Last night, we were given the gift of the moon, not shy but merely sovereign, intermittently veiling herself in the clouds: an autonomous female spirit choosing how much of herself to reveal, and when. Today, the sun is up, but the clouds are already here, and rain is in the forecast. If it arrives, it will be a wonderful gift to a parched and thirsty earth.
In our cosmologies, many of the spirits of our natural world are feminine, and the power they wield goes too often unrecognized by humans more impressed by violent flashes of force than by the strong and steady power that becomes both irresistible force and immovable object. It is no accident that even the colonial world has adopted, or perhaps better put, co-opted, the language of gender to refer to the earth: It is a hallmark of intrusive and extractive cultures to privilege force over power, and thus to treat reductively that which is perceived and understood as female. It’s similarly no accident that colonial powers invoke the language of their Old Testament that claims “dominion over” the earth and all that lives and breathes and otherwise exists upon it.
Our ways are different.
In our ways, the Earth is our Mother, just as the Moon is our Grandmother. Sun and sky may be male, but we are as deeply rooted in the land as in any literal womb. It is not a relationship of twinkly, glittery, fluffy hippiedom, either, no “love and light” veneer a millimeter deep, but a relationship of eternal standing and generational obligation, one that stretches back along the lines of our ancestors to the First People, and forward long past the Seventh Generation to children we will never know save through the bonds of blood and spirit.
Today’s featured work honors this relationship, and the solidity of this world we inhabit — a world whose very lifeblood is its female aspect and identity, a world of fire and light. From its description in the Pendants Gallery here on the site:
Earth Mother/Mother Earth Pendant
Earth Mother/Mother Earth, two spirits in one: The latter births the former, the former emerges from the very being of the latter. Wings summons this most elemental spirit of the Sacred Feminine into being in this pendant, one to hang beneath the throat and over the heart. She is wrought, freehand, out of sterling silver, arms stretched high above her head to embrace the universe, separated from head and body by delicate ajouré cutwork. She dances, swaying gently, as she emerges from the womb of the earth itself, all red canyons and warm rocky soil beneath a gray and stormy sky; her face is pure golden light, the radiance of sun and moon reflected off the surface of the world. Her body, and that of the earth, is formed from a bold oval cabochon of exquisite picture jasper set into a hand-made, hand-scalloped bezel; her face appears in the form of a spectacularly chatoyant golden-brown tiger’s eye, highly domed and radiating out of a saw-toothed bezel. She hangs suspended from a bail fashioned of wide sterling silver pattern wire molded in a fertile and flowering pattern. Pendant, including bail, hangs 3″ long; pendant only is 2.5″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; bail is 5/8″ long by 5/16″ across; picture jasper cabochon is 1-3/16″ long by 13/16″ across at the widest point; tiger’s eye cabochon is 1/2″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Side view of hand-scalloped bezel shown above. Jointly designed by Aji and Wings.
Sterling silver; picture jasper; tiger’s eye
$1,075 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is one of my favorite pieces among Wings’s current inventory, and not just for my own role in its creation. If it were limited to that role, it would not exist; Wings’s genius and talent and skill were required to summon it from a mere image in the mind’s eye into tangible, three-dimensional form and being.
It’s a reminder, too, that our earth has form and being, this world that exists around us whose existence we take so thoroughly for granted. It is a world of fire and light, but now, that description takes on a more urgent and risky meaning, We were fortunate, having been born of this land into ways into which these obligations are woven like a blanket. We live them still.
But it’s time to extend those particular ways outward. Honoring women, and the womanly aspects of our world, is a good start.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
