It has been a gift, yesterday and today, to have the windows open to the world once again.
For weeks, a heavy pall of smoke has wrapped this land in its toxic embrace. It got so bad that there was possibility of opening the windows to fresh air, because the air was the farthest thing from fresh any longer. The masks we wear now in public against the pandemic were pressed into service here, at our home, on our land, because it was too dangerous to be out of doors with nose and mouth uncovered.
But Thursday evening, the wind shifted; the smoke haze began to lift; blue skies showed themselves to us once again. And while there was haze yesterday, and again today, it is minimal by comparison . . . and the clouds delivered a soft extended shower last night.
One of the gifts of this place is that we are able to take our cues from spirits better attuned now to the natural world than we. Humanity has become far too accustomed to technological convenience and the colonial notion that it can indeed hold dominion over the earth, but other beings know better. The hummingbirds, here in abundance this year, have mostly retired during the day in recent weeks, only emerging in numbers when the smoke haze lifts slightly with the fall of dusk. There are other wingéd spirits here now, too: some returned, some who never left, all with much to teach us, if only we are willing to observe and learn.
Another blessing of this place is that it sits along a migratory path. It functions, with our help, as a sanctuary for wild creatures, and some of them clearly have that knowledge firmly implanted in ancestral memory by now, as successive generations detour here each year to lessen the burdens of their journey, for a time. Now, with the depredations of anthropogenic climate change, we are getting birds out of season, and entirely out of their usual range.
At the moment, in addition to the magpies and crows and ravens, and the smaller finches and sparrows who live here year-round, we have flickers, once mostly visible during summer’s end and early fall only, in residence all the year. We have had that tiniest of winter birds, the chickadee, here all year as well, and the woodpecker family newly arrived appears to be one not known this far north: the ladder-backed woodpecker. The grosbeaks, the chokecherry birds, have been making a home across the highway, and all year long we have had goldfinches and pine siskins well out of season. Now, within the last week or so, there is another: the pine warbler, whose only presence within the boundaries of this state is along a webwork of very narrow migratory lanes, none of which cross this land. But they, and the lark sparrows, and the chippings are now here in number, along with the return the piñon jays, the western and mountain bluebirds, and, I believe, at least one bunting pair.
They come because now every season is migration season, and medicine for the path is to be found here.
Today’s featured work speaks of paths, and of medicine, too: a pendant in the form of humanity’s best tool for healing, overlaid, front and back, with the symbols of movement and of infinity simultaneously, of the way of the hoop itself. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Way of the Hoop Necklace
Our peoples call it by various names: the path, going well through life, the Good Red Road — different means of describing the way of the hoop. It’s the way of our ancestors, given to us by the spirits, a sacred path that, if walked carefully, with a good heart and a strong spirit, will grant us a life of harmony and balance. Wings gives form and shape to the journey, and to our own very personal stake in traveling it, with this necklace, a pendant wrought in the shape of a hand, overlaid front and back with hand-made coils of fiery copper. The pendant is cut freehand of solid sterling silver, thumb and fingers articulated clearly and expressively. On the front, a dual coil formed of a slender length of warm glowing copper is soldered securely into place, the large coil over the palm and the smaller one extending atop the fingers. On the reverse is a second, smaller pair of coils both wound and aimed in the opposite direction, the larger one over the back of the hand and the smaller one extending upward toward the wrist. The hand itself hangs from a hand-made sterling silver bail, lightly flared and hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of conjoined thunderhead motifs, creating a symbol that points to the Sacred Directions. The pendant is suspended from a shimmering chain of solid sterling silver. The pendant, including the bail, is 1-1/8″ long by 1-1/16″ across at the widest point; the bail itself is 1/2″ long by a 1/2″ across at the widest point; the chain is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; copper
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We are facing a world now in which a new wave of migration has already begun, this time for the human population. Climate change may have sparked much of it, but it is colonialism that assures it. And given the human depredations of recent years, it’s going to get much worse, and very soon.
Indigenous peoples around the world are perforce on the front lines: of loss, and of holding the line. We are granted no time off for pandemics, no breaks for politics. There is no rest or respite, no vacation or retreat, no time to decompress and certainly no opportunity for healing in a world that actively still seeks our extermination.
As always, we must make our own, and today’s work reminds us that such possibilities, such abilities, live in all of us — in our teachings and ancestral ways, in our strong hearts and brave spirits. As we bid an early farewell to summer, autumn already well upon the wind, we adapt in months of lockdown to the arrival of migration season, of body and of spirit . . . and we recommit ourselves to medicine for the path.
~ 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.
