Today dawned clearer than most recent days, the air crisper, just that hint, already, of fall in the air.
It’s less to do with wind or aridity, perhaps, than with the angle of the light. There comes a point here, at every season, when the earth has moved just that minutest bit forward that it makes the change in that angle visible to human eyes — and with it, the awareness that time moves inexorably onward, that the next season is already on the march.
Still, this is technically midsummer: According to the calendar, if not school schedules or leaves on the trees, there is about as much of it ahead of us as behind us. That is perhaps less strictly true, calendar notwithstanding, in a place such as this. At this elevation, summer is at best a shortened season; in some years, there’s virtually no summer at all.
Still, while the light grows incrementally shorter by the day, they are small increments. We are closer to the summer solstice than winter’s mirror image, and our world is still filled with sunlight for better than half the day. The air remains warm, even hot — at points throughout the day, oppressively so — and the spirits of warmer winds still rule earth and sky for some weeks yet.
Yesterday, I noted in passing that I had identified one monarch butterfly in residence here, and expressed the hope that a mate for it would appear. Then late in the day, as I wandered toward the pond in search of dragonflies, I was granted a glimpse of a prayer answered: two monarchs, mating in mid-flight as they made their way to the safety of the weeping willows. I caught a quick shot, not fully in focus, their joined image darkened in silhouette against the fading light. But it reminded me of their status as messengers, capable of illuminating the wants and words of the spirits: in terms both literal and metaphorical, flying with the light.
Today’s featured work, completed only last week, is an example of messenger and message, of the product of illumination and the act of flying with the light. From its description in the Belts Gallery here on the site:
Solstice Light Butterfly Concha Belt
The solstice light is a transcendent gift, as transformational as any chrysalis, as graceful and gentle as the butterfly’s wings. Wings brings together turning point, spirit, and light in a work of power and medicine that takes the form of a true butterfly concha belt: no metaphors here, but a work of genuine hand-cut butterflies floating along the length of the leather. Each concha, like the buckle, is cut freehand of sterling silver, body and antennae articulated, wings scalloped at their edges by hand via meticulous ajouré saw-work. The stampwork spreads gracefully across each wing, veins like gossamer branches embracing tiny hoops in a style that evokes the fine flowing lines of Art Nouveau, and each scalloped wing edge is accented with the hand-stamped rays of a rising sun. At the center of each concha sits an oval tiger’s eye cabochon, each hand-picked for its spectacular chatoyance to rest in a scalloped bezel. The focal point of the buckle, a larger butterfly wrought similarly freehand and set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with delicate twisted silver, is a large inverted teardrop of genuine Dominican blue amber, the surface naturally textured to refract the light, the interior full of equally natural inclusions that look like tiny strands of embedded jewels floating in the light. Conchas and buckle are all lightly domed, repoussé-fashion, and each butterfly hovers atop its own bouquet via the sterling silver loops on the reverse, each hand-cut, hand-shaped, and hand-milled in a wildflower design. Each silver piece is buffed to a soft polish slightly brighter than Florentine. The belt is made of heavy black leather, hand-cut and hand-beveled, with medicine motifs in the form of bear-paw prints hand-stamped down its entire length in a repeating pattern; keeper ties are slender but sturdy braided black leather. The leather belt is 11/16″ high; the conchas are 2.25″ across at the widest point by 2″ high at the highest point; tiger’s eye cabochons are 1/2″ high by 3/8″ across; buckle is 3.5″ across at the widest point by 2.5″ high at the highest point; visible portion of the Dominican blue amber cabochon is 15/16″ high by 5/8″ across at the widest point (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below. Note: Not designed for jeans, trousers, or any apparel with belt loops; this particular work is designed to be worn externally over shirts, blouses, or dresses.
Sterling silver; Dominican blue amber; tiger’s eye; black leather
$5,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Notes: Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply.
The leather belt is a standard length; a hand-made belt in a specialty size may be ordered
(either shorter or longer) for an additional $325 charge.
When Wings began this masterwork, he was on track to finish it just before, or perhaps even exactly on, the date of the summer solstice. It was unusually apt, this messenger of warmer winds and longer light manifest in silver and in stones so luminous, so chatoyant, that they became the light’s long arc itself. And so the name chose itself, as well.
Of course, life rarely goes according to plan, and this summer has been unusually disruptive and disrupted by forces outside our control. His momentum was brought to a halt by outside demands on his time, outside disruptions imposed by others, and the solstice came and went with the individual butterflies still at rest atop his workbench.
In the end, of course, it didn’t matter. The work was already inspirited with, animated by, that very light, the longest angle and arc of the year: a sun so bold and bright and fiery as to light the nearer reaches of our cosmos beyond the bounds of our world.
And it is, of course, the butterflies who keep our world turning, balanced on its axis and moving forward in its orbit. The butterflies, their distant cousins the honeybees, all the small fragile spirits of summer who are yet stronger than anything humanity has either produced or thrown so carelessly at them. “The butterfly effect” is not merely a phrase, nor even a principle of physics: It is lived experience, a link between worlds and states of being.
It is product and process, message and act: illumination, and flying with 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.
