Yesterday’s brilliant clarity has this day given way to a marbling of blue and gray, a webwork of thin and wispy clouds nearly covering the skies. A change is in the air, and weather formerly promised for this weekend seems on track to return, after all.
Highs in the sixties yesterday; snow forecast for Sunday: Such is the nature of the season here.
It’s a season hard on human bodies, and human spirits, too, but the ancestors survived it in conditions much harsher than our own. They took their lessons from the earth itself, at this season always striving strong and steady toward renewal and rebirth, and these are teachings that hold power and wisdom for us yet today.
On a human scale, of course, our earth seems impossibly old, and contemporary colonial culture is not one that much reveres age or its accoutrements. But traditional Indigenous cultures have always known the value of experience as a teacher, and those that hold to the old ways regard lined faces not as evidence of the ravages of time, but as clear marks of the beauty of accumulated wisdom.
This is a place where wisdom still matters, and a season for it, too. And today’s featured work embodies both the ceremonial and traditional nature of this time and the protective, illuminating value of the wisdom and life experience that animates our elders’ words and actions. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
An elder, wrapped in a traditional blanket, gazes watchfully over the wall of an old village home. He arises out of the bowl of an old-style mug made of hand-coiled micaceous clay, his blanket flowing downward to form its sides. The hallmarks of his home, an ancient Pueblo house, are molded in relief on the mug’s body, the details incised by hand on the front. Stands 3.75″ high on the figurative side (dimensions approximate).
Micaceous clay
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is perhaps the time of year when the wisdom of our elders is most needed, when the old ways are most thoroughly put into practice again. These threshold days between winter and spring are a time of ceremony and prayer for some, of great planning and labor for others, and for everyone, a time to set the path for the year ahead, in virtually every context. Here, water plays an integral role in both preparation and prayer, and this small spirit cup is perfect both for ceremonial use and to remind us of the gifts we have been granted, and of our obligations.
The time for planting is not yet, but planning is already well under way. After so many years of deadly drought (not yet gone; only lessened even now), there is much to be rehabilitated, much to be reclaimed. Our usual labor must be accompanied, at every stage, by the hard work of healing.
For that, water, the First Medicine, is essential. So, too, are the wisdom of the elders and the example of the ancestors.
~ Aji
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