Fall is fully, unquestionably here. Yesterday’s storms, having mostly missed us, nonetheless deposited a dusting of snow on the higher peaks, and have left us at their feet with temperatures ten to fifteen degrees lower than the day before.
With the cold come other changes, too; yesterday’s winds began driving leaves to the ground, and a some branches’ robes are more threadbare now. The biggest change, though, is in the color: Outside the window, I can see simultaneously now-small amounts of green and fast-spreading shades of grown, the duller tones sparked by leaves of gold and amber and crimson. And then, too, is that bit of white up on distant peak . . . .
Here at Red Willow, changing seasons is less simple descriptor than full-on phenomenon, an event that insists upon our marking it, celebrating it, appreciating its gifts of beauty. In autumn, it’s a time of falling leaves and shifting suns, each dancing with the other in an endless fluted spiral of fire and light.
Today’s featured works, a not-quite-matching but fully complementary pair, mark both fact and act, descriptor and phenomenon, all in perfect form. These are the newest entries in Wings’s two newish signature series, The Beaded Hoop Collection of necklaces and The Standing Stones Collection of bead earrings. These, too, seem especially powerful, bringing together as they do elements from this land and from and Indigenous land on the other side of the planet in a cascade of autumn shapes and shades.
We begin with the necklace, a graduated strand of five different types of beads, all in the jewel tones of fall. From its description in the relevant section of the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Changing Seasons Necklace
Autumn in this place is a whirlwind of color, changing seasons linking green grass and brown earth with the red fire of turning leaves and the icy rime of early snow. Wings gathers them all in a single strand of elemental shapes and shades and spirits. The center of the necklace features graduated wood focal beads of genuine red-brown mahogany from Malawi alternating with rondels of flame-colored carnelian. On either side, the reds flow into browns, earthy orbs of marbled picture jasper alternating with smaller round bloodstone beads in rich reds and deep forest greens. Each end is anchored by a length of tiny round spheres of ocean jasper, translucent and aswirl with bands of green and rust and snowy white. All beads are strung on sterling silver bead chain with sterling silver findings. Necklace hangs 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Part of The Beaded Hoop Collection. Coordinates with Turning Leaves earrings. Long view shown below.
Sterling silver; mahogany; carnelian; picture jasper; bloodstone; ocean jasper
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s no mystery why the word “fall” came to apply to that which, in whatever language, the world calls “autumn.” In some regions where my own language is spoken, the one is directly rooted in the other. This piece, though, is less a fall than a cascade, colors flowing along on the river of time.
The earrings, too, are a cascade of seasonal hues, not an identical arrangement of shapes and shades, but one that is as informed by those in the necklace as our world for autumn is by the falling of the leaves. Here, though, the foliage has not turned completely yet; there are still far more leaves on the branches than on the ground. And the earrings evoke the process still ahead, before they surrender to the dormancy that comes with winter. From their description in the relevant section of the Earrings Gallery:
Turning Leaves Earrings
Fall at Red Willow is turning leaves, light and fire. Wings creates a cascade of autumn shades with these earrings, graduated spheres alternating with flame-red carnelian rondels. Each drop is strung on sterling silver wire and hangs from sterling silver earring wires, anchored at either end by tiny round bloodstone beds in rich evergreen webbed with scarlet. The second layer of gemstone orbs is formed of picture jasper, small planets marbled in rich clay colors. At the center, between more carnelian fire, sit paired hand-carved round beads of rich genuine mahogany from Malawi, each small wood planet fluted all the way around to create a fluttering accordion-like appearance. Earrings hang 2-3/8″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Part of The Standing Stones Collection. Coordinates with Changing Seasons necklace.
Sterling silver; mahogany; carnelian; picture jasper; bloodstone
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this pair, longer than most of their kind, yet even the mahogany beads, hand-fluted, are impossibly light. In my own homelands, the Turning Leaves Moon is what the dominant culture calls “September,” a place where (at least prior to the incursions of climate change), one could reliably depend upon golden birch and bronze oak and fire-red maple before October’s arrival.
Here, though, September still holds much of summer: mostly green yet, and mostly hot, too. October is the point at which fall becomes recognizeable, both as object and as process. All the shades of these earrings are found right outside the window directly in front of me now, brown earth and grass mostly gold, a little remnant green, and the scarlet fire of the small maple, its leaves still clinging by curled edges to branches now rendered visibly pale and skeletal.
Meanwhile, the sun’s angle changes a little more every day as our patch of earth spins further and further away from it now. One more good storm, tentatively forecast for next Thursday, and the landscape is likely to have tipped over into autumn’s downward slope, awaiting winter’s early arrival.
For today, though, we have a world in the early stages of transition: only a few falling leaves and shifting suns still warmer than not, both cascading to an earth glowing golden in the light.
~ 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.
