There is a big snowstorm on the way.
So the forecasters tell us, anyway. As always anymore, we can only believe it when we see it. But the winds are certainly blowing something our direction, even if at the moment it’s only bitter cold and an eerie discomfort. Even the animals seem unsettled.
In this place, this season-straddling threshold is a time for tradition, for introspection, for learning and contemplation, for teaching the young and preserving the old. The Pueblo is closed now, and for those whose obligation it is this year, the elders direct the flow of the days. It’s as brilliant as it is arduous, using these waning weeks of winter and the first cold snowy days of spring to set the tone for the year.
It’s an example of illumination the whole world could take to heart: a little wisdom at winter’s end.
It’s a motif, too, manifest in today’s featured work — this honoring of the elders and respect for tradition. It’s a piece by the same master whose work we’ve featured in this space all month long, an artist able to evoke spirit from stone with the sparest of lines and the cleanest of strokes. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Master carver Ned Archuleta (Taos Pueblo) works in classic Pueblo fashion — with the stone, not against it. The result is an iconic form of a Pueblo elder, wrapped in the traditional blanket and wearing an eagle feather. Pink alabaster mounted on cedar base. Sculpture stands 13-1/4 inches high including base (carving 11-3/4″ high; base, 1-1/2″ high); carving 5 inches across at widest point by 1-5/8″ deep; base 5-7/8 inches cross by 3.5 inches deep. All dimensions approximate.
Pink alabaster on cedar base
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Weight requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
It is, perhaps, reflective of other lessons of this time, as well: of the need to be willing to bend one’s work to the forces of Nature, rather than brutalizing to Nature to achieve wealth and acclaim; of the importance not just of remembering tradition but of attending to its details, for Spirit is found in the smallest things.
In other words, this work, like its counterpart featured here last week, is an example for us all. Contemporary society reveres “old” only for its market value: as commodities or possessions. Our ways teach that “old” holds its own inherent power and beauty, as a repository of experience, of history, or practice . . . and, yes, thereby of wisdom.
And we could all use a little more wisdom now.
~ Aji
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