We were supposed to get snow flurries after 6:00 PM this evening. Now, that forecast has seemingly been rescinded, despite the heavy gray clouds lowering on all sides.
In truth, they’ve been here for most of this day, gathering close long before evening was even a thought, snowfall visible on the higher peaks throughout the afternoon. But down here at their feet, it’s been another matter entirely.
I wonder: Do four flakes count as a flurry?
Because that’s been about the extent of it here. Wind, yes; cold, yes; iron-gray clouds looming low and close, yes. But only the smallest, most widely-spaced snowflakes, and then only for a second or two. The radar map still shows snow headed our way, but the forecast itself does not. I would say that we can hope for more down the road, but there’s nothing appreciable in the forecast for the next fifteen days.
Then again, that was the case for this week, too, and we’ve had at least a little of the white stuff — not much, granted, but it’s helped to settle the dust, and in a dangerously warm, dry December, that’s worth a lot.
Today was one of those fraught days that required a lot of work behind the scenes, a lot of errands, and a lot of generally chaotic effort to navigate all that needed doing. The one saving grace to having to be out in the cold wind is that, for one of the very, very few times this year, this day actually looked and felt like winter. I have missed the dark, stormy skies and the cold bite of the air, missed the scent of snow upon the wind [even if it doesn’t deign to fall here] and the general spirit of an alpine winter.
And it made me realize anew just how badly our climate here has been damaged . . . perhaps irreversibly, at least for what’s left of our lifetimes.
Still, it’s far from the first time our peoples have faced catastrophe and found ways to survive. We can do no less, for future generations depend upon us to do the work required now. This season is a good one for finding motivation, given that it’s our own small world’s true time of renewal and rebirth, and such days as this are medicine for the spirit — the kind to inspire us to reclaim our world in winter.
Today’s featured work provides inspiration of a related sort. It’s a tribute both to this land mass to which we belong, lands we collectively call Turtle Island that have held our peoples and sustained us since the time before time, and to the old story of one of the humblest of our nonhuman relatives who, according to that story, gave her shell to create our world [thereby saving the First People’s lives, and making our own possible]. It’s a necklace wrought in her form and shape and honor, but also in the shades of winter — no red in evidence, but golden light and darkened shadow, the marbled blue-tinted greens of water reflecting sky, and the rich forest shades and spirits of the evergreen conifers that lend life and breath to this land. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Turtle Island Necklace
Algonquin Woodland peoples know the ancient story of how the First People were saved by the gift of Grandmother Turtle’s shell, which is how this land mass came to be called Turtle Island. Wings honors not just her gift but her very being and spirit with this necklace, featuring articulated head, legs, tail, and beautifully marbled shell all bound together and cascading from a strand of jeweled beads in the shades of earth and water, sky and silvery light. Her head is formed of a beautifully complex cabochon of chrysocolla, emerald and seafoam greens arising from earthy black matrix and accented with flashes of indigo, bezel-set and trimmed with twisted silver. Her body is a truly remarkable cabochon made of a single slice of natural pinecone, wafer-thin and embedded in a layer of resin aswirl in shades of translucent emerald green and black. Sterling silver pattern wire in a molded floral pattern with echoes of Art Nouveau styling create her legs, arched outward form her body and ready to move, while her tail, like the slider-style bail from which she hangs, is a flared triangle of sterling silver, stamped freehand. She dances from a cascade of ultra-high-grade gemstone beads, two old natural chrysocolla cabochons bisected by a single orb of iron pyrite at the center, flowing into spheres of highly polished ocean jasper in two sizes, flanked by long jet barrels and alternating with sterling silver and iron pyrite accents. Moving upward, the beads form a gradients of greens and blues, electric green chrome diopside and softer jade flowing into blue spiderweb turquoise in two sizes, all set off by iron pyrite flanked by sterling silver, with tiny diamond-cut sterling silver anchors at either end. Beads are strung on ultra-strong tri-ply foxtail coated in silver for color and held with sterling silver findings. Bead strand hangs 23″ long, excluding findings; pendant including bail is 3-5/8″ long; without bail, 3″ long by 1-7/8″ across at the widest point; bail itself is 5/8″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point; round setting is 1-7/16″ across with a cabochon of 1-3/16″ across; oval setting is 1-3/16″ long by 1sts 5/16″ across at the widest, with a cabochon of 1″ long by 3/4″ across at the widest point; turtle’s pattern-wire “legs” are 1/8″ across (all dimensions approximate). Close-up and full views of pendant shown above, below, and at the link.
Pendant: Sterling silver; chrysocolla; pinecone in resin
Beads: Old ultra-high-grade chrysocolla; iron pyrite; jet; Pietersite; ocean jasper; sterling silver;
chrome diopside; jade; blue spiderweb turquoise; diamond-cut sterling silver
$1,400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
When I said “rich forest shades and spirits of the conifers,” I was not speaking metaphorically. I meant it very literally.
Look at Grandmother Turtle’s body and shell. It’s formed of a very distinctive compound material: swirling shades of emerald green and inky black resin, holding fast in its mysterious depths a wafer-thin slice of an actual pine cone. The edges of the cone seem gilded by the light, much as the trees whence they come appear when touched by shafts of sunlight that break through the forest shadow.
They also seem to form a secondary spirit within Turtle’s shell. Look at the top of it, in the very center of the cabochon. It looks like the outline of Eagle, perched, perhaps, in some high bough of an ancient Ponderosa pine, head and beak facing wearer’s left and observer’s right. Where Turtle buries herself in the shallows now to survive the winter, this is the season when Eagle flies freely, and once in a great while, their kind will plot a path directly over our home and lands on their way from the Great River up into the alpine backcountry, always keeping their distance from the majority of human habitation. I caught a glimpse of one a week or two ago, spiraling on the currents at play with our local red-tails, but it vanished between the northern peaks before I could get my camera.
Both spirits, whether visible to us now or not, remind us that we are granted the protection and the medicine of this Earth, of the Creator and other spirits. And if they can keep doing the work in the face of all that threatens this world now, how can we do any less?
After all, future generations need us. And so, with part of this holiday season over, solstice past and a new calendar year just days away, it’s time to recommit ourselves to that work: time to reclaim our world in winter, to rebuild and restore and renew, that Mother Earth may be reborn in health and harmony.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
