Today reminds us why we are so fond of our fires.
The original forecast was for intermittent flurries overnight that would deliver no more than an inch. Now, in late midday, there is an easy foot of snow blanketing the fields. Up here around the house, it’s mostly less deep, largely because the fierce and spiraling winds kept it blowing ad drifting in irregular patterns all morning. At this moment, the sun is out, but the snow is still falling, and a large dank bank of clouds remains visible below the blue.
Tonight, the mercury will plunge well below zero, and the wind chill will be deadly.
People forget that snow can burn.
Here at Red Willow, of course, the people don’t forget This is The Dragon’s Tail, and in winter, that great elemental being circles his spirit around to breathe a different kind of fire.
Colonial systems compartmentalize by their very nature. By their nature, too, they prefer binaries; if they can “show” something to be black of white, good or bad, it becomes far easier to manipulate public opinion and induce specific actions in service of its agenda, one necessarily founded upon proprietary notions of commodification, exploitation, profit, and plain old greed. Nuance is always a complicating factor for such worldviews, and the idea that anything can be more than one thing at once, or even hold oppositional forces and powers simultaneously, is anathema to the oversimplification upon which it depends for survival.
But our way of understanding our world holds as true the possibilities and promise of an infinite universe, and sees no contradiction in elemental powers capable of embodying opposing forces. And so we recognize that earth and sky are not wholly separate, that water and air can be one, that fire can burn both hot and very, very cold.
Today’s post includes three images, each of which Wings captured in our gallery in the cold season some twelve or thirteen years ago, as well as two works wrought in sterling silver that are both brand-new. The photo above is a close-up of the fire inside the kiva-style fireplace along the gallery’s west wall. In those days, we burned piñon wood exclusively in the gallery (although we used mostly the cleaner-burning aspen at home); it emits a spicy, fragrant scent that is one of the hallmarks here of winter, and it holds in its smoke the gifts of tradition and memory.
Smoke and flame alike find expression in the two silverwork pieces featured here today. The first, show below, embodies the latter; from its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Winter’s Flame Earrings
A winter’s flame dances with all the hammered-silver glow of snow and ice in the low-angled light. Wings sets the season ablaze with these simple, spare earrings in the shape of the fire itself. Each dangling drop is cut entirely freehand from sterling silver, sides graceful, gradual arcs that terminate in curving points. Each is also hammered freehand to create a rippling, dancing surface, as changeable in the light as any blue-tipped flame, suspended from organic tabs and sterling silver wires. Earrings are 2-1/4″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver
$225 + shipping, handling, and insurance
But a winter’s flame, whether literal fire or the metaphorical burn of ice, is most effective when properly harnessed and controlled. It’s not a task, or a skill, either, that humans can afford to take lightly; fire, after all, is one of the basic elemental forces of the world, and we have seen in recent years the obliterating destruction it can wreak.
But our peoples have been managing this force since the dawn of time itself, not merely for our own warmth and light but in ways far more expansive that keep the habitat in good health and harmony. Up close and personal, though its management requires a form of containment that nonetheless allows its beneficial properties to work to best effect.
Enter the traditional fireplace. If the beauty of the elemental glow in the image at the top takes your breath away, the subject of this one ensures that you can breathe properly while the fire burns. What are now called “kiva” fireplaces are simply adobe fireplaces built into the walls and/or the corners of old traditional adobe Pueblo homes, wrought of the same clay as the ancient structures themselves (and the same as that used in the decorative pottery and clayware for which its artists are famed world-wide). Their utility has to do in part with the adobe itself, the insulating properties of which they are formed . . . and also of their unique inner shape, which works powerfully to pull the smoke up the flue even as it pushes the heat and light out into the room. There is a singular beauty, too, to seeing the dancing reflection of the flames against the micaceous clay walls of its interior, one that also subtly enhances its glow.
Such open fireplaces require tending, of course, but that should be true of any flame. Their capacity for burning evenly generates a wonderful warmth and emits a clean, even tendril of smoke from the chimney. It’s the smoke that fills with the plaza with its fragrance in winter, a rich, woodsy, spicy scent that is clearly identifiable and just as clearly tied to culture and place.
The second of today’s featured works is sister to the first, but with its own unique spirit: larger, long, its glow more subtle, hints of cold blue fire among spiraling silver smoke. From its description in the same gallery:
A Cold Silver Fire Earrings
True winter arrives on the flames of a cold silver fire, a chill so deep it burns as bright as the light of the most distant star. Wings honors the season and the extremes of its elemental gifts with these earrings, stylized teardrops that shift and shimmer and dance like pure silver flame. Each is cut entirely freehand of lightweight sterling silver, filed smooth and hand-hammered to catch and reflect the glow of any available light. These dancing drops hang long and dangling, suspended from sterling silver earring wires threaded through organic tab rings at the top. Earrings hang 2-3/4″ long, excluding wires, by 11/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver
$275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Thee are the flames of winter, burning hot and cold at once. They remind us, too, of the need to tend our inner fire, not merely to keep body and spirit warm, but to keep us string and brave and ready for the work required of us.
And that, too, is a different kind of fire: one that holds all the beauty of its real-life counterpart, one that needs tending just as consistently, one that is just as powerful a force for warmth and light, healing and harmony.
The deep cold of winter is here; so, too, are the deeper dangers to our world’s most vulnerable now. The work is needed, and so are we.
It’s time to stoke that fire.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
