Last night, darkness fell amid the rise of an opalescent moon, refracting shades of amber, then gold, then icy white as it climbed a blackening sky. At this point in the year, it rises directly behind the aspen outside the living room window by the arbor, and the leaves shivering in the chill night air only add to its shimmering effects.
Despite the clouds that attended the dawn, the day put itself to bed beneath a blanket of stars, the afternoon’s gale-force winds having driven all trace of weather out beyond the peaks to the east. Today will be more of the same, clear skies lightly veiled by a pollen haze, and what is now a brisk breeze turning into a trickster wind by midday. Night will be welcome once again, both for its relative calm and for the softer light of the waning moon as it rides the flank of the Light Horse, racing along the bridge of stars the outside world calls the Milky Way.
That opal moon, and the spirit it adorns, have both been brought to earth in concentrated form and in name for today’s featured work. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Light Horse Necklace
The Light Horse rides the rays of sun, moon, and stars, illuminating the path of a darkened earth. Wings summons a miniature version from the skies to share his colorful radiance with this world. This wholly Indian horse is cut freehand from sterling silver, with articulated ears, muzzle, hooves, and tail, and a small slider-style bail extending organically from his back. His deep-set eye holds its own illuminating spark; mane and tail radiate their own light by way of hand-stamped chased arrowheads and bold score marks. The Light Spirit has marked him as its own by way of a tiny round bezel-set cabochon of a fiery Ethiopian opal on his left flank. He floats, suspended, from a strand of mixed beads in the shades of the sky, tiny round turquoise beads alternating with bright rounds of indigo-hued apatite, translucent Montana agate webbed here and there with rich brown rutile trading space with paired barrels of spiderweb turquoise, and anchored by more tiny rounds of impression jasper in rich shades of turquoise and and rust. The horse pendant is 1-5/8″ long by 2″ across at its widest point; the opal cabochon is 1/8″ across; and the bead strand hangs 21″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Full view shown below.
Sterling silver; Ethiopian opal; turquoise; apatite; Montana agate; impression jasper
$875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This little horse is himself pure light, one of Wings’s old designs reborn in the molten glow of sterling silver. As is common with our Indian ponies, this one is identified and identifiable by the mark painted on his flank, but this is no ordinary pigment: he wears the moon itself, refracting in all the blues and golds and whites of a tiny round natural opal cabochon. And he flies across a cascading arc of stars, lit here and there with the fire of dusk and dawn: a torrent of tiny beads, small jewels to blink and shimmer in darkened skies.
In the outer world now, even the daylight hours seem dark. Pain and suffering are not new to this earth, nor death, either, but their accelerating pace and force can be felt clearly now. It dims the glow of the sun and the inner light that keeps our spirits alive.
But this small spirit reminds us to look for the light in unlikely places, and that includes in the dark. As the Light Horse knows, it’s an illuminating flight.
~ 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.
