Another hot and hazy day, another notch along the wheel of the drought.
This week and the next were supposed to mark the return of the rains, and as much as we insist to ourselves that we will believe it only when we see it, we allowed ourselves to hope.
Hope is a stubborn thing, but also now a tattered one, too.
Still, for our peoples, it never vanishes entirely. Our history argues against it; our very existence, too. And the weight of prophecy, a phenomenon that crosses geographic and cultural lines all across this Indigenous land, militates against its loss, too. The visionaries among our ancestors foretold, centuries and even millennia ago, of all that has come to pass and is still coming: They told us to be aware and ready, when to concede for the moment, and when and how to fight. They also gave us the vision and the tool to rebuild a better world four our children’s children, a product of dreams of the ages and of essential truths shared by the spirits.
Today’s featured work is a tribute to such truths, and to the dreamers who dare to dream them: an homage to some of this land’s great visionaries and warriors, and to the worlds they foresaw and left to us to create. From its description in the Other Artists: Wall Art gallery here on the site:
Chief Jo’s Vision Framed Mixed-Media Collage
This framed collage by Preston Bellringer (Yakama/Assiniboine) melds ancient prophecies with modern media in a piece that harks back to a ’60s ethos and feel. The iconic central photograph of Chief Joseph in the upper half of the collage is surrounded by a complex synthesis of images in multiple media: photography, paint, pen and ink, even children’s stick-on decals, all telling a layered intertribal story of warriors protecting the people in their quest for a better time, a better place, one of peace. The studded wood frame is 25.25″ high by 8.5″ wide; the visible image (no glass cover) is 22.75″ high by 6″ wide (all dimensions approximate).
Mixed media; wood
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
These are strange days, to be sure, a world as on fire figuratively as it is now literally, shorelines drowning beneath the weight of rising seas, another kind of tide gathering fascist force across the land, and a pandemic unbothered by any need to differentiate between those who side with good and those who seek its opposite. And yet, we put on our masks and gloves, we now shout behind the fabric barrier so that our voices will carry the six feet between us and the next person, and we go about our business as best we can. It’s remarkable, really, how little our daily lives have changed, although that is more true for us than most, given that our work is sited at our home, and has continued daily, unabated, mostly without need to venture out in contact with others. And, of course, while the public health order in this state requires that only “essential” businesses remain open, businesses have taken a very liberal interpretation of that phrase to apply, and the traffic on the highway has for months been back at its usual pace and volume.
And yet . . . and yet.
There is no denying the fact that our world is suddenly very different now, on the surface, frighteningly so. But long experience and ancestral memory have taught us to look beneath the surface, to seek the long view, to contemplate what such changes will mean for generations yet unborn. For these are the days of prophecy, of a new world already being born. Mother Earth is in the era of her labor now, and while her deliverance is not yet at hand, we recognize the signs and we know that it is coming. Our task is to midwife the rebirth and the growth, the flowering of a world in health and harmony again.
And that alone is cause for hope.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
