The thunder has returned.
Historically, the thunder only summers in our small world here. We are usually privileged to hear its great voice only for a relatively short period of the year, usually from July through August, perhaps on into September. That has changed in recent years, along with too much else; thanks to climate change, the Thunder Beings are now forced to alter their patterns, paying us visits from spring through fall, and even in the middle of the winter snows. But at least for this moment, it is here on schedule, looming over us in its great towering lodges of white and gray and blue and purple, just waiting for the moment of that it is time to loose song and drum across the sky.
Where the thunder dwells, at least in this corner of Turtle Island, is in a home of a very specific sort. The scientific term for such clouds is cumulonimbus (or sometimes incus), but our name for them is much more poetic, and more evocative of the spirits who reside within them: Thunderheads. [And just as I wrote the word “thunderheads,” the first rumble of the day tolled across the sky above the peaks.]
In the lands of my people, such towering dwelling places in the sky tend to appear only rarely, if at all. Our cloud cover there tends toward the fluffy and the flat: small white bits of cotton drifting across the sky, or flat leaden ceilings that darken at the edges and lower close above the earth.
Thunderheads are a being of a wholly different sort.
They are also one that finds its way into the Native art of this region in ways explicit and wholly symbolic, another recognition of the truth that the earth of this place knows: Water is life.
Here, they call the summer rains the monsoon season, and while it has been increasingly disrupted, its schedule diverted and route detoured in recent years, it is still very much as part of our lives here, a string of days woven together into weeks that ensure the growth and harvest and survival during the long winter months to come.
In this part of the world, there are spirit beings who bring the rains. We have them in the lands of my home, too, of course, but they are perhaps more associated with the fierce power of the storm itself than with the water that is the result — unsurprising, perhaps, in a land where rainfall is mostly an utterly ordinary occurrence. But in lands where rainfall is scarce, even the most ferocious weather is to be welcomed with open arms and prayers of thanksgiving, because while lightning and wind can wreak havoc, it is lack of water that leads to sure and certain death.
Water is life.
It’s a lesson the peoples of this desert land have known since the dawn of time. The imagery of the storm is visible in the art of the ancients here, some of it tracing back thousands of years. A symbol that we will explore in a few moments, a stair-stepped symbol that looks rather like and inverted Mayan pyramid, is a motif that has long been used by some indigenous artists to represent what brings the rain, the clouds that are the place where the thunder dwells. That same motif, accented with lines and extended arcing curves, appears on one of the sandstone rock faces at Three Rivers. It’s impossible, at this late date, to say with any certainty what the image means, but given the consistency with which some of the Native artists of this region have since used it to represent the thunderhead, it’s not too great a leap to wonder whether this artist of a millennium past was, him- or herself, hoping to call the rain.
Today, area Native artists continue to use the thunderheads as model and muse, if often in less stylized and more realistic form. Frank Rain Leaf, one of Taos Pueblo’s 
masters, frequently incorporates them into the skies of his landscapes. Examples of his work appear appear at left and at right, both of them realistic depictions of the Pueblo’s summe
r sky: bright turquoise blue with puffy white clouds ascending the horizon to grow into towering masses capable of delivering the rain. Frank has created a whole series of greeting cards from his original paintings, among them copies of one that was entitled Thunder From the North, an image of North House with violet thunderheads arising over the peaks behind it to stretch overhead.
Thunderhead imagery is not limited to works that appear in two dimensions, however. Some of it is more substantial, in the tangible sense, and simultaneously more symbolic.
In the Southwest, there are katsinam (kachinas) whose task is explicitly to bring the rain: the Longhairs, whose flowing black locks and beards are emblematic of the rain itself. But some carvers add to the symbolism by way
of the artwork on each being, painting thunderheads on their robes, and edging them in more symbolic symbols that evoke the thunderheads. 
