There are times, even — more, especially — at this season, when the light seems impossibly distant.
It’s counterintuitive, even contradictory. Solstice now safely behind us, we should be able to rejoice in the incremental return of the light of a sun long low and wan in the wintry sky. But the fact of the matter is that, Solstice or no, we are only now getting down to the business of winter, and we still have holidays and cultural markers that command our participation, or at least our recognition, to one degree or another. Braid the cold days and the long nights and the commercial frenzy with the seasonal fairy tales we’ve all grown up internalizing, with the melancholy of memory and a nostalgia for a holiday season that never was, and you have the makings of some very dark times indeed.
For us, the season is impossibly busy. It used to be that the sales made in the weeks leading up to Christmas were what got us through the long dark months of winter, with bitter cold and deep snows and a lengthy closure of the Pueblo to outsiders.
Sales no longer reach such levels; a torched economy and a tourism industry in smoking ruins have seen to that. But these weeks are no less busy for that; sales are impossible without inventory, and the world outside our doors conspires to make each holiday season more hectic than the last. We are all in need of a little light now, but on a day such as this, it remains stubbornly elusive, the sky overhead the pale yellow-gray of old parchment, the snow unwilling to fall. The heavens feel oppressive, as though pressing us more firmly into the earth to which we are bound, reminding us of our inability to escape it, our inability to fly toward the light on our own.
On a day such as this, we need the clarity and illumination that certain spirits provide when thee world holds them absent and apart..
And so, it seems here to be the perfect day for Wings’s newest work, finished only this morning — a pair of earrings in the form and shape of a powerful spirit, ascending to and with the light. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Ascension Earrings
The Water Bird is a figure simultaneously sacred and a part of our lives, one whose spirit has long appeared in Wings’s personal tradition and one that he has long infused into his work. These representations of this powerful wingéd being seem to belong wholly to the winter season, feathered spirits able to transcend the snow and ice and early dark, capable of ascension to the light. Cut freehand of sterling silver, each is wrought in classic symbolic shape, head pointing upward, wings arched, tailfeathers spread. A pair of hand-stamped crescents placed back to back give form and shape to the head and hint at otherworldly vision; a single arrowhead point defines the tail. Body feathers are represented by a trio of longer points, while hand-chiseled lines form the upper tailfeathers. Long, elegantly rayed mountain motifs are spread gently atop the wings, articulating the layers of covert wing feathers. at the heart of each water bird rests a fabulously adularescent oval cabochon of rainbow moonstone, perfectly translucent and refracting rays of cobalt blue, as thought each water bird carries with it the light of pure illumination as it ascends to the place where the spirits dwell. Small silver jump rings hold them securely to sterling silver wires. Earrings hang 2″ long (excluding jump rings and wires) by 1.25″ across at the widest point; moonstone cabochons are 1/2″ long by 3/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; rainbow moonstone
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I fell in love with this pair while they were still in process. The Water Bird holds special meaning for us both, and even half-finished, I could already see the power they held. Completed, they fly at a different level entirely, seeming to transcend the bounds of this world and the one of dreams and visions too, to hold at their hearts the fiery clear light of pure illumination, the sort that leads to wisdom.
And that is, perhaps, the purpose of ascension (or one of them, at least) — the gaining of wisdom, of a higher knowledge that is more usually the province of the spirits. It is also an act denied us in physical form as long as we inhabit this plane; we engage in it metaphorically, through the power of heart and mind and spirit, but the body remains stubbornly earthbound even as we find ways to let our souls soar.
But on this gray and cloudy day, these remind me yet again that it is only the body that must be tethered to the land . . . and the land is not such a terrible place to be, after all. But while a pewter veil hangs heavy over our small world, they remind me that our spirits are not caged beneath it. With the help of the spirits, we, too, can find ways to rise to the light.
~ 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.
