At long last, a hard freeze.
In truth, the hard freeze had already hit by about nine o’clock last night; at thirty-eight degrees, it’s barely above that now. But it’s a beautiful day — brilliantly sunny, not a cloud in the sky, perfect sweater weather, and barely a breeze at all. There are leaves newly turned, and small carpets of leaves on the ground. Now that the trickster winds have departed, the wild birds have returned, and our world is alive with the feathers and flames of autumn air and light.
The crows and magpies are battling over the suet; the juncos and sparrows and finches are content with the seeds. The flickers are here daily, their clear, bell-like call ringing across the land, and two weeks ago, a yellow-bellied sapsucker appeared — perhaps our first-ever visitation from one of their clan.
And then there are the raptors.
The red-tails have, these last few years, decided to make their homes here year-round, but they spend much of their time abroad now. They usually return at least once during the daylight hours, sometimes to hunt but at least as often just to play on the currents or even to say hello. The harrier is back for the season, but she is so fast that there’s virtually no chance of capturing a shot unless she deigns to sit for a moment (and so far, she has been in constant motion). And I am still convinced that the bald eagle that appeared in the sky in front of Pueblo Peak some days ago was joined here two days ago by either a young bald or a young golden. The mother of the red-tails is large, but even her giant wingspan is no match for an eagle’s, and this raptor’s was immense.
Now that real fall weather is here, it will not belong before those members of the hoof clan, the elk, decide to visit, too. Colonial invasion and overdevelopment, even up in the mountains where no one should be building anything at all, is increasingly destroying their habitat; in time of record drought, it can be fatal, and so the elk are being forced to spend more of each winter closer to human habitation. They have come to know our land as a sanctuary, and very often spend whole nights here, sleeping in the northeast field until the sun comes up (at which point they vanish back up into the backcountry for the day).
The herd had come to know our horses as friends, of a sort — last fall, they somehow instinctively recognized Miskwaki’s grave, and brought their young to pay their respects. Thereafter, several of them subsequently slept right up against the ProPanel fence each night, as though they realized that Miika was now alone and felt the need to keep her company through the dark hours. They have been visiting us in the cold months for well over a decade now; their presence is a gift (despite the havoc they sometimes wreak with fencing), and they know instinctively that they are welcome here.
This week’s Friday Feature embodies the gifts of the raptors’ feathers, the flames of foliage and cold-weather stars, and the spirit of our red paint horse, long acknowledged by the winter elk as a friend, rendered in sterling silver. It’s shown here from four angles, together creating a 360-degree view of its surface. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Flight of the Star Herd Cuff Bracelet
Horses are celestial spirits; when they depart this plane, they ascend to join the flight of the star herd. With this extraordinary cuff, Wings memorializes our own paint horse, Miskwaki, whose hooves have been given eagles’ wings and who now races with his old herd across the Bridge of Stars. The band is wrought of solid, substantial 18-gauge sterling silver, hand-milled in a feathery pattern reminiscent of the wings of those greatest of raptors, barbs textured in sharp relief and mottled with the random orbicular pattern common to their kind. Across the center two paint horses run toward each other, a four-spoked Evening (or Morning) Star, layered with a stamped and twinkling five-pointed star dancing at its center, set between them. The star and each of the ledger-style paint horses are saw-cut entirely freehand of 20-gauge sterling silver, the horses’ paint coats texturized with scores of strikes of a single divot-end stamp inside elegant lines, each figure gently shaped and then overlaid across the top of the band and soldered seamlessly into place.Band is 6″ long by 1-3/8″ wide; paint horse overlays are each 1-3/4″ long from end to end and 1″ high; Morning Star overlay is 7/8″ high by 7/8″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love the eagle-feather effect of the cuff’s surface. It’s not stampwork; not castwork, either. It’s hand-rolled through a rolling mill, against a template carved end to end and edge to edge in the form of down feathers — like those smaller, silky, free-floating feathers that rest close to the raptor’s body.
But Wings has added to the millwork with small dots and hoops of varying sizes, some clustered, others scattered, all creating the mottled effect that characterizes an eagle’s feathers where the dark brown meets the white.
And then, of course, there are the overlays: all three saw-cut entirely freehand, stamped to evoke both the spirits they represent and a sense of animating motion The star at the center glimmers, just like those in the deepest night sky on these newly cold and clearest nights of the year.
The horses share more than a family resemblance, but are not mirror images of each, despite their placement here face to face. Both are paint horses, as was Miskwaki; so, too were two of our earlier horses. Miika is not; she’s a sorrel, with white markings , but her colors echo Miskwaki’s, and so it feels apt to see her here in this piece: one with hooves still firmly on the earth, one already racing with the star herd, but — as the elk seem to recognize — still capable of perceiving each other in spirit form.
The fiery crimson of their coats made them both seem fall spirits, at home in these days of cold, crisp air and an earth ablaze beneath the sun’s fire and the cold silver light of the stars. They fly, like Eagle, upon the feathers and flames of autumn air and light, and they are with us always — but especially on these perfect days and nights of fall.
~ Aji
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