Examples of both appear in the pair of Longhairs here: the traditional Hopi version above wears the stormclouds on his kirtle, front and back. As is visible at right, the back of his blanket is also edged in a stylized, symbolic image that, when pointed downward, can be used to represent the thunderheads, alternating with the same image pointed up, which is often used (especially in Pueblo pottery) to represent the kiva steps, the entryway to the sacred space.
At left is a youthful version of the Longhair, carved in the Zuni style. He wears the case mask and similar long, flowing locks, but does not yet have the beard. His robes are also plainer, but are still edged with the same alternating stair-stepped symbol around the hem.
Wings uses thunderhead imagery frequently in both his silverwork and his photography. It manifests differently, of curse, according to the medium, but the inspiration remains the same, and the works that are coaxed into being often share surprisingly similar spirits.
We’ll begin with the silverwork, which involves the more symbolic use of the imagery.
Wings evokes most symbolic patterns by way of stampwork. Sometimes, the stamps are cast in relatively realistic molds, producing imagery that is unmistakable. These are, by far, the more rare iterations of his symbolic work; he generally prefers to work in more abstract imagery, infusing each piece with his own spiritual interpretations.
Today, we’re going to cover three separate forms of symbolism that Wings uses to represent thunderheads overtly or to summon their spirits and those of other forces and beings associated with them: the raincloud symbol, a stamp that clearly delineates both cloud and falling water; the thunderhead symbol, the versatile stepped motif that can be used to evoke other images, as well; and the use and arrangement of the Skystone and other jewels to create the appearance of the great towers that house the rain.
Working from concrete to abstract, we begin with the raincloud stamp.
As I noted above, thi
s is the symbolic form that Wings uses the least frequently. It is, however, a common motif in Southwestern Native art, and usually appears in a form virtually identical to the stamps shown on the handles of these two spoons (clicking on each image will bring up a larger version): A larger rounded “cloud” with two smaller ones at its base, from which descend several lines meant to represent falling rain.
The stamp that he has used here shows the rain falling in straight lines, but there is a variation of this symbol that depicts the lines slanting downward at an angle. Their meaning is typically identical, although it may be that some artists choose to use one or the other to depict more powerful storms.
The second motif is the one depicted in the petroglyph, above. This is not merely a raincloud symbol, but one that translates pictographically more or less literally to “thunderhead.” It’s roughly the shape of a Mayan pyramid, a vaguely triangular stair-stepped shape . . . but turned upside-down, so that the broad flat base is at the top, and the “steps” descend inward until they reach one solitary narrow step. To most people, this no doubt seems backwards: after all, as the photo at the top of this post clearly shows, thunderheads spread out at the base and rise upward, often narrowing as they go, until they resemble pointed towers with rounded edges.
Until the storm arrives.
Once thunderheads reach critical mass, enough to unite and birth the rain, what we are able to see of them looks very different. Suddenly they, like the temperature, are subject to inversion: spread out above us at the top, their upper reaches joining across the sky, then narrowing downward toward the earth in feathery spouts that deliver the rain. If you’ve ever been in this area during monsoon season, you’ve no doubt had a chance to see the storms gathering above the mesas to the west, where the individual showers move along the surface on long slender legs of rain — a bit like enormous violet sky spiders conceived in the mind of Dali.
And so, the inverted pyramid becomes the symbol of the place where the thunder dwells, the symbol of what brings the rain.
And it’s one of Wings’s favorite motifs.
The concha belt shown above, one of his newer masterworks, features this symbol as one of its primary design elements. The belt’s buckle is edged with it on all sides . . . but one of the idiosyncrasies of this particular symbol is that, when used in a chased pattern such as this, it doubles the symbol’s appearance. Look closely, and you’ll see the it produces an alternating positive/negative pattern: the “positive” versions of the motif extend outward from the center area of the buckle; the “negative” ones are those that appear in the area between the stamped symbols, and point in the opposite direction, inward toward the center. In this instance, he chose to stamp all of the negative space with tiny sacred hoops, which are themselves often used as symbols of water. Coupled with the patterns on the conchas and the significant presence of the Skystone, the entire work hints at the recurring theme of our small world here, that water is life. He backed all forty-nine cabochons with sacred traditional tobacco, turning the belt into a celebration of thanksgiving for bringing the rain, and a literal, wearable offering.
