The elk returned last night.
It was only part of the herd this time, perhaps a dozen. They fed on the old hay that Wings leaves out for them now, the kind that is bad for horses but perfect for ruminants, then settled down in the new snow to rest until the first rays of the sun showed themselves behind the ridgeline. That sun, in turn, has banished nearly all the clouds from yesterday, with only a few wispy strands trailing around the peaks to the north and east now.
It’s a beautifully clear day, one that seems warmer than it is for the lack of wind. And beneath the blue of the sky, all the colors of the spectrum have merged together into the white crystal radiance of the snow blanketing the earth.
Winter here often manifests as this same spectral glow: sunbows and sundogs, iridescent clouds and pillars of light. But like the colors they contain, they all come together upon the earth with the arrival of the snow, perfect crystals accumulating, millions of mandalas that catch and hold onto the rays of Father Sun, refracting all the shades they have absorbed back into a cold clear world.
Today’s featured trio of works, all deliberately coordinated yet each capable of standing entirely on its own, embody this cold radiant glow of winter in ways specific to this very land. It’s a matching small series, necklace, earrings, and coil bracelet, each purposefully put together to portray unique but related and elemental aspects of the cold high-altitude air of this season. We begin with the necklace, a tribute to the gradient of mystical shades that mark the alpine twilight moments now. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection of the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Alpine Twilight Necklace
Whether dawn or dusk, the winter air and sky combine to birth an otherworldly alpine twilight. Wings draws down all the colors of the cold and quiet hours into a gradient of violet blues that appear only at this time of year. At the center, a single round orb of white quartz rutilated with needles of jet-colored schorl is flanked by a pair of bold freeform barrels of mysterious iolite, a perfect translucent violet blue webbed with shimmering shades of gold and white, like ice limned by the low-angled sun. Rainbow moonstone orbs and faceted rondels pair with smaller selenite, extending upward into two segments of bold but delicate lepidolite in the perfect lilac shade of the eastern sky at sunset. Rainbow moonstone rondels and another pair of iolite barrels serve as separators and accents; the rest of the necklace flows upward into the blues of night — ultra-high-grade cobalt kyanite, polished dumortierite, and matte dumortierite nuggets separated by Indonesian silver barrels. Small sterling silver rounds anchor either end; findings are also sterling silver. Necklace hangs 23″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown below. Necklace coordinates with Below Zero earrings and The North Wind coil bracelet. From the Air series in Wings’s new collection, The Winter Elementals (all pieces shown above, below, and at the link).
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: Rutilated quartz (clear white with black schorl); iolite; rainbow moonstone;
lepidolite; kyanite; dumortierite; Indonesian silver; sterling silver
$400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
What is not clear from the photo is the richness of the iolite barrels: Far from the washed-out appearance they present here, they are actually richly translucent, in a deep violet blue shade marbled with icy inclusions. Like the other blues in the strand, they provide the perfect backdrop to the lepidolite sky of the east, a gift of those final few moments each evening before the sun’s last rays fall behind the opposite horizon.
It’s a trick of the air combined with the light that produces such unusual shades, but midwinter here is often marked by colder air yet. It’s not at all unusual for nighttime lows to fall below zero, but in an ordinary year (unlike this one), there will be a few scattered days in the depths of winter when the mercury never rises above it, either. Such bitter cold can be deadly, of course, but it’s also possessed of an admittedly dangerous beauty, one that turns the the entire landscape to a solid shimmer of frozen light.
The second today’s featured trio embodies this dynamic dance of air temperature, precipitation, and light. From its description in The Standing Stones Collection of the Earrings Gallery:
Below Zero Earrings
In the depths of a high-desert winter, the mercury plunges below zero, creating air so pure and cold that it steals breath for its own. With these earrings, Wings honors all the force and beauty of cold deep enough to save a sleeping world. At either end, tiny faceted aquamarine rondels anchors each dangling drop. At top, they lead to an icy transclucent selenite, thence to large and solitary orbs of rutilated white quartz shot through with needles of jet-like schorl, each sphere flanked by faceted rondels of rainbow moonstone. Below, iridescent spheres of rainbow moonstone shimmer like sun dogs above snowy white tridacna shell, each separated by the pale faceted glow of aquamarine. Beads are strung on filament-thin sterling silver round wire and are suspended from sterling silver earring wires. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with Alpine Twilight necklace and The North Wind coil bracelet. From the Air series in Wings’s new collection, The Winter Elementals (all pieces shown above, below, and at the link).
Sterling silver; rutilated quartz (clear white with black schorl);
rainbow moonstone; tridacna shell; selenite; aquamarine
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is the one season when the north wind reliably makes regular appearances, driving the cold air of the storm hard and deep into the valley, whipping up ground blizzards and dusting our small world in every possible shade of shimmering white. The third of today’s featured works, a coil bracelet, embodies this elemental force beautifully. From its description in The Coiled Power Collections of the Bracelets Gallery:
The North Wind Coil Bracelet
The most powerful air of winter is that which arrives as the north wind — fast, cold, fierce, and capable of a capricious spiraling force. With this coil bracelet, Wings summons this elemental power into a circle of eddying shades of snow and ice, storm and light. At the very center sits a focal round of white rutilated quartz patched by jet-black needles of schorl, flanked by a pair of big, bold freeform barrels of blue violet iolite webbed with mysteriously icy inclusions. Separating the central segments of round beads are, variously, ultra-high-grade aquamarine rondels, like ice tinted by blue skies and the remnant green locked beneath its surface, flanked by slices of schorl-webbed rainbow moonstone; toward the ends, faceted rainbow moonstone and faceted miniature aquamarine rondels serve as separators. The spheres linking them all range from the deep indigo of polished dumortierite to chatoyant cobalt kyanite to opaque and snowy tridacna shell, rainbow moonstone, gray moonstone, translucent selenite, and sterling silver. Bracelet consists of four full coils of beads strung on memory wire, which expands and contracts to fit nearly any wrist. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown below. Coil bracelet coordinates with Alpine Twilight necklace and Below Zero earrings. From the Air series in Wings’s new collection, The Winter Elementals (all pieces shown above, at top, and at the link).
Memory wire; rutilated quartz (clear white with black schorl); iolite; rainbow moonstone; aquamarine;
dumortierite; kyanite; tridacna shell; selenite; gray moonstone; sterling silver
$350 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We have had relatively little snow this season, and our temperatures have weighed on the too-warm side. But we have also had an unusually high number of visits by the north wind, especially in the night hours, and it is perhaps this phenomenon that has brought us much of the precipitation we have received. For that gift, we’ll withstand nearly any circumstance now.
Winter — true, deep, real winter — is not long for this place now. Oh, it stays around well into the appearance of warmer winds; departs only to return for a few last blasts of icy air, too. But spring is much more than in the air now: We awaken every day to the busy sounds of birdsong, indistinguishable now from that which marks an April morning. I suspect that we shall be presented with the first day of spring far before the date on any calendar: Here, official spring arrives on the notes of the first meadowlark’s song.
That, too, is a gift of the air, come to the think of it.
For now, though, or weather is expected to remain at the colder end of the weather spectrum. Snow is even forecast for the middle of next week once again. And in its aftermath will come that gifts of the winter light, the white crystal radiance of the snow.
It’s a beautiful time of year.
~ Aji
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