I wrote on Monday that the day was a marker of sorts for me, my childhood envisioning of the threshold of that glorious period known as “Summer.”
It’s perhaps more the case this year, since the warm-season weather has upended its customary schedule. Since our first round of irrigation has coincided with the first of June, we are quite literally crossing that threshold calf-deep in tall green grass and lush alfalfa and fast-running ice-cold water.
For both of us, but especially for Wings, today is a marker of another sort. His thoughts today will be filled with memories linked with this season, and with a newer association that now and forever colors his perception of it. It’s perhaps fitting that he should be consumed with the labors of the land right now; today will remind him of summers spent in this place with his brother, ploughing, tilling, planting,irrigating, tending, sleeping under the stars for days on end.
Back then, people still traveled to the fields from their village homes by horse-drawn cart. Oh, they had modern vehicles, too, but the old ways sufficed. Wings still has the old hand plough that his father used to use, a horse in the traces to help pull it while his father walked along behind to guide the blade. His sons learned to use it, too.
It was one of the regular journeys of summer, traveling out to the fields for planting season: Sometimes the whole family would come, each person with his or her own responsibilities for the day. They would load up the wagon with food and supplies, and when the heat of the day became too much, they would rest beneath the latillas of the arbor. At other times, the boys were dispatched to stay for days at a time, working the fields as part of their regular duties.
Wings has never lost his love for the land, nor for this land specifically. He knows every inch of it intimately, every berm and slope and change in the shape of the soil. Now, we journey into Summer in place, with no need to travel in the usual sense; the tasks of this season can all be performed within walking distance, a reach of some twenty-five acres, all told. But this week, he is thoroughly immersed in the land itself, in caring for it, nurturing it, according it the honor and respect and thanks it deserves for sheltering us.
It’s no wonder, then, that themes of the land and the seasons find their way so regularly into his work. They are a fundamental part of he who is, body and spirit, and when he enters the world of his art, he takes with him the fullness of his identity as a Native man of this place.
Today’s featured piece is one such, an example of his work that melds traditional styles and media with the colors of the land itself: the green of the grass and the trees, the golden bronze of the soil, the wispy white of the foam atop the water reflecting the clouds of the sky. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery:
Summer’s Journey Cuff Bracelet
The Corn Maidens and other female spirits evoke the sights and sounds and smells of Summer, with its lush and fertile greenery. In some traditions, Summer is a time of journeys, of pilgrimages, or simply of the travel associated with planting and growing cycles, all manifested in this heavy-gauge cuff bracelet. Hand-stamped symbols representing the Sacred Directions, possible paths on a journey, travel the length of the band and are topped by five matched round cabochons of soft green turquoise with a warm golden-white matrix. Tiny, evenly-spaced sacred hoops accent the band’s edges, while matched repeating sets of traditional symbols trace the inner band.
Sterling silver; Stone Mountain turquoise
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Just after dawn, the dogs sounded an alarm, racing to the west-side fields. Walking outside, I saw a frightened young coyote pup making his way southward, frozen in place in the middle of his solitary trek. He, too, has places to go on this day at the threshold of Summer. I called the dogs back so that he could resume his journey in peace.
Our own journey today will be more metaphorical, one bounded on all sides by this land and bisected by the water that flows across it. Nevertheless, we will travel deep into the season’s heart, into warmth and memory and even life itself.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
