Noon on January third, and the mercury sat at sixty-two and a half degrees.
This is not sustainable.
It’s impossible to think of this as winter; most of the time, we can’t even reasonably call it cold. The birds think it’s spring, too, busy every morning singing in the treetops, many of them species that normally are only here in summer.
There is no “normally” now.
Still, there are exceptions even to this. The so-called polar vortex that is supposed to hit the West Coast over the next few days is expected to have some small impact here, if nothing like what past versions have done. Ordinarily, out high temperatures right now might not even exceed zero; a real polar vortex would visit highs of -20 upon us [and we have had such circumstances here, in relatively recent memory]. This will likely be, for those of us fortunate enough to be housed, a minor inconvenience at most, the cold air’s fangs biting deep if we happen to be abroad overnight, when the lows are slated for single digits from early to mid-week next week, or if we neglect to don a jacket before going out of doors in the daytime.
Otherwise? Unless the ever-changing forecast that periodically suggests snow showers for Monday night and Tuesday morning finally comes to pass, it still won’t feel much like winter.
Tomorrow, though, is supposed to bring us high trickster winds, the gale-force variety more commonly associated here with spring. That we do expect to come to pass, given the heightened pain we both feel in our joints. It’s a distinctly unwelcome [and un-wintry] phenomenon, but we’re trying to make the best of it by hoping that it ushers in the snow.
And so we hope, and we pray. We need a sky ceremony for the cold season now.
Perhaps it’s supplication, perhaps an expression of hope. But this week’s Friday Feature consists of a trio or works that collectively serve as a tribute to the atmospheric powers of medicine. It’s one existing masterwork, combined with two all-new works created specifically to match it, the three known collectively as the Sky Ceremony Collection. It’s cuff bracelet, bolo, and concha belt buckle, all created to honor the healing, cleansing powers of storm and sky, powers this land needs so desperately now.
We begin with the original work, the cuff bracelet, manifest in all the battle-ready power of 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 above and at the link.
Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise (Nevada); tobacco
$1,875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
You will want to click through the link above and look at this one from all angles. It’s an extraordinary work, all the freehand silverwork deep, meticulous, consistent. It’s a weighty, substantial work, too, the three strands of heavy-gauge triangle wire adding solidity to the band and serving as a perfect foundation for that incredible freehand focal.
It is, after all, no accident that all three works seem to evoke rays and clouds and feathers simultaneously; no accident, too, that each is built around a central tribute to the Four Sacred Directions [and the Four Winds that are their keepers]. And it’s certainly no accident that the Skystone cabochons at the center of each are all a match: They are the last three in Wings’s inventory from a single parcel of natural Fox turquoise that he acquired a few years ago.
It serves as a wonderfully apt center for the bolo, too. After all, the story of the Skystone tells of the rain, fallen to earth and hardened by its heat into a beautiful blue gem in the color of the sky. And this work’s feathery design evokes the down of the greatest of raptors and towers of the thunderheads, too, an eagle plume rain stretching over us, enfolding the land in its water-laden wings. 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 above and at the link.
Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise; black leather
$1,575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And both are a perfect match for the third of today’s featured works. In terms of design, it’s the simplest, if only by virtue of the fact that it needs neither cord nor band. It’s a belt buckle at once eminently traditional and wonderfully contemporary, too, a timeless design that calls to mind the honor fans of celebration and ceremony. This one, of course, is Thunderbird’s fan, formed of his own powerful feathers that carry the power of the lightning, the sound of the thunder, the force of the winds and the very storm itself. From its description in the Buckles Gallery:
Thunderbird’s Fan Concha 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 above and at the link.
Sterling silver; natural Fox turquoise; black leather
$1,575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It, too, is an extraordinary work, set with another of those glorious ovals originally pulled from the earth of a place most now call “Nevada,” little bits and buttons of alpine desert sky that match our own webbed blue vault so perfectly. The bezel that frames it is as simple as it is low-profile, all the cutwork done freehand by Wings, all the better to show off the beauty and power of the stone.
I sometimes think that it’s worth remembering the true power our planet and its elemental forces wield. In a world that fails — no, refuses either to appreciate or respect it, it seems to me that public remembrance never goes amiss. If such forces are indeed susceptible to notions of incentive, there’s certainly a far greater one where humanity expresses its appreciation than in places where the only mortal expression is exploitation.
If such gestures do indeed work, then it behooves us to make them a regular practice now. Of course, such acknowledgment and appreciation is part of our way, a way that teaches respect and gratitude as a way of daily life. It teaches celebration and ceremony, too: prayer, offerings, cleansing, medicine.
If ever our world needed such things as a matter of daily practice, it’s now. A sky ceremony for the cold season delivers the gift of the snow; perhaps we need to remember to ask for it . . . and to live in a way that shows our gratitude for its medicine.
~ 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.
