There is no report yet this morning on fire spread, but the smoke returned late yesterday, and despite an already-rising wind, has chosen not to depart.
Outside the east window, the world shimmers in green and gold, but it’s a chimerical glow: one born of the sun filtering through the pall of particulate matter, close enough to touch the new leaves of the aspens and turn them brightest jade, yet not enough to cut through the haze veiling peaks and slopes. Overhead, the skies are still blue, albeit a pale version of that color, but it remains to be seen whether today’s gale-force winds will blow the smoke out and bring it in closer.
Yesterday evening delivered another of the rainless storms that bedevil us now: clouds and wind and a sudden drop in ambient air temperature, but not a drop of precipitation. At sunset, wide smoky bands of dusty orange stretched across the northwest horizon, climbing high up into a darkening sky, with a single thin band of blue open between them, as though keeping watch over a land battered and suffocated by the effects of wind and wildfire, a little line of light persisting before the fall of night.
Illuminating skies, indeed.
As I write, the winds seem to be in the process of making their choice, for the moment, at least; a little of the haze is being dissipated beneath the driving force of the gale. The blues overhead are that little bit bluer now, and the new green on the slopes is becoming visible as green instead of a dirty, smoky gold. That will change with wind direction, which itself could change several times before this day is done. Meanwhile, we hope the firefighters are able to contain more of the spread, and we pray that no one here gets careless with spark or flame.
Our world here needs not threat but promise: from trickster winds to butterfly wings.
Today’s featured masterwork embodies the latter, gifts brought on gentler winds beneath the watchful gaze of the skies. From its description in the Belts Gallery here on the site:
Illuminating Skies Butterfly Concha Belt
Butterflies are small but powerful spirits, visionary and prophetic, who wing their way to our world across illuminating skies. Wings summons the spirit of Butterfly and of the skies it inhabits, across this silver and turquoise cascade of this traditional concha belt. Wrought in an old and archetypal style, it features twelve separate classic conchas separated by thirteen old-style “butterfly” conchas, with a pair of the latter flanking the buckle at either end. Each classic concha is cut and scalloped around the edges, entirely freehand; lightly domed, repoussé-fashion; and meticulously hand-stamped in a highly detailed traditional design of concentric ovals that repeats across each piece. The stampwork begins with hand-scored lines radiating outward into small sunrise symbols, all chased in a clockwise fashion around the inner oval. The next oval is formed of a flowering pattern separated by tiny hoops — three upward-reaching petals of light flanking small perfect orbs on either side, forming the last line of stampwork on the gently sloping domed portion of the concha. Where the doming ends to flare into the scalloped edge, Wings has detailed it with labor-intensive chasing, tiny accent marks creating perfect definition along the flowing line of the oval. Outward from the chased line, a larger sunrise symbol rises toward the edge of each petal-like scallop. At the center of each oval concha rests a small round cabochon of spiderweb turquoise, set in a plain low-profile bezel, each stone a shade of robin’s-egg blue matrixed with tiny coppery and inky blue-black lines, some with translucent wisps of spring green floating over the surface. The butterfly conchas are hand-stamped in a traditional flaring design, wings at top and bottom, their entire pleated surfaces domed, repoussé-fashion, to give them a three-dimensional appearance. The buckle is hand-scored inward from the edge to create a narrow border; inside the border, the center is hand-hammered with scores, perhaps hundreds, of tiny separate strikes of the jeweler’s hammer, then hand-scored outward from the center in a radiant motif. Along the outer border, tiny lodge symbols against a radiant sun repeat along all four sides, with slightly larger lodge symbols sitting solitary at each corner. At the buckle’s center rests an oval cabochon of beautiful robin’s-egg blue turquoise, probably from the Montezuma District, with a beautifully abstract matrix in bold coppery-red spiderwebbing. The belt itself is heavy brown-black leather, hand-cut, hand-split, hand-beveled along the edges, and hand-stamped down its entire length in a radiant sun motif. The belt is finished off with brown-black braided leather figure-eight ties that terminate in sterling silver tips with tiny globe-like ends. The belt is 52″ long and the leather strip is 11/16″ wide; the oval conchas are 2-1/16″ long by 1-7/8 inches high; the round center cabochons are 7/16″ across; the butterfly conchas are 1.5″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest point; the buckle is 2-5/16″ long by 1-3/4″ high; the oval center cabochon is 1″ long by 5/8″ high; the silver tips on the ties are 1-7/8″ long; the ties themselves are 7″ long (all dimensions approximate). Close-up views shown below.
Sterling silver; spiderwebbed blue turquoise (most likely from the Royston and Montezuma Districts)
$7,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Notes: Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply.
The leather belt is a standard length; a hand-made belt in a specialty size may be ordered
(either shorter or longer) for an additional $325 charge.
Sky and light are visible in the buckle and every concha, but the butterfly wings are less obvious.
They, too, are the conchas — the smaller, more subtle ones, those that inhabit in-between spaces, the narrow flares that separate the more classic and elaborate conchas from each other. They appear here on the vertical but turn them sideways in your mind, and the wings take shape immediately.
They’re an old traditional way of punctuating a concha belt, revived and revisited in form and shape and spirit here by Wings.
This is a masterwork, no question, and also, very simply, a work of art. But it’s more than that: It’s a work of tradition, of culture, of history, true, but also one of wisdom and spirit and medicine.
It’s a reminder that healing is always offered to us, if we take the time to notice and avail ourselves of it. It’s not always immediate; indeed, most often it’s just the opposite. Injury may be an event, a moment, but its effects are a process; trauma, too, is a process. We are seeing all of them in the world around us now. After all, none of this, not the drought, not the wildfires, not any of this climate catastrophe is the product of a single moment; it’s been driven by a centuries’-long and now-accelerating process of colonialism.
This land has endured more than five hundred years of trickster winds. Our work is to reclaim and restore it, to clear the skies of smoke and return the land to the pollinating medicine of butterfly wings.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
