We need rain.
It’s been . . . what? less than a week since our last precipitation? And yet, the winds of the last four or five days have turned the grass brown and brittle, the soil the texture of ash. The air temperature is heating up, although nowhere near our usual levels for the first official day of summer and second-longest day of the year (yesterday was the longest).
And still, the forecast, both immediate ad long-range, holds out no hope for any real relief.
We need the rains to return, and we need them now.
A trickier problem is the mountain lightning that is part of our summer monsoonal patterns here. At this moment, with a humidity level of eleven percent, high trickster winds, and a suffocating pall of smoke from wildfires near and far blanketing our whole small world, Thunderbird’s glowing arrows present a risk, and a not-insignificant one: The nearest current wildfire was allegedly sparked by lightning a week or so ago, and in fact, much of what burns here in summer is ignited in the same way. The difference is that now, there is very often no rain racing along behind it to neutralize the flames — and colonial overdevelopment and official negligence and wildland mismanagement has ensured that old traditional methods, Indigenous methods, of keeping the land healthy, safe, and in balance have been abandoned virtually whole and entire.
And yet, in this climate, at this elevation, as a part this ecosystem? Gentle summer rains, quiet and unlit, have never been a thing here. In this land of harsh extremes and stark natural dangers, the medicine of summer is a wild, powerful thing: repeated cloudbursts, torrential downpours, occasional hail (and even snow on the peaks), all of it whipped by ferocious winds, vibrating with the force of the thunder, bold bolts of lightning busy at the work of igniting summer’s storm and fire both.
We do have some small defense this year, at least close by. The rains of recent weeks that have turned the mountain slopes so green have likewise added moisture to the earth and trees at higher elevations. The vast majority of lightning strikes visible to us occur in such regions, and should we get such a storm in the days to come, it’s likely to be a little harder for the flames to find a foothold. Over the last two or three years, though, we have had lightning (both dry and otherwise) repeatedly strike our own land here near the feet of the peaks, and in a rapidly drying world, that presents a more immediate problem. Fortunately, we are here to extinguish any first sparks. It doesn’t make any difference where others in the county concerned, but it allows us at least to protect this place. As with all of the elemental powers and spirits, lightning is its own force to be reckoned with — never treated casually or with disrespect, but honored for the gifts it does deliver.
Today’s featured work embodies this
From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Mountain Lightning Cuff Bracelet
We live in a land of mountain lightning, where the peaks call down to earth the very fire of the stars. With this big, bold, traditional vintage-style cuff, Wings summons to the circle all the electric beauty of the bolts from Thunderbird’s wings together with the silver shimmer of the rain. The band is wrought of heavy fourteen-gauge sterling silver, weighty and substantial, the corners rounded by hand for comfort and the edges filed smooth. Each edge is bordered by way of three deeply incised lines, all scored freehand into the silver using a single short chisel-end stamp and a five-pound steel jeweler’s hammer. Centered between the border lines are four parallel bolts of lightning, created by five zigzagging lines scored freehand deep into the surface of the silver. All of the stampwork is deeply oxidized, and the bracelet is buffed to a rich, aged Florentine glow, as bright as the bolts themselves in the middle of a powerful alpine storm. This is old-school freehand work, done without benefit of templates or stencils or power tools, just the stamps and the silver and the skill to create a band so powerfully animated by the spirits of medicine. The band is 6″ long by 2-1/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this cuff, beyond all reason and beyond all description. It’s a classic, heavy silver cut wide, with spare stampwork scored in deep, even lines for an elegantly bold (and deceptively simple) design. It’s one of those that feels at home on your wrist from the moment you put it on, and one you don’t want to remove again; its medicine is that powerful.
Which is entirely fitting, given what its symbolism represents: It’s mountain lightning at its most beautiful, the light in the storm, the bringer of the First Medicine, the spirit whose task is igniting summer’s storm and fire.
Provided that it comes in company with the rain, we’re looking forward to its reappearance here and now.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
