The storm is here.
Outside the window, a wan golden light shows faintly through the wall of flakes falling aslant through the air. Meanwhile, beyond the borders of our small world, a storm of a different, more deadly sort has arrived.
Over the course of the last thirty hours or so, I’ve seen much from many to the effect of, “The worst has happened.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is both mark and marker of extraordinary privilege to be able to conceive of yesterday’s events as “the worst.” Those of us from marginalized populations have always known differently. The first step is always just that: the first step. Those steps will escalate, gathering steam, accreting followers, increasing in power and force and intensity, in the days, weeks, months, years to come.
This is not the dawning of the light . It’s not even the eye of the storm.
I’ve written much in recent days about the need to find the light for ourselves — and when there is none to be found, to make our own. In truth, there’s only so much we can do to create our own: We can start a fire — for that matter, we can burn the world down — but sun and moon and stars remain firmly beyond our authority and control. The trick becomes learning their secrets, their patterns and their ways, and learning also to avail ourselves of them when and where and how we can.
In the escalating fury of a new storm, that’s difficult to do. But as is the case outside my window at this moment, if we scan the skies carefully, cognizant of the directions and our place in the world, we can find the light. As at this moment, it may be only a tiny roundish shimmer, more gray than gold, a pale and sickly yellow backlight to the clouds.
But it is there.
And we can use it.
There was, I supposed, never a question as to which among Wings’s works I would feature here this week. The Light Collection is and was always the natural default, symbolic reminders as these works are of the strength and power and wisdom that we need in these dark days, and the still darker ones that lie ahead. The Light Spirit, a dancing katsina of silver and stone, of earth and light itself, visited us on Wednesday, a reminder that the light would not leave us yesterday, even if its glow is perforce dimmed for a time. But on this day, as the snow gathers close and veils the sun, it’s light in the storm that is our focus. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Light In the Storm Anticlastic Cuff Bracelet
It is in the eye of the storm that we are afforded a glimpse of its passing, when the clouds part momentarily to let the light descend. Wings has captured the glow of those rays in this anticlastic cuff, as big and bold as the storm itself, as bright as the light that transcends it. The band is wrought of sixteen-gauge sterling silver, heavier than usual for the shaping required of an anticlastic band, and sloped gently upward on either side. Its surface is free of adornment save a row of chased traditional symbols that run its entire length: stylized thunderheads paired together at their bases to form a sig of the Four Sacred Directions, each mated pair embracing an Eye of Spirit, that which watches over us even in the fiercest storm. At its center, elevated upon a small sterling silver cylinder, rests another representation of Spirit’s Eye: the light itself, caught and held fast in a massive cabochon of dove-gray labradorite. The stone possesses breathtaking depth and clarity, shot through with angled inclusions like sheets of rain and refracting the light into a gold-tinged rainbow of color. Hand-stamped stars of various shapes and sizes spread stardust along the cuff’s inner band. Band is 1-11/16″ across; cabochon is 1-3/4″ long by 11/16″ high (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below. First in Wings’s new series, The Light Collection.
Sterling silver; labradorite
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Today’s post probably sounds pessimistic, particularly to those unfamiliar with how our cultures engage with problems, and with power. It’s actually an entry of hope: a demarcation of the lines of the storm, as best we can anticipate them from our limited view, their weight alleviated by the sure and certain knowledge that, even in the storm’s full fury, there will be light to be had.
Illumination is not something to take for granted; wisdom comes only with work.
Now, we put in the work. And while we do, we remain centered, aware of our place in the world, of the earth’s evolution and revolution and relationship to the sun.
And we remain focused on the light.
~ 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.
