Yesterday the forecasters finally got it partly right: No rain. They did say, though, that the high would be 81, and the mercury shot up at least as high as 92 by early afternoon. Today, the chance of precipitation is supposed to be in the range of 5-15% . . . and yet by mid-morning, the thunderheads were already climbing the sky high above the ridgeline, and the air is heavy with the feel of future rain.
We shall be lucky to get it; the intermittent precipitation of the last week or so has given the land here a whole new lease on life, but it’s nowhere near enough. Fields that once were lush with the county’s best alfalfa, two feet high at this point, are sandy and brown. There are still too many patches of yellow and brown scattered among the leaves of the deciduous trees, and even the drought-resistant wild sunflowers are drooping, their stands few and far between.
The one exception to it has been the mountains themselves, including the sections that burned in the 2003 wildfire. On the latter slopes, life is only just beginning to return, but those closer to our own small space here have been alive with color for most of the season. Thanks to the track of the storms that have mostly missed us, the mountains have gotten if not an ordinary level of rain this year, something far better than what has delivered itself to the valley, and as a result, we spend our days in the shadow of ever-greening peaks.
I mean that expression in two ways, of course: both evergreen, referring to the pine and fir that carpet the slopes; and ever green, an acknowledgment that, because these particular slopes are still healthy, the trees hold their color, alive and thriving, no matter the season or weather. It’s part of what gives the mountain here, sacred to those who belong to it, such status: It is a living thing, animated by Spirit and by too many spirits to name, constantly renewed and renewing, sharing its gifts with those who inhabit the land at its feet.
Today’s featured work might not seem at first glance to embody either the waters or the peaks, much less the evergreen results, but in fact it does all three. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
Grandmother emerges from within this traditional mug as though from within the mountain etched on its front. Made of traditional micaceous clay by Jessie Marcus (Taos Pueblo), the mug is hand-coiled, the side merging into the woman’s blanket, wrapped around her figure arising from one edge. An image of the old village, sacred peaks in the background, is incised on the exterior. Mug stands 3.75″ high on the figurative side (dimensions approximate).
Micaceous clay
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
In traditional ways, the Earth is a maternal, feminine spirit, but so, very often, is the rain. So, too, are those spirits that grow, emerging from within the former and beneath the latter. And this micaceous spirit cup has them all.
The mica clay from which it is made is the same clay that forms the walls of the old village itself: a substance used in shelter, cooking, feeding, drinking, storing and planting of seeds, setting out food and drink for the spirits. In Jessie’s hands, this one assumes a distinctly feminine form, a grandmother emergent from its far side, mouth open in story or in song. The village itself is represented on the front, etched into the very earth . . . in the shadow of ever-greening peaks, of the mountain that sustains this whole small world.
As the very tradition of the spirit cup teaches us, there is much they all have to share with us still, much for us to honor and be grateful.
~ Aji
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