It’s another perfectly clear day, unseasonably warm, but the forecast insists that there will be snow over parts of the next three days. The solstice is just over two weeks away now, and these waning days of autumn are wrapping up a season still marked mostly by drought. So it’s troubling that, despite the seemingly static nature of tomorrow’s forecast, the weather advisory has disappeared.
The ground is dry, the branches bare, and still no real sign of winter.
Not much sign of autumn left, either, though. Our trees began to turn in July, leaves falling already in August. Drought hastens it, of course, but it seems to go deeper than that now: After a good five years of such phenomena, intensifying and thoroughly off anything like their normal schedule, it seems to be a fully realized aspect of colonial climate change now. The season looks nothing like itself any longer; no fiery foliage dance nor early storms to speak of, and the land — and we — are the poorer for it.
But as these last moments of autumn race toward their exchange of place with official winter, there is still beauty to be found. The light remains an ethereal thing, low and sharp and impossibly bright. If we are granted the gift of gathering clouds before day’s end, the sky will be ablaze at dusk. If the snows arrive tomorrow as predicted, there will be at least a small shimmering frost upon the land, ready to melt below the surface.
Even this deadly drought has not been able to take away these simple gifts at the end of fall: early frost and sunset fire.
And as we still remain firmly, officially in that season, at least for a few days yet, it’s still the perfect time for Wings’s newest masterwork. It’s a work of great complexity, beauty, and size, the fourth and final entry in his limited signature series of necklaces, The Four Seasons Series. Those embodying the spirits of winter and spring have already sold; that of summer remains, now to be joined by fall. And it, like each of the others, is also a phenomenon unto itself. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Fall: Early Frost and Sunset Fire Necklace
The light of a high-desert autumn sets the land aflame amid the chill dance of Fall: early frost and sunset fire. Wings calls to the circle leaf and flame, frost and light, with this extraordinary necklace, a medicine shield manifest in the shades of season and time, wrought as a tribute to the winds and the Sacred Directions. The pendant, large and protective as any true warrior’s shield, is hand-wrought of heavy eighteen-gauge sterling silver, all solidity and substance, yet scalloped freehand with an edge of fantastic delicacy. It’s set with nine spectacular stones: At the cardinal directions sit four large teardrops of stunningly webbed Red Creek jasper in all the shades of autumn leaves, crimson and gold, bronze and hints of remnant green; at the ordinal points, four smaller Red Creek jasper teardrops in beautifully marbled hues; at the center, a single incredible square of agatized ocean jasper, lacy bands of frost tracing a path across the last of the earth’s green. Between the cabochons, solitary fall wildflowers bloom, traces of frost falling around them. The pendant hangs from a simple flared bail stamped freehand in an Eye of Spirit motif formed of single stamps, conjoined, in a radiant design of sunrise over clouds. Strung through the bail is dazzling strand of beads in natural materials, each one selected and matched for color: large rounds of ocean jasper in greens and rusts and pearly whites extending into similarly-sized Red Creek jasper spheres, each segment separated by single beads of faceted high-grade gray moonstone; lengths of medium-sized golden fossilized coral, Red Creek jasper, ocean jasper, and scarlet red-willow wood spheres, with more icy gray moonstone rondels as separators; then segments of frosty matte sardonyx and tiny round ocean jasper anchors, separated by sterling silver doughnut rondels. Beads are strung over extra-sturdy tri-ply foxtail made of heavy nylon, specially treated and encased in metal, then silver-plated for color matching; findings are sturdy sterling silver assemblies. Pendant including bail hangs 6.75″, 6.25″ excluding bail, and is 6.5″ across at the widest point; the bail is .5″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; center cabochon is 7/8″ square; cardinal cabochons are 2″ long by 3/4″ across at the widest point; ordinal cabochons are 1.5″ long by 5/8″ across; bead strand is 22″ long, excluding findings. [All dimensions approximate.] Designed jointly by Wings and Aji; fourth in The Four Seasons Series. Close-up view of pendant shown below.
Sterling silver (setting and findings); tri-ply silver-plated foxtail (to hold beads);
Red Creek jasper; agatized ocean jasper (pendant cabochons);
Red Creek jasper; ocean jasper; red willow wood; gray moonstone;
fossilized coral; sardonyx; sterling silver (beads)
$2,000 plus shipping, handling, and insurance
All four of the works in this limited signature series have reminded me of medicine shields: spiritual armor, not so much against the elements as drawing power from them, shoring up our courage and strength no matter the season, weather, or time.
As the year races to its end, we need such strength and courage now. We need the reminders, too, that winter dormancy is not the same as death, and that before we rest, we are entitled to dance — on a frosted earth, beneath skies aflame.
By tomorrow evening, we may have both, an earth hard and shimmering with crystalline beauty, a western sky set ablaze by storm and light. We shall welcome it all, these gifts before the deep cold comes — now, at the end of fall: early frost and sunset fire.
~ 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.
