There is not much light visible this morning; the fog rolled in before midnight, and has mostly remained camped out around the peaks since. The forecast predicts neither rain nor any chance thereof, but it will be a couple of hours yet before Father Sun’s light gains sufficient fire to burn off the cloud cover.
This is not our usual October, but it’s an exceptionally mysterious and beautiful one.
When the sun is high in the sky, however, the feel of the day will change, and drastically. Oh, there will still be wispy bits of gray here and there, but the sky will be turquoise, the air clear, the trees aflame, and the light pure magic.
In other words, it will be precisely the sort of fall day as that one a decade or so ago, when we still had a gallery in the old village and Wings captured the image above of today’s featured work — a perfect union of golden earth and more golden sun, casting bold shadows of arbor posts and the feathers of a small brilliant medicine bear. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
This alabaster medicine bear by master carver Mark Swazo-Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) is hewn in the classic vintage Southwest Indian style. The surface is smooth, silky, and touchable, in a brilliant clear orange with a translucent white marbled matrix. In Mark’s trademark style, the medicine bundle is made of macaw and turkey feathers, shells, pottery sherds, and bits of turquoise.
Orange alabaster; turkey feathers; macaw feathers; pottery sherds; turquoise; shells
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
This has always been my favorite among Mark’s many works that we’ve carried over the years. Orange has never been my favorite color — indeed, most of the time it ranks near the bottom for me and always has — but the orange of this little bear is different. It’s not pure orange, of course; the alabaster from which he emerges is marbled with shimmering white, delicate lines of crystalline matrix spidering throughout his body. But the stone itself is pure fire: “orange” given archetypal definition, the thing-in-itself, and more — a material that, while wholly of the earth, is capable of catching the sun, holding it, diffusing and refracting it, glowing from within with its very light.
It’s a work of the season itself, and perhaps that’s why I’ve always associated this bear with fall. Like the land here, it’s autumn fire, magic light, a spirit a near-indescribable beauty and unfiltered joy in one final celebration before sheltering for the long deep winter ahead.
As I write, the fog has lifted, just a little. The light is beginning to dance.
~ Aji
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