Even a world of black and white is filled with shades of gray.
The spirits that inhabit such a world are those able to traverse the gradient lines between day and night, calm and storm, this world and the one beyond, lines that render the boundaries between each pair invisible.
We do not live in a black and white world, though most people prefer to regard it that way. Binaries and dichotomies are easier to understand, to navigate, even when our navigation of them turns out to be entirely hypocritical. But this world is one filled with uncertainty, where perhaps the only true absolute is that there is no such thing, where going well through life along the proper path requires nuance, in vision and in action alike.
Sometimes, we would do well to turn to the spirits of the old stories for guidance, the beings endowed with the power to see the entire spectrum, those able to travel comfortably in those gradient spaces.
In today’s featured work, Wings pays homage to just such a spirit. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Night Eagle Necklace
The Night Eagle soars the skies from dusk to dawn, occasionally leaving behind a feather to bless the morning. Here, that feather manifests in a stunning specimen of Botswana agate, nested bands of color on a spectrum from black to gray to darkest brown to warm pale beige and white, all filtering starlight through their translucent lines. At its tip hangs the moon in the form of a tiny white moonstone of unusual chatoyance. Both stones are set into a singular hand-made bezel, featuring ajouré cutwork in an extended traditional design on the reverse, allowing the agate and the light it refracts to touch the wearer. The pendant hangs from a bold handmade bail featuring a repeating pattern of sacred spaces, suspended from hand-strung beads of hematite alternating with periodic pairs of olivella-shell heishi in the same deep golden brown found in the agate itself. The pendant hangs 3.25 inches long, including the 5/8″ bail; the strand of beads is 18 inches in length (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; Botswana agate; moonstone; hematite, olivella-shell heishi
875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The Night Eagle is a creature of many worlds, blessed with the worldview of a spirit bird and the vision to appreciate it. He is at home in worlds of moonlit line and black shadow and the spaces in between, a dusky world the color of his own feathers that allows him to blend into the night as he watches the earth that passes beneath his powerful wings.
He is not, perhaps, the showiest of the raptors, not one to call attention to himself with flamboyant displays of color. But his ability to recede into the shadows is precisely what makes him so effective: Unlike his brighter cousins, he is able to hover and strike at will, mostly invisible under the black cover of night.
He reminds us that attention is not always a good thing, and certainly not always the most effective thing. Sometimes, it is the spirits who move in the shadows, quietly, invisibly, willing to put themselves on the line and often across it in the moments when no one is there to witness it, to appreciate it, to praise it, who accomplish the most.
Black and white may be simple and striking,but the nuanced grays are beautiful, too — and it is in those gradient and shadowy spaces that connect them all that work gets done, progress is made, good lives are lived.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
