I left home this morning before the sun was up: the only color visible the dark blue of the indigo hours, no green nor gold nor even brown apparent in the dark.
It was a beautiful few moments before the dawn.
I will be spending this day in a place I’d rather not be, doing things I’d rather not do (or, perhaps more accurately, I’ll be not doing things I would rather be doing). But for me, the focus this day is on hearts: less my own physical one than on the metaphysical joining of our own, and on the heart of our world and all we hold dear.
Because, as the description of today’s featured work begins, from the heart of the earth our whole world grows. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
From the Heart of the Earth Necklace
From the heart of the earth our whole world grows. Wings pays tribute to this evolutionary process with this necklace, a cross that is not a cross, but the embodiment of elemental forces and nurturing spirits. The pendant’s form is a very old design, one that circumvented colonial insistence on Christianity by appearing to adopt its four-spoked shape — and then adding an extra bar and a curving end to produce the form of a much older spirit: that of Dragonfly, a pollinator, a messenger, a symbol of romantic love and life’s abundance. Here, Wings has honored another old adaptation of the style, turning the curved tail at the base of the lowest spoke into a stylized heart. Above the heart, the pendant extends upward and outward to the Four Sacred Directions, each of the remaining five spokes stamped with a single thunderhead symbol pointing inward toward the center, a sign of the rain that keeps our Earth herself alive. Above the top spoke, the hand-made bail flowers into a lush green peridot; at the base in the center of the heart, the place of emergence, two tiny hand-stamped flowers are wedded into the form of a butterfly, a small spirit rising from its own place of emergence to continue the processes of pollination and prosperity. The cross is made of solid fourteen-gauge silver, and hangs 2-5/8″, the bail 3/4″ (the pendant is 3-3/8″ in total length; 1-1/8″ across at the widest point); the stone is 3/8″ long; the pendant hangs from an 18″ sterling silver snake chain (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; peridot
$1,150 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We are people born of the earth, our identity and existence bound inextricably to place: to the land and its gifts, to our Mother Earth. Whether our origin stories are centered in emergence or descent, we are a part of the land that was given to our peoples in the time before time, and the land is a part of us. We are born of it, and we return to it, and just as it birthed our ancestors and welcomed them back. so will it welcome us, even as it delivers itself of future generations.
In the meantime, our task is to preserve and protect it for those generations yet unborn — a much harder task now, but not one we can ignore. It is also, perhaps, our task to enjoy it, to appreciate its beauty, to love in our days upon it . . . to allow our hearts to link up with the earth’s heart, to dance to its beat and sing a lullaby for its rest. If our mother is well, the lifeblood coursing through her veins, her lungs filled with breath and her body with life, we will be well also.
Because the earth’s heart is ours, too.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
