It’s a perfect mid-fall day, air almost perfectly clear beneath a turquoise sky, leaves turning and newly gilded on all sides, a chill edge on the wind . . . in the middle of August.
These are the wages of colonial climate change and drought.
For a child of autumn like myself, you would think I’d be happy for a day that looks and feels of October. I’m not; I’m equal parts outraged, grieving, and terrified now. There is no putting any of this off, no kicking the can down the road now; that “future” is here, and worsening daily, and we have to deal with it.
The so-called powers that be show no real interest in doing so, and yes, I am referring directly to colonial political leaders now, all of them. A president dedicated to protecting the earth would not be setting fascist private police on Indigenous land and water defenders while going to court to ram yet another deadly pipeline through Indigenous lands and waters, destroying entire peoples’ livelihoods, ways of life, and a sacred sustaining plant found nowhere else on earth. A state governor who cared about our own environment would be suing to overturn reckless new extractive permits, and would be working with tribes to bar equally reckless new developments that will strain habitats already pushed past several tipping points. And ecoactivists who actually cared about the earth rather than their own profiles would be staying home and providing actual support, not jetting all over the place bigfooting the Indigenous peoples who are already stewarding more than 80% of the planet’s diversity while these colonial performers make names for themselves to the detriment of the people doing the work.
Yes, I’m angry. It’s an anger born of grief. It’s anger and grief together, both born of a deep and abiding love for the lands to whom we belong and to which our spirits are braided eternally and inextricably bound.
The lands to which I was born are two thousand miles from here, but these have adopted me as an in-law, so to speak. I hold no privileges here, save one: the chance to work for the earth and water and sky of this place, to protect it, to nurture it, to do my own small part to heal it of the deep, deep wounds colonialism is still inflicting at this very moment.
Wings, of course, belongs to this land wholly, born of it and for it. He is now experiencing sleepless nights, or rather, mornings, waking far too early and unable to return to rest. Why? Because his mind is consumed with all that the land here needs so desperately, all the work and all the water that no longer exists, and his thoughts are immediately pulled into a spiral of problems to solve and tasks to perform.
And none of it is enough.
This is what I mean by anger and grief being born of love: This land is his relative (and mine by marriage), now wounded and deteriorating, and he is forced to stand by and watch its decline as surely as any family member sitting a helpless vigil beside a relation’s hospital bed. With every tree, every shrub, every plant lost and pool dried, we are losing our family members now.
Our world needs guidance, the wisdom of the elemental spirits: from earth and water, flashes of illuminating light.
Todays featured work is the very embodiment of this gift, this particular kind of guidance, and of the love that births it and propels it forward. Oh, it’s a work more commonly associated with love’s romantic form, and there is that, too, but the unique construction of this piece reminds me that love is so much greater, so much broader and deeper and more visionary than that, more unifying and healing, too. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
Water is life, and breath, and love. Olivia Martinez (Taos Pueblo) honors them all with this traditional wedding vase. Made of hand-coiled local micaceous clay, it arises out of a large round bowl nearly spherical in shape, with a gracefully angled ridge around its widest point that gives the impression of a lid. From the bowl emerge twin spouts, each flowing upward into a narrow inner lip that arcs over the top, entwined in a tall braid to represent the union of spirits in marriage. The entire vase stands 14.5″ high; it measures 9″ across the spouts at the widest point; and the bowl is 7″ across at its widest point (dimensions approximate).
Micaceous clay
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Size, weight, and fragility require special handling; extra shipping charges apply
We have carried Olivia’s work for years, from large full-size works like this wedding vase to tiny miniature spirit bowls and plates. She is a master of her medium, able to coax depth of beauty and spirit from the simplest forms and sparest, most elegant lines: no busy adornment needed here, only the slight ly sculpted top of the jar and edges of the lips, the braided handle, and the native mica in the clay.
It is the mica that provides the illumination in this work of pure local earth and water, too: a metallic indigenous mineral that catches the light and refracts it with all the power of a million miniature suns. It’s fitting that it should be part of what holds the form and shape of this vessel made for the water, dedicated to the forces of unity and the power of nothing less than love itself.
And it reminds us that this land has seen this before, after a fashion. Oh, not for more than 1,200 years now, true; that is how long it’s been since a drought of this depth and grip has held this place in its tightening grasp. But it has been here, and survived.
The land offers us what we need: earth capable of growth with minimal water, turquoise skies to channel the light, and occasionally, the gray of the storm, too. Rain is still possible here, after all, if no longer a marker of the season.
And the spirits are here to help us, although their wisdom is harder come by; it requires us to pay closer attention, to shut out the colonial drumbeat of personal selfishness and greed and profit. But it is here, and we can find it in the world around us if we try: from earth and water, flashes of illuminating light . . . and the courage and wisdom and, yes, love to put it to work.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
