The Eve of All Souls’.
It seems largely like an ordinary day, but for the snow that still mostly blankets the ground. But the clouds that drift out from either side of Pueblo Peak hint at haunting mysteries, feathery tips and serpentine bands trailing outward to catch and veil the light. The air is cold and clear, but it holds hints of winter still, and perhaps of other powers, too.
This is the season when the spirits walk.
It’s true of many traditions around the world, and they are not all tied to European Pagan and Christian concepts of Halloween or All Souls’. It’s perhaps simply a natural human instinct, when the light grows short and the nights long, when the air takes on a biting chill, when the leaves turn and fall and the earth seems to blacken and die, to associate such a time with spirits that inhabit other worlds, here to create mischief in our own.
A key word, of course, is seems: There is no death here, not really. Dormancy is another matter, but hibernation is a part of winter, even for us; we go to ground in the cold and the dark, riding out the long nights as warmly as possible while we await the return of the light. We light candles as proof against the shadows, build fires to stave off the cold.
And, in our traditions, we make our offerings to the spirits, small expressions of acknowledgment, of gratitude, of honor and respect.
Today’s featured work was crafted to embody this beautiful tradition, one that speaks to the ways in which we understand the nature and links of family and community, of existence, of nothing less than time itself. It’s a small round spiral named for a small round object used to show honor and respect, one wrought in the shades of season and place and time. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Spirit Bowl Coil Bracelet
The spirit bowl is a traditional means of marking special occasions, of acknowledging the lives of those who have walked on and demonstrating respect for more elemental spirits, too. Wings blends the bold tones of traditional black-on-white and micaceous pottery with an earthy mix representing water and light and the warmth of tradition, all coiled in their own round vessel. At either end are strands of translucent dark heishi, earth tones that appear black on white in the light, melding into lengths of iron pyrite with all the flash and fire of local mica. Next come round orbs of fire and ice, black and white snowflake obsidian, separated by more pyrite from round shimmering spheres of mother-of-pearl shell. Another small expanse of iron pyrite leads to the glowing warm center, large orbs of chatoyant tiger’s eye, like the light glimmers in the clay of the bowls and plates that serve the spirits. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; olivella-shell heishi; iron pyrite; snowflake obsidian; mother-of-pearl shell; tiger’s eye
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This particular coil suits this particular day far more than one might usually expect. After all, it’s not every year — especially not in recent years — that we have snow visible on the ground in October, and the snowflake obsidian orbs in this piece evoke the haunting beauty of the winter to come. The heishi, too, summons similar imagery to mind, the light banded with shadow upon a still-snowy earth.
But the essence of the coil is its insistence on the light: shimmering pyrite like that found in the local earth; the frosted glow of mother-of-pearl, like the chill dawn sky; the warming glow of tiger’s eye, like the rich autumnal sun. And it reminds us why we observe these practices: to honor the ancestors and the spirits, our past and future focused in a hoop of light.
The light is here this morning, only the thinnest of veils now below the sun to south and east. The light will be here tonight, rising in that rarest of forms, the full blue moon, a second full moon in a single month. And the light lives on in our ways, traditions as old as time and as respectful of the forces and spirits that keep our world alive, and us with it.
Tonight will be no night for haunts, but one for honor instead.
~ 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.
