We have, at last, a clear day, blue skies marked only by the faintest traces of white cloud here and there. It feels as though it’s been a while since we’ve seen the sun with such consistent clarity, as storms already long-departed left days’ worth of fog in their wake. It feels colder now, but that will change by afternoon, when we are expected to pass the forty-degree mark again.
Meanwhile, the spirits of winter (and some of other seasons) remain active in this unwintry warmth. The elk have returned now in the darkest hours, and last night a chorus of coyotes sent their song aloft on a late east wind. By day, the red-tail hunts, while the crows and ravens gather; and even those early-summer birds, the entire goldfinch clan, has settled in to spend the season here. At the outset of the week, the harrier perched in the aspen outside the bedroom window, and on that same morning, an eagle flew past, low above the trees across the highway, on its way toward the high and isolated backcountry.
That last is, if not quite an anomaly, certainly a rarity now. The hawks are more accustomed, or at least more resigned, to the proximity of humans, but as development expands, the eagles grow increasingly scarce here. It’s not that they are absent, merely prudent; they recognize the perils of a path that takes them too close to colonial masses of humanity. They often winter down the Gorge, by the section of river that appears in the posts from this Monday and Tuesday just past; it’s a place of abundance for those who hunt from the air. More rarely, drivers will occasionally see one perched atop the last standing sentry of the Four Old Warriors in the field along the main highway.
And once in a while, one will bless this place by flying directly over it.
And it is a blessing, an event that feels equal parts prophecy and promise. Its rarity contributes to that sense, of course, but it’s more than that. This is, after all, a spirit who lends us his feathers for the purpose of sending our prayers to the spirit world, the better to ensure that they are heard. And he is, in some traditions, a relative to those whose wings are more elemental in their power, the Thunderbird and Water Bird. He is able, after all, to travel the true corridors of power, to ascend toward the sun, to soar on the winds, to fly with the blessing of the falling rain (or, at this season, the snow).
Today’s featured work embodies both spirit and skills, an eagle wrought in alabaster manifest in the unusual shades of sun and snow and greening earth. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Alabaster comes in a diverse array of colors and shades, sometimes several combined in one chunk of stone. The chunk of alabaster that here gives birth to Eagle is an example: Shades of bright orange and soft lime green swirled gently into white give the stone the appearance of sherbet. Rendered in a deliberately rough-hewn vintage style by Randy Roughface (Ponca) this strong and sturdy spirit bird perches upright, wings just beginning spread as though ready to take flight. Eagle stands 4″ high by 2.5″ across by 3″ deep (dimensions approximate). Another view shown below.
White/orange/green alabaster
$155 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The rarer green manifest in this small figurative work is not done justice by the photos, but it is there in life: bright spring-like bands, backlit by the sun’s orange glow, embedded in the snowy off-white shades of the alabaster. It’s perfect for this little spirit, too, one that can be seen as either coming in for a landing or readying himself for to take flight — in either case, traversing the liminal space between earth and sky. And his speckled surface reminds us of his relationship to the spirit beings of his own kind: those with the powers of weather and the atmospheric realms beyond our reach, a little of their gifts lent to earth in the snow that descends and accumulates, thence to become the waters of summer.
Today, there will be neither rain nor snow; the latter is not forecast again until Monday. In the meantime, the earth will warm a bit, the snow will melt a bit, snd perhaps one of this bright being’s corporeal cousins will chart a path overhead, ascending in preparation for the next storm: a blessing in flight and falling snow.
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