On this day, we are seeing the children outstrip their elders: reaching deep to find roots solid within the earth, standing strong and stepping up, moving forward relentlessly against more powerful forces that use their lives as pawns in commerce and authority and that have intimidated adults into silence and apathy.
Our generation, country-wide, has failed our youth. There is no room for “not all”-ing here; we are all culpable, whether by sins of commission or those of omission. For virtually all of us, it’s both. And as we age and fantasize that that alone is enough to command respect, we have failed utterly to do the one task the world sets out for all of humanity: to leave the world a better place than we found it, for the benefit of the generations to come.
The world is not better now.
And yet, the children, the youth, are proof in themselves that life remains in this old world, that there is room for faith and hope exists and love may yet triumph over all. The description of today’s featured work asserts that from the heart of the earth, our whole world grows, but the young people, those who are this world’s future, have stumbled upon something more: From the heart of the earth, love grows. And in Wings’s hands, this work became the very embodiment of this lesson we too easily forget. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
From the Heart of the Earth Necklace
From the heart of the earth our whole world grows. Wings pays tribute to this evolutionary process with this necklace, a cross that is not a cross, but the embodiment of elemental forces and nurturing spirits. The pendant’s form is a very old design, one that circumvented colonial insistence on Christianity by appearing to adopt its four-spoked shape — and then adding an extra bar and a curving end to produce the form of a much older spirit: that of Dragonfly, a pollinator, a messenger, a symbol of romantic love and life’s abundance. Here, Wings has honored another old adaptation of the style, turning the curved tail at the base of the lowest spoke into a stylized heart. Above the heart, the pendant extends upward and outward to the Four Sacred Directions, each of the remaining five spokes stamped with a single thunderhead symbol pointing inward toward the center, a sign of the rain that keeps our Earth herself alive. Above the top spoke, the hand-made bail flowers into a lush green peridot; at the base in the center of the heart, the place of emergence, two tiny hand-stamped flowers are wedded into the form of a butterfly, a small spirit rising from its own place of emergence to continue the processes of pollination and prosperity. The cross is made of solid fourteen-gauge silver, and hangs 2-5/8″, the bail 3/4″ (the pendant is 3-3/8″ in total length; 1-1/8″ across at the widest point); the stone is 3/8″ long; the pendant hangs from an 18″ sterling silver snake chain (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; peridot
$1,150 + shipping, handling, and insurance
There is faith in the elements, the directions, the renewing green of the earth. There is hope, aloft on the wings of an early butterfly. And there is love in a heart deeply rooted, carrying the lifeblood of the earth to us all.
On this day, one that here is warm and clear and quiet and filled with beauty, one for the trees to flower and the grass to rise, it is a day to stand with our young people, to let their courage inspire bravery in our own hearts and then to let our hearts overflow with love become action. This is the season of renewal, of rebirth. The children are showing us the way to a world reborn.
~ 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.