It’s a pattern that he uses routinely, one that appears frequently in cuff bracelets, but also in barrettes, buckles, necklaces, rings, and especially in his vario
us series of collectible miniatures. He even uses it 
in works wrought in copper, which is not his usual medium, but from which he has occasionally fashioned a few pieces. The one at left was called Finding Water, a reference both to the matched thunderheads that trace its band and the directional arrowheads that flank each pair. It also evokes some of the old stories from my own and other peoples elsewhere, in which copper is associated with the the Great Lakes, and the Great Water Serpent who is said to inhabit them (and also some of the smaller bodies of water). The cuff at right was called, simply, Sacred Drops, fashioned as it was from sterling silver triangle wire and stamped in a positive/negative pattern that met at the triangle’s apex. Each end of the band was gently shaped into a slight gradient, and stamped with a series of four vertically placed tiny circles, sacred hoops meant to represent water in the form of rain. Each of these cuffs now resides with a different friend, on opposite ends of the country.
It’s a motif that appears on bigger, bolder works, as well: Thundering Sky, at left, an anticlastic cuff with 
a line of matched thunderhe
ads down the center of the band, topped with a spectacular specimen of ultra-high-grade Kingman spiderweb turquoise. This one explicitly invoked the power of the storm, and now adorns the wrist of a friend on the East Coast.
To the right is a work that features a similar center pattern, but one that appears both vertically and horizontally. It’s a piece from his one-man show, and its name evokes its place and function in that exhibit: Sacred Space. It’s also yet one more reminder that water here is sacred, too, and is to be respected and honored accordingly.
There is one slight variation on the symbol that is not primarily used to represent the great stormclouds, although it can be used in that way, as well. It’s the symbol that appears in a chased pattern along the center of the band in the cuff shown directly above. It appears to be a repeating motif of pairs of matched thunderheads, and occasionally it will be used for that purpose, but it’s more commonly a symbol of the Sacred Directions, one that contains spokes and corners extending to cardinal and ordinal points. There are a couple of practical differences here, too: The first is obvious, the Eye of Spirit at the center. The second is unlikely to obvious except to the trained eye — this particular symbol is made by a single stamp designed as a whole. When Wings uses these matched pyramidal shapes to represent thunderheads per se, he more often does so by pairing two images of the actual thunderhead stamp, conjoining them at the broad base. In the case of this cuff, however, which was aptly named Dreams of Earth and Sky, both interpretations were perhaps applicable, since it combined elemental forces and spirits into one exceedingly powerful design. It was also exceedingly popular, and went to the first (of several) to inquire about purchasing it. It now lives on the wrist of one of the frie
nds who owns one of the simpler cuffs.
One of his most popular uses of the symbol appears in his various series of small collectibles: miniature spoons and seed pots and bowls and wedding vases. At right is one of his older collectibles, a seed pot from 2008 or so. In this instance, he placed a thunderhead symbol at each of the Four Sacred Directions, linked to the center by arrows pointing toward each symbol’s tip. It was a powerful evocation of the bringing of the rain, 
and of the seeds rising from the earth’s center to meet it.
At left is one of his miniature collector’s spoons from about a half-dozen years or so ago. At the end of the handle is the Thunderbird, itself a bringer of the storm, but it is the spoon’s
bowl that evokes the symbol we are exploring today: It was edged with a ring of thunderhead symbols pointing inward toward the center, as though funneling rain directly to it in a vortex.
And then at right sits one of his more recent miniatures, a tiny silver wedding vase with the thunderhead symbol placed around the widest point of its bowl in a positive/negative design, one meant explicitly to invoke both the nurturing, life-giving power of the rain and of the inverted “kiva steps” pattern, a nod to the notion of marriage as sacred space.
