At long last yesterday, the clouds returned — nothing holding precipitation, merely the wispy trailing clouds that more usually adorn our turquoise sky at this time of year. With the trailing bits of white came warmer winds, too: temperatures rising close to sixty, fully nine degrees above the projected high.
And the forecast predicts a quick return to colder nights, if not to the subzero lows that marked the early part of this week.
It’s a reminder, and a stark one, that we remain at the mercy of the elements, our days propelled and steered more than we care to admit by the influences of weather and climate. In these days of anthropogenic climate change, its effects driven by our own negligence, it’s a daunting prospect indeed.
Outside the window, the world looks much as it should now, in this final weekend before the so-called “holiday season” of the outside world gets fully under way. There is still plenty of snow on the ground, far more than in recent years at this time, and a broad expanse of white clouds ferries the sun across the dawn sky. The long-range forecast suggests that we might have more snow next Thursday; if so, it will be the first time, if memory serves, in eleven years. I hope it’s accurate; for me, the winter holidays don’t feel fully real without the accompaniment of winter weather.
It’s not as though we celebrate them, for the most part, in the way the dominant culture does. But we both grew up in households that did, and we find value in taking those days to celebrate the beauty of the season, all the many, many reasons we have to be grateful, life itself. In our way, every celebration is an expression of thanks, and every celebration is also an occasion to honor the powers and forces beyond ourselves, to show respect to the elders and ancestors and spirits.
In keeping with this theme, today we highlight the next two entries in Wings’s newest collection. Both embody manifestations of respect in our traditional ways. The first, actually the fourth in the group and shown above, is named for an expression that we will have occasion to use next week (although we also use it throughout the year). From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Spirit Bowl Coil Bracelet
The spirit bowl is a traditional means of marking special occasions, of acknowledging the lives of those who have walked on and demonstrating respect for more elemental spirits, too. Wings blends the bold tones of traditional black-on-white and micaceous pottery with an earthy mix representing water and light and the warmth of tradition, all coiled in their own round vessel. At either end are strands of translucent dark heishi, earth tones that appear black on white in the light, melding into lengths of iron pyrite with all the flash and fire of local mica. Next come round orbs of fire and ice, black and white snowflake obsidian, separated by more pyrite from round shimmering spheres of mother-of-pearl shell. Another small expanse of iron pyrite leads to the glowing warm center, large orbs of chatoyant tiger’s eye, like the light glimmers in the clay of the bowls and plates that serve the spirits. Fourth in The Respect Collection of The Seventh Fire Series. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; olivella-shell heishi; iron pyrite; snowflake obsidian; mother-of-pearl shell; tiger’s eye
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The second (and the fifth in the collection’s order), visually one of my favorites from this collection, manifests in a more ephemeral yet no less real way. It embodies a tradition of honoring those who have earned our respect by their actions, by a life lived well in the proper way. From its description in the same section of the same gallery:
Honor Song Coil Bracelet
Some of our cultures show respect, whether for those still living who have accomplished much on behalf of the people or those who have walked on, with an honor song. Traditions vary, but some call upon the powers of elemental and cosmic spirits to protect the well-being of the person or spirit in whose honor the song is sung. With this coil, Wings calls such powers to a spiraling circle, all in the shades of the Sacred Directions and the color and shimmer of the day and night. Each end is anchored by a length of round mother-of-pearl shell beads, polished to a radiant sheen like small orbs of glowing light. Each extends, in order, to the colors of the cardinal directions: first the white of the north, symbolized by polished snow-colored chips of Hawai’ian puka shell, thence to the literal amber glow of the east, each separated by short strands of glimmering mother-of-pearl. The shade of the sun flows into the warm fiery red of the south represented by highly polished freeform nuggets of deep garnet, melding into the gray light of dusk via round spheres of Labradorite, ending in a shimmering expanse of hematite, the glowing light of the west and night. Fifth in The Respect Collection of The Seventh Fire Series. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; mother-of-pearl shell; Hawai’ian puka shell; amber; garnet; Labradorite; hematite
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Key to both of these entries is an aspect of respect, of honor, that is fundamental to our peoples and ways: an act of remembering. It is the first step toward honor, toward a showing of respect: remembrance, acknowledgment, an active refusal to forget those who went before, those who cleared the path we now walk, those for whom we would be the Seventh Generation, and who conducted their lives accordingly.
The world we have inherited is now one in extremis, not the fault of our own ancestors but a lived reality all the same. By remembering, by respecting the ancestors and the old ways and the spirits, by putting their lessons into action and their examples into practice, we have the opportunity to leave our own Seventh Generation a better world, a healthier, more harmonious world than this.
Our work begins with an act of remembering.
~ 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.
