This week’s themes have been elemental in nature: the colors of sun and soil, season and sky. At this time of the year, though, it all comes back to the light.
Outside for morning prayers, our latest resident, an enormous ferruginous hawk, lifted off. He soared toward the peaks, then banked and returned for a moment, circling deliberately directly overhead, once, twice, the sun turning his feathers from rusty brown to shimmering silver. His form evoked the center stones in the cuff above: deep glossy earth touched by fire and limned in icy light.
Perhaps it’s fitting that he should have appeared this morning, on a day when I had planned to feature this particular work. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
In the interstices inhabited by the elemental powers, Spirit catalyzes fire and ice, bringing them to life in our world, their full strength and power yet held back: a reminder that if we are careful, we may use their gifts rather than be consumed by them. Here, Spirit’s Eye traces the length of the band of this heavy-gauge cuff, accented on all sides by traditional symbols. At the center, two fiery garnet cabochons flank three larger oval stones: snowflake obsidian, representations of ice born naturally of the union of earth and heat and flame. Companion piece to the Fire and Ice solitaire ring in the Rings Gallery.
Sterling silver; snowflake obsidian; garnet
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Before today, I had viewed this piece (and its companion piece, to be featured tomorrow), as wholly elemental, fire and ice and the powerful creator Spirit capable of synthesizing such oppositional forces to our benefit. it had not occurred to me to look beyond those forces to more accessible mediators of its gifts.
I’ve written before, at some length, about the stones that Wings chose to bring the piece into being: three large bold center ovals of snowflake obsidian flanked by the fire of garnet. As I wrote earlier of obsidian manifest in this particular form:
The obsidian itself appears to be translucent black, or occasionally, a very, very dark brown. But in some areas, the lava is shot with inclusions of a mineral called cristobalite: white, almost fluffy-looking crystals that occur in small clusters, like snowflakes. They harden on the surface of the cooling lava, creating the effect you see here. It’s a beautiful look, and symbolically powerful: fierce elemental powers, clashing and bonding and melding together into something more than the sum of their parts. The inclusions make snowflake obsidian unworkable for weaponry, but they make it a brilliantly symbolic choice for art, which is perhaps war’s polar opposite.
Because the cristobalite inclusions appear on the surface of the stone, it gives the stone the feel of snow and ice, of cold winds and frozen waters. The heat of the glassine mineral below is thoroughly subordinated to its wintry appearance. But fire plays its role in this piece, too, more obviously than in the obsidian, appearing in the deep scarlet shades of garnet. I’ve written about this stone here, too:
There are six major species [of garnet], which are divided into two related groups: almandine, pyrope, and spessartite in one; andradite, grossular, and uvarovite in the other.
Most of what we think of today as “garnet” — i.e., stones in the deep red color shown above — come from the almandine and pyrope species. But garnet actually comes in a variety of colors across the spectrum, pinks and oranges and reds and purples, deepening all the way to black; golden yellows and browns and brilliant greens; and even a transparent icy-looking shade. But the rarest of garnets are the blue garnets, found largely in . . . where else? Madagascar. And Madagascar is already being violated enough for its rare species of all types; the blue garnets should stay in the ground there, thank you. Since the discovery of the first blue garnet there some 20 years ago, they have also been found in parts of Africa, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. And most are not strictly “blue”; they are called “color-changing” garnets, because they appear blue to green in natural light, but purplish in incandescent light. [Some of the other forms and colors of garnet change color under different forms of light, as well.] There are also “star garnets” (think star sapphires), but they are extraordinarily rare, and often not well-delineated in the stone, making them less effective for use in jewelry.
But it is the red color that the word “garnet” calls first to mind for most people, and it is, to me, a stone that looks like liquid fire, hardened by sudden exposure to intense cold. Its formation is of course far more complex than that, occurring over time measured on a geologic scale, but it still summons images in my mind of fire meeting ice.
But before today, I had not thought of this piece before in terms of any association with the spirits of the animal world. It was a synthesis of earth and air, fire and water, all touched by Spirit in their own way, but not inspirited in the way we think of beingvs more closely related to us.
In our way, of course, Hawk is a spirit who traverses those interstices, a mediator and messenger between the worlds, an escort and guide for those who, whether physically or merely spiritually, must make the journey themselves. Emissary and intercessor, who bears Spirit’s own words, and if we’re fortunate, carries ours back again. As a being who once played ball with the Thunderbirds, sending fiery bolts of lightning across the skies in the midst of the cold stormy waters of rain, perhaps he’s also Spirit’s perfect emissary of fire and ice.
~ Aji
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