For the second night in a row, line after line of steady, soaking rains passed through here, and this morning, the earth here is alive, refreshed and renewed.
It is nowhere near enough, of course; had we been getting such weather all season, it wouldn’t be enough to alleviate the five-hundred-year drought that has plagued this land for the last quarter-century. But in a summer when that drought has deepened to truly deadly levels, when the maples never lost last year’s red and the cottonwoods are already going gold and the earth has gone increasingly more brown than green?
Two consecutive nights of steady precipitation are much more than a gift. This is rain medicine.
And wonderfully, more is forecast for today; for tomorrow and the next day, too. We have had flash-flood warnings in effect for days, but here, at least, they have been unneeded: These have mostly not been harsh cloudbursts, but softer, steadier, longer rains that soak the soil, feed the plants, heal the land. And on this morning, for the first time in two or three days, the skies overhead are a hot brilliant turquoise, the light is silver and bright . . . and the thunderheads are steadily building upon themselves at the horizon in all directions.
Even when healing is temporary, it is still a gift, and this morning, you can almost hear the earth sighing in relief and contentment.
Today’s featured work is rain medicine distilled into beautifully jeweled and wearable form. It is medicine as thin, as process, and as result: healing from sacred waters, cloud-webbed skies and silvered rain and the healing plants that grow beneath their gifts. [It’s also one of Wings’s newest works, and a personal favorite.] From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
From Sacred Waters Cuff Bracelet
From sacred waters medicine flows and grows. In this place, both the lake and the rain and snow that feed it are sacred: the first medicine, the one that allows all others to flourish. Wings honors them all with this cuff bracelet wrought in the shapes and shades of water and light and all that flowers beside them. At the center sits an extraordinary free-form cabochon of ultra-high-grade water-web Kingman turquoise, a perfect blend of robin’s-egg and sky blues with a tight, inky spiderweb matrix. It’s set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, then set upon a wide yet lightweight sterling silver band cut freehand into four sparkling strands, each stamped in a two separate, facing rows of flowering medicine. The four strands remain united at the ends of the band, each end stamped deeply and cleanly with flowing water and wildflowers dancing between compass motifs, their spokes and corners pointing to the Sacred Directions. Across the inner band are scattered a few stamped hearts, symbols of the love the spirits show in providing us with the water, with the plants, with life itself. The band is 6″ long by 1-1/2″ across, with each of the four individual strands measuring 3/16″ across; the turquoise cabochon is 1-3/4″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade water-web Kingman turquoise
$,1750 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s rare to see repeating, chased stampwork so deep and uniform and consistent, all wrought as freehand as the delicate cutwork that creates the band. And, as is so often the case with Wings’s work, the underside contains a special gift of its own: scattered hearts, symbol of the love that attends the healing of the First Medicine, and a small special secret between the band and the one who wears it.
And then there is the stone. An extraordinary, outsized freeform cabochon of ultra-high-grade water-web Kingman turquoise, it is a phenomenon unto itself, an elemental object, talismanic and seemingly invested with power we can only dimly comprehend. I look outside the window now, and I see its beautiful clear color, intense and bright; I see the webbing of the clouds working their magic at the horizon, preparing to spread across the sky in much the same way as, eons ago, the water worked its way across and through the stone.
But it is the band that makes this piece: long silver bands of shimmering rain, each one alive with medicine, flowing and growing simultaneously.
We have a few hours yet before the rain moves in; a bit more of the day in which to appreciate blue skies and abundant sun. But we are grateful, this day, that the blue and the light are here only for a time, for the earth is still in need of healing.
For now, we give thanks for the rain medicine to come.
~ 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.
