It’s been a day of brilliant blue skies and rising storm clouds, of solid walls of slate constantly trading place and space with a vast turquoise expanse. Among at all have danced the thunderheads, great puffs of white the climb high in the sky, towers like those we might imagine house the spirits.

Yesterday’s rains brought thunder, if no visible lightning; today’s weather systems remained at a remove, declining to bring so much as single drop to us today. Still, the eastern peaks are capped with white — more and deeper snow than they’ve seen for more than a year, and at least for this moment, longer-lasting, too. I’m sure there are those who would dispute that, but we live at the feet of these very peaks, and knowing their condition is habitual to us. This is the first time in well over a year that no tundra has shown through the white blanket, one less threadbare now in mid-May than it was in the coldest depths of winter.

That makes this week’s weather an even greater gift than we had cause or right to expect. Its timing may leave a little something to be desired, but if ever there were a context in which the old saying “better late than never” truly applies, this is it.

It is odd, though, and no mistake: monsoonal patterns arrived two months early, yet air still cold enough to deliver real snow instead of rain . . . and through it all, the electric turquoise shades of a warming high-desert sky stretching over ad around our world in anticipation of summer. It appears that we are entering a season of blue sky ceremony and power — well outside the confines of its usual schedule, yet capable of great medicine all the same.

This week’s Friday Feature, a trio of independent works that together form the Sky Ceremony collection, embodies the blue skies and clouds and the spirits of such atmospheric realms, as well as the regalia they wear and the weapons they wield on behalf of our world. It’s a cuff bracelet, a bolo, and a belt buckle, all wrought nominally in a very traditional concha design, yet with detailing so unique as to form a style all their own.

We begin with the first-created of the three, the cuff bracelet, a powerful tribute to those warrior spirits who ride the heavens with the storm, wearing a warbonnet sky. From its description in the Cuffs and Links and Bangles section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:

Warbonnet Sky Cuff Bracelet

Summer arrives in a warbonnet sky, bright blues feathered with clouds that become bringers of rain, to the drumming of thunder and the bright bolts of Thunderbird’s arrows. With this bold traditional cuff, Wings honors the sacred medicine of sky ceremony and the healing power of the storm. The cuff’s band is formed of three separate heavy-gauge strands of sterling silver triangle wire, each strand’s upper angles stamped in repeating arcs, like the thunderheads that deliver the First Medicine to a hot and thirsty earth. The strands are fused seamlessly at each end, then spread gently apart to hold the elaborate focal of the piece. It’s  a complex setting, saw-cut, texturized, and stamped entirely freehand, set at the center with a highly domed oval of natural Fox turquoise from Nevada in the blues of the desert sky webbed by the purpled shades of the storm. The stone is set into a bezel made entirely by hand, its edges saw-cut and bent inward to hold the cabochon securely, the stone resting upon a bed of tobacco. It sits atop a tribute to the four winds and the sacred directions, the four spokes of the cross texturized by hand using a single tiny divot-end stamp. The spokes are excised from the surrounding silver by hand, using the filament-thin blade of a jeweler’s hand-saw, leaving an embrasure of paired radiant cloud-and-feather motifs, the warbonnet of its name, and scored, stamped, and scalloped freehand and domed ever so gently to rest comfortably atop the band. The band is 6″ long; each strand is 1/4″ wide, conjoined strands are collectively 3/4″ wide at either end and 1-1/4″ across at the widest point at top center; the focal is 2-3/8″ high in total, by 2″ across at the widest point; the cabochon is 7/8″ wide by 5/8″ high (all dimensions approximate). From Wings’s limited three-work series, the Sky Ceremony Collection; coordinates with Eagle Plume Rain Bolo and Thunderbird’s Fan Belt Buckle. Other views, including all three matching works, shown at top and at the link.

Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise (Nevada); tobacco
$1,875 + shipping, handling, and insurance

As noted above, this was the first of these three works that Wings created, and initially, he intended it only as a standalone piece. It wasn’t until the threshold of this calendar year that he realized that the design, so strikingly beautiful and uniquely powerful, should in fact be shared across a trio of coordinating works. Just before year’s end, he began work on a matching bolo and belt buckle, both of which were completed and put into inventory in the first couple of days of this year.

Given what has ensued since, it’s a series that seems apt for a world that so urgently needs such power and medicine now.

