Snow tomorrow, or so the weather people say. For now, an unseasonably warm earth melts beneath a cloud-webbed turquoise sky. The flagstones along the path seem to float in water, its clarity revealing much at work beneath its surface, from gray-brown aspen leaves and pale golden chaff to a steady array of new green blades of grass.
Meanwhile, an earth beset from without and within still turns upon its axis.
To the dominant culture, this is all new. In truth, none of this is unexpected. Our own peoples have warned, and been warned, for centuries now. For some, it rises to the level of formal prophecy; for others, its’s a more quotidian awareness. But the peoples of this land mass long ago foresaw what was possible — for good, yes, and also for what we have now.
Wovoka summoned people to Ghost Dance, an act of faith in turn to summon that good into being . . . and they found themselves brutally put down, in the fullest meaning of that phrase, for their trouble. Trouble of a sort that Black America knows well, the good trouble that attracted bashings and lynchings and burning crosses in the battle for acknowledgment of basic humanity. It’s trouble of a sort that our own near ancestors told us to expect, of the need to protect that which is sacred from those whose hearts older prophets recognized too well in the first waves of their invasion.
Every people has its prophets, those to whom the dreams are given, to whom the longer sight is granted. Those who style themselves thusly are too often shown up as frauds, of course. But there have always been those who hold their visions close, who speak softly and urgently with no thought for personal gain, whose prophecies foretell not the rewards of taking but the responsibilities of defending. They are those whose words the world should heed, for they foresaw this very pass.
We are living it now, a drought of the land and of the landscape of the spirit: a time when the forests burn not to be reborn, but to die once and for all, when the seas rise not with moon and tide but to drown the land beneath it, when the winds bring neither rain nor warmth but only death — when humanity is hell-bent on surrendering itself to destruction in the name of a fundamental misunderstanding of its notions of power.
It is winter now, yet not winter enough, a dangerous warming laid directly at the feet of colonialism as a way of life and specific acts of colonization in particular. In this place (and now, increasingly, in the lands of my home, those of the Great Water that have begun once more to burn under the weight of their own drought), it is the water that will save this world . . . or not. It is the snows that form the foundations of each new year of life, each birth and rebirth, of an earth coaxed to maturity in the rains of summer. It is the First Medicine, the sacrament, a reason for the dance — now, a Ghost Dance of a different sort, one in which the revenants are the dancers, haunted by the need for a medicine alive mostly in memory.
In a time of prophecy, a dance for the rain is perhaps the last best hope, a chance to lay the ghosts to rest and recall to us the spirits of life: abundant spirits dancing upon a green earth once again.
Today’s featured work embodies spirits, hope, prophecy, and dance simultaneously, a pair of earrings wrought in vintage style in a beautiful traditional form. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Spirits Dancing Upon a Green Earth Earrings
Summer is the season of spirits dancing upon a green earth, guardians and guides whose gifts are prosperity and abundance. Wings summons the spirits to the song of the leaves and the drum of the earth’s heartbeat with these earrings, granted a stylized figurative form. Each earring is wrought in layers of 20-gauge sterling silver, each layer designed and cut entirely freehand and fused together in overlay fashion, each embracing three intensely-hued malachite gemstones. Near the top, small round cabochons of boldly banded malachite serve as head and face. At the center, perfect squares turned diamond-shaped become the earth’s body, its lines a graduated contrast that produce a nearly ombre effect. Lower body and limbs revolve in large round cabochons, striated in the shades of an electric emerald. Each hangs suspended by way of an organically wrought and drilled tab from sterling silver wires. Earrings hang 2.25″ long, excluding wires, by 1-1/16″ across at the widest point; small round cabochons are 3/8″ across; square cabochons are 1/2″ along each edge and 3/4″ across the diamond’s center; large round cabochons are 5/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; malachite
$975 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The outside world seeks in vain to read the future, to know what will come to pass, but it is too late for that, and looks in the wrong direction anyway. The prophecy was laid down, in its many forms and facets, centuries ago, with the first wave of invaders who sundered and plundered people and land. We live it now, our own peoples forced to reap its bitter fruits along with those who birthed, and continually rebirth, this monstrous pass.
In our world, rain is abundance, the breath of life itself. When the world at last heeds the ancestors’ words, when it steps into the circle and begins the humble dance, the spirits will return to dance, too . . . upon the gift of a green earth, healed and in harmony.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
