We were supposed to get rain on Thursday, perhaps lasting into the early hours of yesterday. Instead, an east wind blew the storm apart long before it ever reached us.
Yesterday’s forecast, by contrast, was for a perfectly clear sunny day.
And just after noon, not long after our Internet service went out for what would be more than eight hours, it poured.
The storm was short-lived, and while arriving a bit late, it shared one of the hallmarks of the monsoon season here: storms that rage in the glow of abundant sun, skies blue and black simultaneously and rain golden in the light.
It’s a phenomenon mostly unknown in a lot of other regions on this land mass; in most places, it’s either sunny or it’s cloudy, and if it’s raining, the skies are gray. here, we don’t need a rainbow to have nearly a full spectrum of color with the storm.
We’re fast moving into the days when the full spectrum of color brightens our whole small world here, too: turquoise skies, the last of the green still lush, early notes of red fire on the maples, aspens going gold with leaves like sunlit rain.
It’s a description, and an identity too, that fits today’s featured work perfectly. These are Wings’s newest earrings, completed only last week, and they have instantly become one of my favorites, both for the essential beauty of their materials and for the elemental grace of their composition. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Sunlit Rain Earrings
Summer’s end is the season of sunlit rain, of cloud-webbed turquoise skies and golden light filtered through the drops. With these earrings, Wings pairs Skystone and citrine to invoke the illuminating power and medicine of the last of the monsoons. Each dangling drop is formed of a triangular cabochon of richly-hued turquoise, likely from Arizona’s Turquoise Mountain, each a graceful blend of sky blues and emerald greens, infused with shimmer gold- and bronze-colored matrix. Each sits in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, poised above three round citrine cabochons — translucent like the rain, glowing like tiny suns. The backing for the citrine cabochons and the bails through which the jump rings at the top attach all extend organically from a single piece of silver, cut and filed entirely freehand; the drops dance from sterling silver wires. Earrings are 1.5″ long by 3/4″ to a 7/8″ across at the widest point; citrine cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; natural blue-green American turquoise (like Turquoise Mountain); citrine
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We are not expected to get much precipitation, if any at all, for the next couple of weeks, although we know better than most how the forecast can change in the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. But this is the season of the sun’s power ascendant here, even as the duration and nearness of its light are on the decline.
And the aspens are turning fast now; another week, and the aspen line is likely to be visible on each of the slopes to the east. Our own are usually the last to trade their green robes for gold, but the process has already begun. Even in the absence of water from the sky, these weeks will be filled with a beautiful storm of light and color — leaves like sunlit rain, falling from perfect turquoise skies.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