I mentioned that Wings evokes the notion of the thunderheads in one other way: through the use of gemstones and their
arrangement as collective symbols of the storm. Sometimes, such a design is extraordinarily simple, as with the Morenci turquoise earrings at left, a
pair entitled, simply, Raindrops.
The pair at right made the connection overt, made of oblong Kingman drops with three tiny round darker blue Skystones suspended from each. The name of this pair was, plainly, Thunderheads.
Of course, sometimes the reference is less to the rain than to the clouds, and so it was with one of his recent pairs of earrings, a work created only last fall: Cloud Indigo, at left. Inspired by the great clouds that bring the rain during this season and the snow in the winter months, made of large cobalt blue teardrops of lapis lazuli, each anchored by a denim lapis drop at the top, and three additional raindrops along the lower edge. The colors were reminiscent of the skies that accompany both kinds of storms, intense and dusky blues combined in a swirl of wind and water and the mysteries of the most elemental spirits.
Which brings us, naturally, back to the skies themselves, often manifesting in forms wholly unique to this place. I call them “elemental skies” for good reason: During this season, they shelter the spirits of earth, air, fire, and water (yes, earth by way of dust; fire by way of smoke), and they bring us form and shape, force and power, in all the mysterious complexity that the wind is capable of delivering to us. I have said before that Wings has always been a skywatcher, and while I was referring to his habit of studying the stars, the title refers with equal aptness to his study of the daytime skies. The heavens have long been model and muse for his photography as much as for his silverwork, and he has devoted time and focus to the clouds that journey across them.
About half a dozen years ago, he shot a series of images just outside the door of the gallery in the old village. It was near
the end of the monsoon season, with clear skies for much of the day, but when early afternoon changed their hue from turquoise to cornflower to indigo to near-cobalt, and when the puffy white clouds of morning gave way to an accumulation of larger, darker masses that housed the still-necessary rains.
It was a series that included a half-dozen or so different shots, but three stood out. At the upper right, he captured the view of the thunderheads, visible above the edge of the arbor, just beginning to form above the peaks to t
he north. The sky was darkening behind them, intense blue made brighter by the hot dry air, and by contrast with the bits of cotton that scudded across them, even as the clouds’ bases were already turning violet.
At left was a nearby home, one facing more west than north: walls of warm red-gold earth, door frame the pale icy blue of dawn, window rich and royal, a near-perfect match for the sky overhead. But already, the clouds were scudding closer, just above the roofline, so that the old ladder seemed to climb up into the
thunderhead itself.
Finally, they reached our gallery, its layered rooflines arrayed at angles against the thunderheads, their white light escaping around the much heavier violet grays, to blue of the sky deepening with the gathering storm. It was early yet; the rains would not arrive for another hour or so, but the colors were already present and closing in fast. It was a perfect threshold moment, this hour between the formation of the the thunderheads over distant peaks and their arrival, waiting to be delivered of their burden and their gift.
But perhaps one of Wings’s most apt images was one in which the thunderheads seemed to play only a bit part.
It was this image from his one-man show, a photo that he entitled The Real Sacred Space. The name was a reference, in part, to the vantage point: not, as one might expect, looking inward through the courtyard arch to the church, but rather, looking outward to what lay beyond it. and what lay beyond it, of course, were ancient plaza and village, and still more ancient trees and mountains and skies . . . and nascent thunderheads just beginning to form.
In the decades that I have lived here, I have come to love these great clouds that bring the storm and turn the sunsets into works of celestial art. To me, the thunder is the song and drum of the storm, the voice and heartbeat of the sky, and the lodges from which they perform their Medicine are places that, even in their distance, are healing to my spirit. But it is the image above that perhaps best captures their identity, and that of this place: The real sacred space of Wings’s world exists in the people and their homes; in the dusty earth of the plaza; in the plants and trees and the mountain peaks carpeted with piñon and cedar and aspen; in the turquoise skies that, on the day of the photo, would soon be veiled by the towering lodges of indigo and violet that house the rain, the places where the thunder dwells.
~ 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.
