At last, we have a day without haze.
I truth, it comes and goes, but only a little bit; the features of the mountains are clearer today than at any time over the past two weeks. The skies are a brilliant cornflower blue, adrift with puffy white clouds are that are now piling themselves high into thunderheads. There is no real chance of any precipitation in the official forecast . . . but then again, there wasn’t much of one yesterday, either, and last night’s short but steady storm filled the rain barrels to the halfway mark.
And those thunderheads are indeed powerful-looking now: giant towers of iridescent white limned with edges growing darker by the hour, mobile, animated, boiling over the ridgelines as they climb higher in the sky.
These are the sorts of midday clouds that properly belong to this season and space, and seeing them reappear today fosters an irrepressible sense of hope.
That, perhaps more than any other quality, is what has kept humanity alive thus far: Hope. In earth and sky, storm and fire, hope.
This week’s Friday Feature consists of a single work shown from three perspectives. It’s one that might seem a bit counterintuitive for such a day, no bright sky blues to be seen anywhere in it. But it is, in fact, a tribute to the elemental forces and spirits that create and re-create our very world, continually — as its name asserts, of sun and earth is fire born, and of the reverse, too, in conspiracy with the medicines of air and water and light. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Of Sun and Earth Is Fire Born Cuff Bracelet
Jewels remind us that of sun and earth is fire born, a gift of glowing medicine. With this cuff, Wings summons the colors and shapes of land and light to attest to this truth, in a single outsized gem banded in the shades and shapes of the flames. The band is formed of two separate strands of sterling silver triangle wire of a decently heavy gauge, all sides equilateral with a perfect sharp apex. Each strand’s two upper sides are stamped in a positive/negative repeating pattern of radiant triangles, as though each is itself a fiery bolt of lighting, met and cinched at either end, spread wide apart at the top. The center of the band holds the focal a simple scalloped bezel edged in twisted silver, inside of which rests an extraordinary oval cabochon of tiger iron — tiger’s eye layered in iron compounds and fused with jasper and hematite, its earthy chatoyant brown shades lined with brick red and trailing bands of the brilliant golden glow of the sun. Band is 6″ long; each strand is 1/4″ wide per side (three sides per strand, triangle wire in an equilateral triangle); conjoined strands, together, are 1/2″ wide at ends, 1-3/8″ across at widest point of center separation; setting is 1-5/8″ high by 1-1/4″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 1-3/8″ high by 1″ across at the widest point (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver; tiger iron
$1,100 + shipping, handling, and insurance
My own personal favorites tend to be works wrought in blues, but this is an exception to that general rule. It has less, I think, to do with the actual colors on the stone than in the way they come together, this fusing of multiple jewels into a single stone, oxidized by weather, heat, and time into something truly elemental.
But the differences in those elements remain, giving each aspect its own distinctive character . . . or, rather, characters, plural.
See how brilliant the color banding is in this photo: fiery shades, like waves of pure flame across a hot earth. That’s how tiger iron appears indoors, beneath artificial light.
Now scroll up to the top and look at the same stone in natural light: cool, and yet fiery still, intense gold and red banding infused throughout a stone cast in a silver shimmer, like the metal that embraces it. In truth, I prefer the cooler natural tones, but both versions are starkly, vibrantly beautiful, and both suit the simple but powerful elegance of the band beneath.
One might think we had had more than enough of fire here lately, and in its wild form, that’s certainly true. But fire, approached humbly and harnessed respectfully, cleanses, heals, creates. The prescribed burns that colonial institutions continue to botch so badly here? They learned the practice from our peoples, who have used it since time immemorial — but they refuse the requirements of humility and respect.
And so the terrible results become entirely predictable.
Our way is different. It’s one that recognizes the place and purpose of all things, including our own as only one among many, among the rest of our relatives with whom we share this planet. It’s how we have survived. And it’s how and why we find, in earth and sky, storm and fire, hope.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
