The weather is changing now.
It’s warm today, but the wind carries a sharper edge, a harbinger of things to come. We are awaiting the afternoon’s forecast gale-force winds now — two days of them expected to batter the land out of season. Today’s will usher in the first hard freeze overnight, and I fully expect to see plenty of leaves turned brown and limbs stripped bare tomorrow morning.
The good news is that we shall finally, perhaps, have some relief from the pollen that has bedeviled us for weeks now.
As I write, what were puffy white clouds against a cornflower sky have turned gray and lowering. These are the kind that hold snow — not for us, but perhaps for the peaks, and that will be welcome, too. There’s a feeling of change on the air, as though even the birds sense that winter is just around the corner. Magpies are nesting; the invasive starlings already wear their cold-weather robes; and the hawks are appearing once more, usually while on the hunt.
An hour or so ago, I saw outside the window, flying northward, what I would swear was a golden eagle (or perhaps an immature bald). It circled around, heading west, then south, and the young red-tailed hawk raced to join it in its eastward flight. By the time I could retrieve my camera, one of the two was just disappearing over the northern ridgeline, too far away for me to tell which one. It’s just possible that the large raptor was my girl, the red-tailed mother, wearing darker plumage now.
But I don’t think so.
We know that the eagles have returned; that much was clear from my own accidental capturing of one in distant flight a few days ago. They, too, must prepare for shorter days and longer nights, for deeper cold and potentially heavy snows and the hibernation of so many of their usual prey. We know the Eagle carries the medicine of earth and sky; its feathers take our prayers and return the fires of wisdom.
At least, that is Eagle’s part of it. Humans seem to be remarkably resistant to such messages, especially now.
But even in the face of such atrocities and tragedies as span the globe this day, Eagle persists. We have had numerous messengers appear in our skies in recent days, all seemingly intent upon their own specific purpose. This is certainly the season for such work, a time when we all need to make ready for what’s to come. Winter here is long and deep, and despite the late and dilatory warmth, there is a feeling on the wind of hard times ahead. Fall wisdom, in feathers and flame, is urgently needed now.
Today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest, embodies this gift in starkly beautiful form. It’s Eagle as you’ve never seen him before, seeming quite literally to hold the earth and sky upon his wings. From its description in the Pendants Gallery here on the site:
Eagle Carries the Medicine of Earth and Sky Pendant
Eagle carries the medicine of earth and sky upon his great wings, feathers tipped with rain and full of the gifts of soil, seas, and sky. With this pendant, Wings honors the grate raptor who also lends us his feathers to send our prayers between that same earth and sky, and the greens and blues of this vaulted world that embraces us daily. The pendant is saw-cut, freehand, of a decently heavy gauge of sterling silver, solid and substantial and with meticulous point- and scallop-work at the end of wings and tail. His feathers also bear the ancient symbols of rain and sun together, and the points that tip his lightning arrows when soaring in his Thunderbird guise. At the center, an extraordinary cabochon of bright sky-blue chrysocolla in orbicular emerald-green malachite, neither trillion nor triangle but something combining the two, rests gently in a simple, spare bezel saw-cut and filed entirely by hand. More simple freehand scorework delineates each row of feathers and stampwork defines the hood of his head and his sharp eye. A small, lightly flared bezel is soldered securely to the back just below the head to allow the pendant to lie properly when worn; ships with a 20″ sterling silver snake chain. Pendant is 2-3/4″ long by 3-3/8″ wide at the widest point (all dimensions approximate). A longer view shown below.
Sterling silver; chrysocolla in orbicular malachite
$1,275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
One of the reasons Eagle is sacred to so many of our peoples involves the great raptor’s ability to go where nothing else can: at a height of more than ten thousand feet, it can enter the upper atmosphere — in many of our cosmologies, the place where the spirits dwell. It’s no wonder that we prevail upon this great wingéd being to carry our prayers aloft via the smoke.
They are, in fact, a perfect symbolic link between earth and sky, and the waters, too . . . and even fire, born of the cedar that delivers the necessary smoke. In this iteration, Eagle holds them all — medicine for a world desperately in need of it now on every front. And he reminds us that such medicine is available to us now, too: fall wisdom, in feathers and flame, waiting for s to put it to use in surviving yet another winter.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
