a hoop over a knuckle isn’t always feasible — and on some fingers, what fits over the knuckle will simply spin loosely on the finger itself. The finger cuff solves both problems. This one in particular, with its gentle anticlastic gradient on either side, is especially comfortable.
And like so much of Wings’s work, it carries a secret only for its wearer. Stamped along the inner band are stars and flowers, both scattered in a seemingly-random pattern: a very personal, closely-held reminder that no matter what trail you walk, no matter the clouds and storms and rains that mark it, they will also make the flowers grow along the way, and eventually, make way for the stars to shine upon your path again.
~ Aji
