Yesterday’s forecast storm never materialized; all that arrived was a deeper cold and a little wind to reinforce it. The predictions now change hourly, and are always likely to be far off the mark. Our small space here at the feet of the peaks is, in some ways, its own world, its rhythms and motion different from the broader land that surrounds us, and the rigid structures and strictures of colonial “science” not only miss us, but pass us by entirely.
It is a very particular sort of invisibility, one that sees us daily, sees this place, but fails to understand it; indeed, one that “sees” us only insofar as sight may be understood as a calculation of exploitable potential, or its relation to such nearby, not as the comprehension of what truly exists.
In the plainest of terms, the weather service sees only zip codes in their relation to a ski resort.
But the earth here is widely variable, not merely from mile to mile but from acre to acre, yard to yard, inch to inch. From the center of all things comes not one world, but many, and they change with the seasons and time.
Today’s featured work embodies that locus, the one that births our world, and worlds, the one and the many, large and small. From its description in the Buckles Gallery here on the site:
The Center of All Things Concha Belt Buckle
In our own small plane of existence, from our own human perspective, our world is the center of all things. Indigenous cultures affirm this reality in our origin stories, in how we understand Turtle Island beneath the skies, amidst the winds, above the point of emergence. Wings pays tribute to this vision, one lived daily among his own people, in this complex concha belt buckle, a flowering shell-shaped disc of heavy sterling silver that blossoms into traditional symbols of the world as we know it. Celestial patterns, rising sun and setting moon and the light that flows between them, edge the scalloped buckle in concentric rings. Its repoussé center, lightly domed by hand, is chased in a loop of hundreds of individual arrow stamps tracking the motion of the spiraling winds. Ancient kiva steps symbols lead inward to the very center, heart and womb alike, where rests a large oval cabochon of emerald green turquoise with a golden brown matrix that looks for all the world like a map of Turtle Island. On the reverse, only Wings’s hallmark appears, in the embrace of another spiritual center: the Morning Star Lodge, a place of healing and medicine, guidance and power. The buckle stretches 3.75 inches across by 3-1/8 inches high; the stone is 1-3/16 inches across by 7/8″ high (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; Colorado Evans Mine turquoise
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We live now at the center of winter, a cold world that is both sleeping and very much alive. We think of birth as a function of warmth, of spring greens and summer breezes, but in truth, it is the evergreens and snowy winds of this season that conceives each world, large and small, and begins their annual process of reborning. And while our own world here differs in ways large and small from the one some miles up the road, the one the outside world recognizes that ends in a colonial vacation spot, we celebrate those differences . . . and we know, beyond any doubt, that they all emerge from the same Indigenous Earth.
And now, at the center of winter, they are all being reborn.
~ 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.
