Such tourists as are in the area today likely regard the forecast with disbelief. At the moment, it is clear and sunny, cornflower skies with puffy white clouds amassing to the east. Dawn was a fragile yet powerful thing, thin strands of rose and coral backlit by pale gold and silver light against the blue fast fading westward.
It seems impossible to outsiders that we could see hard rains before the day is out.
And yet, the weather experts predict that our long-overdue monsoon season will finally kick into gear today. To have rain on a day such as this is not unusual; what would formerly have been rare is only the fact that it waited this long. Here, it is a strange year indeed when thunderstorms do not threaten the events of July: the fourth, the powwow, the fiestas, all of which are typically held hostage at one point or another to the whims of the weather.
For the moment, it is is the Earth that has been the hostage, and her vulnerable children, too.
In a good year, we would have had plenty of rain already, water of a decent depth pooled steadily in the pond. We have not had a good year for some time now.
It’s visible in the behavior of the wild creatures: unusual migratory patterns; smaller broods and litters; delayed fruiting and flowering; a confused searching for a suddenly-elusive home. Normally by now, the marsh grasses would be flourishing, lily pads and bits of moss forming, water lilies in bloom; the dragonflies would already have laid their eggs and the naiads would already be maturing into beings of wind and water and light. A bone-dry pond leaves no space for those small spirits who are at home in the water, plant and animal alike.
Today’s featured work embodies those small plant spirits that belong distinctly to summer. From its description in the Rings Gallery here on the site:
Water Lilies Ring
Water lilies are the flowering spirits of summer mornings, fragrant, delicate, bright momentary beauties of warm-weather ponds. Their lives are brief but brilliant, intensely-hued and -scented gifts to those who think to look for them. Wings brings their likeness to hand year-round with this bold new ring, a stone the color of the waters set upon a wide solid sterling silver band milled in floral pattern. The band’s design calls to mind the lilies’ graceful petals and the spiraling orbs of their pads, each spiraling, flowing line thrown into sharply-textured relief. At the center sits a lightly domed and beveled rectangular cabochon of deep teal at the perfect midpoint between blue and green, atrace with lines of delicate white foam and inky purple depths, the colors of a sheltered summer pond. The stone sits gently in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver. The band is 1/2″ wide; the setting is 3/4″ long by 5/8″ wide; the cabochon is 9/16″ long by 3/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Coordinates with The Greening of the Earth cuff bracelet.
Sterling silver; deep blue-green turquoise
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is, perhaps, too much to hope that a focus on water lilies as manifest in silver stone will be enough to produce them. Such is not the sort of magic of which our world is capable.
But it may be that remembering them, honoring them, will encourage the necessary processes: not merely as a function of appreciation and respect, but as incentive for us to do better at creating the necessary conditions for their survival. Our current situation is, of course, entirely down to our own misconduct as humans, collectively.
After all, acknowledgment and appreciation, recognition and respect, honor and gratitude? They cost us nothing. But they reward us with a worldview that has the capacity to bring our own cosmos back into a little bit of harmony. And maybe, just maybe, they will encourage the rains to come.
The small spirits most at home in the water depend upon it, and us.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