The second work is one for that spirit of the skies that carries our prayers to Spirit, and for the gift he grants us to make it possible. It’s a bolo, one manifest in the feathery beauty of an eagle plume rain, drops of the First Medicine bestowed as softly and gently as down. From its description in the Accessories. Gallery:

Eagle Plume Rain Bolo

Water is sacred, an eagle plume rain falling from thunderheads filled with medicine. With this bolo, Wings honors the sacred medicine of sky ceremony, of the feathered beauty of monsoonal clouds and the silvered drops, a few hardening into blue Skystone jewels, that are the lifeblood of the earth. The bolo itself is saw-cut, scored, and stamped entirely freehand, meticulous scallop work shaping the edges, with feather-like rays fanned out at top and bottom and cloud-like motifs at either side. In between, in an oval whose quarters are similarly excised freehand, the center forms a cross shape that honors the winds and the sacred directions, the entire surface texturized freehand by way of hundreds of strikes of the jeweler’s hammer against a single tiny divot-end stamp. At the very center, a beautiful highly domed oval of natural Fox turquoise from Nevada, its bright sky-blue color stippled throughout with “clouds” of off-white host rock, twinned flowing bands of chert matrix flowing along the bottom like the bases of thunderheads. The stone rests in a bezel wrought entirely by hand, its scalloped edges snipped individually. The bolo is strung on a cord of fine, tightly braided black leather, with sterling silver tips ending in molded saucers atop tiny ball beads. Bolo is 2-1/2″ long by 2″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 7/8″ across by 5/8″ high; tips are 1-7/8″ long, with bead ends at 1/4″ across; cord is roughly 43″ long (all dimensions approximate; cord may be shortened). From Wings’s limited three-work series, the Sky Ceremony Collection; coordinates with Warbonnet Sky Cuff Bracelet and Thunderbird’s Fan Belt Buckle. Other views, including all three matching works together, shown at top and at the link.

Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise; black leather
$1,575 + shipping, handling, and insurance

Like the cuff, this work arrays that extraordinary focal design — saw-cut, scalloped, scored, stamped, and texturized entirely freehand — on the vertical, the center a tribute to sky and winds and sacred directions, top and bottom mirror images of each other.

In this one signal aspect, the buckle differs. Arrayed horizontally, this is Thunderbird’s fan, the thunder born of its movements, striking the honor beats of the storm’s song and dance. Still, each side is manifest in that same mirror-image pattern, shimmering around a central Skystone that embodies our current monsoonal-pattern atmosphere. From its description in the Buckles Gallery:

Thunderbird’s Fan Belt Buckle

Prayers for rain are answered on the sacred wind of Thunderbird’s fan, his feathers bearing bolts of lightning and the music of thunder and the purifying power of the storm. With this contemporary concha buckle, Wings honors the sacred medicine of sky ceremony, water as life and breath and healing. This buckle is wrought in an old traditional style, infused with a contemporary yet timeless spirit, the concha form and shape rendered via meticulous freehand saw-work. The feather-like “rays” above and below are all formed via such freehand cutwork, as well as scorework and stampwork, the edges all meticulously scalloped in a radiant design that evokes the Sunface being, the traditional headdress, and Thunderbird’s own powerful wings, all arrayed in the honor fan’s arc. The cross-shaped center is freed of the surrounding silver by similarly freehand saw-work, the surface texturized by hand via hundreds of strikes of the jeweler’s hammer on a single tiny divot-end stamp, the resulting tribute to the winds and the sacred directions both richly textured and as shimmery as the water’s surface. At center, oriented on the horizontal, a highly domed oval cabochon of natural Fox turquoise from Nevada rests in a bezel wrought entirely by hand, its scalloped edges all cut individually. The stone itself is brilliant sky blue stippled throughout with “clouds” of off-white host rock, darkening here and there with the storm in the form of black chert and red siltstone matrix. On the reverse, peg and loop are both created by hand of solid sterling silver. Buckle is roughly 2-1/2″ across by some 2-1/4″ high; cabochon is 2/4″ – 7/8″ across by 5/8″ high; loop on reverse is 1/4″ wide (all dimensions approximate. From Wings’s limited three-work series, the Sky Ceremony Collection; coordinates with Warbonnet Sky Cuff Bracelet and Eagle Plume Rain Bolo. Other views, including all three matching works, shown at top and at the link.

Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise; black leather
$1,575 + shipping, handling, and insurance

This is an extraordinary trio, as striking individually and collectively as the phenomenal atmospheric powers they represent. And they remind us that blue skies are no bar to powerful storms; indeed, in this place, they are of a piece with each other, especially as we head into the hottest part of the year.

That, too, holds lessons for us in a world that increasingly insists on star binaries that allow for no nuance and bear no resemblance to the complexities of reality. It may have arrived two months early, but this is a season of blue sky ceremony and power, and these elemental forces, so often regarded as diametrically opposed, conspire now to bring us the medicine of breath and life itself.

~ Aji

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.