The outside world has declared this “Earth Day.”
It seems odd to us, this need to devote one day to our Mother, while the rest of the year is . . . what?
For us, for our peoples, every day is “Earth Day.” It’s neither a holiday nor a political statement (although given our relationship to the colonial dominant culture, our very existence is itself political); it’s simply our way of life.
For those of us who, to the extent possible, still live in adherence to older ways, it’s an idea that barely needs articulation, so integral, so fundamental is it to our days. It’s part of Wings’s very name, something gained in translation as a colonial label was reinterpreted and reinformed by indigeneity: his middle name, Santiago, to the Spanish “The Moor-Slayer,” in his own people’s defining is instead “The Steward of the Land.” And he, alone among his family, took that charge from his parents and grandparents to heart and to action. He lives it every day, and has brought me into it, this process and practice and praxis of not merely living close to the earth, not merely taking her gifts, but offering our own in advance and in return, learning her patterns and preferences and ways, and doing what we can in our own small space to preserve them.
That means accepting her as she is — understanding what she was, acknowledging her as she is now, planning for her changes, and protecting what she will become.
In a time of drastic and accelerating climate change, this is our charge, our task, and our bond — our prophecy, our vision, our call to action by the spirits.
They are powerful spirits, Earth and Water and Wind and Sky. Increasingly, they come together in storms unfamiliar to us, near-unrecognizeable, out of place, out of season, and like the Earth herself, out of time. What once were the trickster dust devils of spring are now gale and vortex of tornadic intensity, spinning themselves into a fury and spinning out beneath the harsh silver eye of the sun. These are dangerous times, for us as well as for the earth, and daunting as it is, it is up to us to find balance at the center of the storm. We have, as the old colonial scripture asserts, already inherited the wind that comes from all directions. We are, though most don’t realize it, already reaping the whirlwind, too.
If we are to survive, if our Mother is to survive, we must do better than being swept up and along in its force. We must learn to find the calm still center of the storm, find a way to create harmony from the whirlwind itself.
Today’s featured works — works, plural, since they are, while not an explicitly-matched set, complementary — honor such powerful forces and to the way in which we are charged to understand and interact with them. The first is fact, the second, force: storm and motion, power and direction. We begin with the necklace; from its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits Necklace
When the winds come from the Four Directions to meet at the center of all that is, they summon the spirit of the whirlwind to dance in the vortex of the storm. Wings summons all of the spirits in this work, a large, heavy talismanic medallion of solid sterling silver, hammered by hand and lightly domed in repoussé fashion. A symbol of the Four Sacred Direction in a flaring stylized cross shape rests atop the medallion as an overlay. Each spoke is marked with a single cabochon of cobalt-blue lapis lazuli, the color of the rain; they spin inward toward the vortex at the center, embodied in a large round onyx cabochon of mysteriously glossy depths. The hand-made bail is accented with tiny hand-stamped hoops, the shape of the spiraling wind itself. The pendant hangs from an alternating strand of round sterling silver and lapis lazuli beads, with small square lapis and round onyx beads stretching toward either end of the strand, each end terminating in two tiny Florentine-finish silver beads. Pendant is 2-1/8 inches long (including bail) by 2-1/4 inches across; beads are 19 inches long (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; onyx; lapis lazuli
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This has always been one of my favorite works, partly for its colors but mostly for the power of its imagery. It presents possibilities far outside of what we tend to believe of ourselves: that we can live in harmony with the storm. It reminds us that the storm possesses its own perfect beauty and balance, and rather than reject or resent it, we should welcome it, celebrate it, dance with and in it.
The coordinating work is smaller, simpler, but no less powerful in its own way. It’s a pair of earrings, not an . exact match to the necklace but unmistakably of similar spirit. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
From All Directions Earrings
Sometimes we need protection from the winds that seem to buffet us from all directions. Sometimes, great gifts and blessings arrive on those same winds. Wings captures the dichotomous nature of our journey around the hoop with these earrings, jet-black onyx and silver polished so highly it’s nearly white, that embody the power of the winds and the sacred directions: gifts simultaneously of wild unharnessed power and of shelter from the storm. The settings are representations of the Sacred Directions, those reaches of our world guarded by the winds, that here encompass both cardinal and ordinal points. Each is cut freehand from sterling silver, with the spoke at each cardinal point gently curved on the end to imply the arcing shape of the hoop and impart a sense of motion around it. At the center of each, the vortex: a large round onyx cabochon, like a pool of liquid jet, resting gently in a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. Settings are 1.75″ high by 1.75″ across; cabochons are .75″ across (dimensions approximate). Earrings are a companion work to Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits, in the Necklaces Gallery.
Sterling silver; onyx
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These, too, have long been a personal favorite: I have always preferred simple, spare, lines and elegantly understated symbolism. These have all of that, and more: They present the ability to wear, up close and personal, the power and force and motion of elemental spirits.
Taken together, this informal set has always, to my mind, been one of Wings’s most powerful collections. As I look out at the clear blue sky, trees nearly still, I know that the wind is not far off; it will return very soon, and we will need to accommodate ourselves to it. Thanks to humanity’s collective [mis]conduct, our Mother is changing before our eyes and beneath our feet, and we must change with her. Stewardship requires more than coping, more than simply following the patterns that outrace and outpace us now. Playing an eternal game of chase does not fulfill our obligations to future generations.
It is our calling now to create harmony from the whirlwind.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
