We have a slight warming trend under way, but still ,the cold runs deep.
Deep enough for the winter birds to have settled in seemingly for the duration already; deep enough for the elk herd to travel down each night in search of forage and sanctuary. It is not quite deep enough yet, or at least not yet deep enough for long enough, to have done away with the green grass that rises defiantly through the patchwork of remnant snow, and so we have not been able to allow Miika a chance to graze unfettered. Still, she has been handling her status as [currently] our solitary horse better than we expected; after the hard life she led before coming to us, she has learned resilience and self-reliance both.
There will come a point when we find her a friend once again, because horses our social creatures, and they need companionship with their own kind. It will take us some time, however, to find the right one; her laminitis and other issues mean that it will have to be a gelding, and probably not a particularly young one — and then, of course, the meshing of their personalities (equinalities?) is a must given her own traits and all that she has been through in her life. We acquired her to be a companion for Miskwaki, who had lost his entire herd to the cancer cluster that bedevils this place over a period of two or three years, and they did well together . . . until that same cluster, we suspect, caused the colic that took him from her, and from us.
Since then, her friends have been the wild birds — she’s perfectly happy to allow the magpies to pluck hair from her mane, tail, and back for their nesting materials — and, of course, the dogs. But winter’s early arrival has brought her friends at once new and old, as well, in the form of the elk that travel here to find a safe space in which to pass the bitter nights.
The same elk who, only last week, spent the first minutes of their first visit by Miskwaki’s resting place near the pond, outside their usual path: spent those minutes in apparent stillness and silence around his grave, as though they understood, and wished to pay their respects to one they recognized as a friend from winters past. Their hoofprints were remarkably clear, and just as remarkably seemingly aware of what it was they circled, walking around it instead of across it.
It’s somehow comforting to know that our non-human relatives have their own practices around such events — all the more so when it shows us that they valued one that we also loved. Grief too often renders our own rituals empty in the moment; it’s sometimes too much to wrestle with the loss and still be present in the moment in which certain steps occur. Afterward . . . afterward we think of what we should have done, perhaps — or we channel our energies into creating fitting memorials and ensuring legacies fulfilled.
And so it was, I think mostly unconsciously, with today’s featured work. Our paint horse’s spirit ascended to the stars on September tenth, and eleven days later, Wings completed this piece, a perfect tribute to him, and an equally apt memorial in the medium that long ago became Wings’s own. 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 gent ly 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
The band is solid and wide, an old-style cuff cut freehand and filed just smooth, then hand-milled in the flowing feather pattern seen here. These are, of course, more like down feathers than those of wings or tail: soft, flexible quills that sway in the wind, sending the individual barbs dancing in the light. They rise here in sharply defined relief, the surface richly textured from edge to edge with their lines, and with the scattering of hand-stamped hoops throughout that echo the mottled effect found on the feathers of eagles.
Of course, the downy look of the feathers is fitting in another way, too, summoning the imagery of the horses’ fetlocks, now become the wings that allow their hooves to fly across the night sky.
And then there are the overlays.
It’s a pair of Indian paint horses facing each other across the glow of a guiding star: each horse saw-cut freehand, its paint coat rendered by heavy freehand texturing using a single tiny divot-end stamp, its features and musculature evoked by a few swift stamped lines and hoops. Wings created each horse in the old ledger style, all four legs outstretched in full gallop. Once cut and stamped and textured, each horse was shaped gently into the proper curvature, then soldered securely across the surface of the band.
Even the Pole Star is shaped to accommodate the arc of its own universe — four spokes saw-cut freehand, with a simple five-pointed star stamped at the center and offset the tiniest bit to imply a twinkling radiance, the north/south spokes perfectly straight while those to east and west and bent gently backward so that the whole adheres properly to the center.
It’s a complex mix of traditional silversmithing techniques, and an equally complex mix of symbolism and medicine.
The kind of medicine to memorialize the strongest and gentlest of spirits, and to mend the wounded hearts they leave behind.
And this is the season when our own hearts need to be strong, when we need resilience of body and mind and spirit — when we need to be able to merge loss with love in a way that strengthens ourselves, our communities, and our world.
The winds are fierce now, the night hours dangerously cold beneath impossibly clear skies. We are made stronger, braver, better able to face the weeks and months to come when we can look up at that night sky and find hope, and love, in the stardust spirits of flight.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
