The soft gray clouds that heralded the dawn have begun to lift a bit on the east side, showing marbled bands of turquoise high above the peaks. Around their ridgelines, fog and storm still hold sway, and despite the sudden emergence of the sun, banks of new stormclouds hover off to the west.
We have had flurries this morning, drops of snow and drops of sun, and there will be more of both before this day is done.
The extra snow will be a gift, even if much of our small world here has long since tired of it. We know better than to reject it, or even to feel weary; this is, after all, the earth’s promise of life for the year that lies ahead. The extremes of local elemental forces, like the spirits who attend them, wield great power . . . and the greatest of these is love.
This, too, is perhaps the greatest difference between Indigenous and colonial existences and ways of being. Where the latter regards the land as a resource, we know it as a relative. We feel for the earth the love that we feel for our human ancestors and elders and cousins and children, because it is all of these and more — just as in turn we feel, in the most real and tangible of ways, her love for us.
Consider the notion of the infinite string of accidents that must have occurred just so for world to produce such a perfect gestational habitat for humankind . . . and then consider the reality that the earth is itself a living organism: breathing, heart beating, womb giving birth to an endlessly diverse mix of children in lands suited exactly to them. When I write that we are of the land, and the land is of us, I do not mean it metaphorically.
Neither do I mean the fact of reciprocal love between an Indigenous earth and her Indigenous children as metaphor, either.
Today’s featured work embodies this love, reciprocal, impossibly ancient, timelessly eternal. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
A Love Ancient and Eternal Necklace
The gifts of this indigenous earth are jewels beyond price, symbols of an ancient and eternal love. Wings honors the love, the gifts, and the example set for us with this necklace, wrought in the oldest of gems wrapped in the embrace of precious metal in the shade of the light. The work is built around a pendant of extraordinary proportions, an outsized heart cut freehand and set at the center with a total of sixteen gems. The focal point is a giant heart-shaped cabochon of Turkish colla wood, a rare and ancient fossilized wood spangled over time on a geologic scale with inclusions of its namesake, opalized chrysocolla, along with azurite and malachite, set here into a scalloped bezel. This luminous center is embraced by a ring of round bezel-set cabochons separated by tiny hand-stamped hoops, seven each of alternating blood-red carnelian and fiery amber with a single ethereal aquamarine, like tiny dawn sky, at the very tip. The pendant hangs from a flared slider-style bezel chased down its center in a repeating pattern of stylized hearts. It hangs from a chunky strand of textured beads strung on three-ply silver-plated foxtail: at the center, hand-carved oval ebony wood separated first by carnelian rondels, then slender amber chips; moving upward, Labradorite rondels alternating with pairs of spiky hand-textured ebony cylinders separated by oval ebony spacers; at the upper half, jet barrel beads alternating with segments of very old green turquoise doughnut rondels, followed by sterling silver-plated round spacers flowing into lengths of round chatoyant kyanite and smaller, intensely-hued indigo apatite. The strand is anchored by oversized sterling silver hook-and-eye findings. Including the bail, the pendant is 2-11/16″ long; the pendant alone is 2″ long from highest to lowest points by 1-7/8″ across at the widest point; the bail is 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; the colla wood heart cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-7/16″ across at the widest point; the smaller cabochons are each 3/16″ across; the bead strand, excluding findings, is 20″ long (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and below.
Pendant: Sterling silver; Turkish colla wood; aquamarine; amber; carnelian
Bead Strand: Hand-carved African ebony; carnelian; amber; Labradorite; jet;
old green turquoise; silverplate; kyanite; apatite; all over tri-ply silver-plated foxtail.
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is work manifest in all the colors of the light, in the shades of the waters and the shapes of a most ancient earth. The heart cabochon at its center is nothing short of extraordinary: colla wood (pronounced KO-la), a rare wood found only in Turkey that takes its name and appearance only from its fossilized form. This impossibly old wood in shades of rich brown and black and gentle grays becomes infused, over time on a geologic scale, with inclusions of chrysocolla that give it its name. In some instances, as here, a marbling of azurite and malachite also appears. It produces the effect quite like a stormy sky, or perhaps of receding night, the dark aswirl with the indigo dawn. Its surface is polished to a silken finish, and this specimen was lightly opalized over time, giving minerals and wood alike a slightly shimmery glow.
Wings has set it into a scalloped bezel atop a backing in the shape of a heart, cut freehand to track the focal cabochon’s edges perfectly, the perimeter set with fifteen small round cabochons separated by tiny sacred hoops stamped freehand. The jewels at the edge consist mostly of fire, each of seven glowing amber alternating with a corresponding seven flame-red carnelian. At the very tip, the water hovers, ready to fall, in a solitary drop of translucent aquamarine.
The beads were chosen very literally individually, each one for its particular size, shape, color, or chatoyance: hand-carved ebony oval barrels and hand-textured cylinders, imported from Malawi and acquired through a friend from Kenya; chips of sunny amber and rondels of fiery carnelian and icy Labradorite; small barrels of pure jet and very, very old doughnut rondels of natural green turquoise; and rounds in three sizes and materials, sterling silverplate, cornflower kyanite, indigo apatite.
It’s a full and eternal spectrum of light, with love at the heart.
It’s Mother Earth: an ancient heart and a timeless love.
It’s the gift of life itself, and what surer proof of love can there be?
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
