The promised rain of yesterday never materialized; a strong east wind blew the storm apart before it ever reached us. Today is a mix sun and puffy white clouds, air warm enough to go sleeveless, but with autumn’s unmistakable edge leading the way.
This is the time of year when the temperature changes drastically within the course of a day: a good fifteen degree-differential between the moments the sun shines upon and those when it hides its face behind a cloud; as much as forty degrees’ difference and more between the day’s highs and lows. Yesterday was the first day no hummingbirds appeared, although a vulture landed, for a time, and our red-tailed girl returned to soar overhead. The large raptors know that this is the time to prepare for winter every bit as much as do their prey, scurrying for shelter.
We are fortunate, at last, to have shelter of the best sort for this weather and climate: adobe, the best natural insulation available. In the heat of the day, mercury well into the eighties, it’s a cool sixty-five indoors; at night, one small fire in the woodstove heats the whole house until the early morning hours. It’s also the time of year when the last of the resurfacing is being completed in the village, finishing touches put on the plasterwork in preparation for next week’s celebration, and for the long winter month’s to come.
A season of shelter, from earth and water.
Today’s featured work is, in that regard, our teacher and guide. His own Indigenous lands spread far beyond the bounds of what the world calls the “American Southwest,” and he has been building his own shelters from earth and water for as long as his kind have inhabited this world. And while here Beaver is mostly remembered in spring, when the gnaw marks become visible on the trees and the failures of technology need a convenient scapegoat, he’s a good reminder at this season, too, that the elemental powers provide for us.
This is a tiny version of this fascinating little being, one small enough to hold in the palm of your hand. From its description in the Other Artists: Fetishes gallery here on the site:
Beaver, normally shy, shows himself to the world in this silky, touchable fetish. Hand-carved of cool white alabaster by Jeremy Gomez (Taos Pueblo), he keeps his features subtle except for his proud cross-hatched tail. Turquoise beads and colorful earth-toned feathers make up his medicine bundle. Stands 4.75″ long by 1.25″ high (dimensions approximate).
Alabaster; beads; feathers; sinew
$45 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This one is a bit larger than the other one still in our inventory, and wrought in a very different style: a traditional Southwestern-style humpbacked spirit, lines long and spare and flowing, but with meticulous attention to detail on face and feet and tail. His body is alabaster, pale as snow but infused with the golden light of autumn. And this one, too, is a medicine beaver, as signified by his bundle: one who carries offerings or medicine on his back — small turquoise beads the color of water and sky, a few feathers, little items of beauty that hold immanent spiritual power.
Around here the dominant culture tends mostly to regard Beaver as a nuisance, but in fact he is essential to health of our whole small world. He knows how to thin the growth, how to build and reroute the waters’ flow, how to create shelter, from earth and water and wood.
It’s much like our own, homes from earth and water and straw, architecture that does not so much blend with the landscape as rise organically from it. Beaver shows us safety, yes, but he teaches harmony, too.
As we move into a winter altered by climate change, it’s a lesson that becomes more valuable than ever.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
