It’s easy to forget that spring here is still, well, spring — as likely to be chilly as warm, marked by a wan yellow sun and a wind with a razor’s edge.
Today is sunny and warm, in relative terms, and yet the air feels cold compared to yesterday. The skies are webbed with an expanding mix of clouds and contrails, muting the blue and the sun’s glow with it. And still, the earth flowers and leafs in a riot of green, tall lush blades of grass swaying in the breeze.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that our entire community seems to be recovering still from the various bugs that have run rampant in the too-warm damp of the turn of seasons, much as our small world here is still in the throes of emergence, slowly but persistently throwing off the bonds of winter. After months of cold and snow following upon a whole year of deepened drought, the earth needs healing, and so do we.
As we near the midpoint of the season, it is at last possible to see that healing has begun: Mother Earth has recommitted herself to the task of growing Medicine.
Today’s featured work is an embodiment of both process and result, a piece perfect for this season of healing and harmony, leafing anew upon the willows and elsewhere. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Leaf Medicine Cuff Bracelet
Leaf medicine is one of the most powerful healers, one our peoples have used in hundreds of forms over thousands of years. With this pattern-rolled cuff, hand-milled in a repeating geometric design of feathery fronds and leaves, Wings honors the medicines that have ensured our survival since the dawn of time, gifts of the earth used in ceremony and spirit. The leaves rise, three-dimensional, from the band’s surface, creating a flowing, elegant texture; the band is lightly oxidized and buffed to a soft, bright polish. The focal point is a free-form stone (not a cabochon) of lightly polished, slightly translucent pounamu, known in English as New Zealand greenstone, a form of fine nephrite jade sacred to that land’s indigenous Māori peoples. This specimen (part of a lot Wings acquired ethically through legal channels) curves in a gentle, asymmetrical arc that follows the lines of the leaves on the cuff. It sits in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, the bezel raised slightly above the cuff on a columnar sterling silver pedestal. The band is 7″ long by 1″ across; the stone is 1.25″ long by 5/8″ across at the highest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; pounamu (New Zealand greenstone)
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And this, too, is our task at this season: to prepare the earth for planting, for cultivation, for growing — food for humans and wild creatures, wildflowers for beauty, herbs for healing . . . indigenous plants for medicine of all sorts.
Medicine is the braid of healing and harmony, found through ceremony and prayer and in observance of the old ways, but found also in keeping Mother Earth as she intends herself to be. That means reclamation from immediate external harms, yes, but it also means reclaiming her from the longer-term effects of human acts — effects like two and a half decades of deep drought, intensified last year into something truly deadly.
In small ways, reclamation has already begun, but the task is monumental. It requires our work throughout the year ahead. It requires us to be engaged, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, on the land and within ourselves, in growing medicine.
~ 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.
