It’s hot.
It’s been this way for days: an official high only in the low to mid-eighties, but the feeling of it being well into the nineties. Of course, that could just be the thinning of the ozone layer even further, but it’s more likely to be real; our tiny plot of land is its own microhabitat, with temperatures inevitably higher than the recorded highs in summer and much lower than the official lows in winter.
For this week, I had planned to feature clouds and green — not so much because we have them, because increasingly we don’t, but rather, as a visual respite from the harsh extremes outside our door. As I write, the blue skies of midday are rapidly giving way to new gray clouds from the northwest, but whether they grant us any relief remains to be seen.
Here at Red Willow, time was (and not so very long ago, either) that we would have been virtually guaranteed some good rains on this day — indeed, it’s long been a running joke here that the Fourth of July fireworks are always doomed to be rained out until very late — but half a decade on, those patterns no longer hold. Neither do the patterns of ordinary seasonal divide; in recent years, record megadrought and aridification have sen the turning of the leaves begin virtually as soon as full leafing occurs, in the latter half of June.
And, outside a few minutes ago, I observed that the friable upper leaves of the aspens, already drying and beginning to shrink these two weeks past, have begun to yellow at the edges.
We need rain. We also need relief from the relentless destruction of ongoing colonial invasion, of the rapine of earth and air and water for profiteering and essential greed.
It’s long been clear that no one with the authority and means to do so will correct the latter, and the former depends upon the whims of weather (and its ability to survive the damage inflicted by the other). And so our task becomes one not merely of trying to hold onto the health and well-being of our own small bit of land, but to the memory of what our world was like when it was healthy, so that future generations may know what was and what can be, if only colonial populations and governments can be convinced to put in the work.
This week’s edition of Red Willow Spirit is a mix of clouds and green and light, a lushness of earth and sky captured in two relatively recent images, linked by a single work of wearable art that embodies them both. The first image, shown above, is a flowering of water and sky, of cloud and mist and fog above fertile branches and beneath an early alpine snow. It’s a shot that Wings captured in digital format just after summer’s official end six years ago — our very last year of anything that could remotely be described as “normal,” taken at a time when summer still lingers amid the first signs of real fall.
That year, the peaks were granted an early snow, dusting the Spoonbowl with white. With the blue of the evergreen-forested slopes beneath, long willow fronds in the foreground and a rich band of fog embracing the mountain, it reminds me of images of volcanic regions: the Andes, Hawai’i, other mountainous lands of extreme elemental forces and rich contrasts between dark and light.
It’s fitting, since so much of and here is volcanic, too: ancient basalt formations among mountain ranges once entirely submerged beneath the seas. But the image above is also haunting, in a way — one of serenity, of tranquility, of contentment . . . and yet, a stark reminder of the sheer power of this place. In recent years, the power has manifest in some of its most destruction forms (drought, wind, wildfire), but the capacity for healthier versions remains, if at a much lower ebb than it should be.
And if we can remember what a healthy world looks like, we can design and implement the actions needed to rebuild and restore it.
While the rest of our small local world watches the skies hoping for a clear night for the concert and for whatever marginally-legal and utterly reckless fireworks they plan to set off, our eyes are fixed on the clouds, praying for a flowering of rain. For it is that which will midwife a flowering of the earth, already the texture of ash and old bones once more.
And it is this flowering of the earth in the petals of summer that animate today’s featured work of wearable art. It is, in point of fact, the very first work every created in its collection, a mix of seasonal shades and rich textures that glow like the post-storm summer light. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Petals of Summer Necklace
The petals of summer paint a warming world bright and new. Wings evokes the greening world and the gentle pink of the summer wildflowers with this bead necklace, a graduated collection of orbs and nuggets in shades of rose and jade. The strand is anchored at either end by tiny chips of brilliantly translucent peridot, highly polished yet still freeform and wild as the new growth of leaves. Each section leads to a short length of four round beads of green garnet in ethereal shades of gold and green and rose and wine, each small orb aswirl with shimmering inclusions. The garnet flows into textured nuggety lengths of rhodochrosite, lightly polished chips like geometric petals flowering of their own accord. The rhodochrosite beads flank the bold center section of the strand: sixteen perfect round spheres of unakite, small worlds marbled in the green of summer grass and the antique rose of Indian paintbrush. Beads are strung on sturdy but flexible wrapped bead wire and held with sterling silver findings. Strand is 18″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. First in The Beaded Hoop Collection. Coordinates with From Smallest Seeds earrings (sold). Long view shown at the link.
Bead wire; sterling silver; unakite; rhodochrosite; green garnet; peridot
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I have always loved this one, and not merely for the sentimental reason that it was the first of its kind. The photos don’t do the colors justice, never mind the textures: old, old orbs of unakite, finely polished but with all the natural pitting that occurs with true hand lapidary work; chunky little nuggets of bright pink rhodochrosite, pinking up the pink and peach hues of the unakite; a short gradient bridge of green garnet, four per side, matched for color, to link the underlying rose reds of the rhodochrosite to the shimmering lime-hued anchor nuggets; and, of course, those electric, almost neon green peridot chips, full of summer’s translucent foxfire.
And this luminous, ethereal mix of pink and green fire animates the second of today’s featured images beautifully:
This one dates back two years, very nearly to the day: Wings shot it in digital format from our upstairs deck on the evening of June 30th, 2021. If today’s first image shows the unseasonal beauty of a stormy morning in [almost] summer, this one captures the medicine of such a day at its end.
I know this looks as though it’s been edited, but it hasn’t. It’s a casual snap from his cell phone, taken before the last of the clouds, still clinging to the mountainside, gave up and passed through the break between the peaks. It was sunset, more set than sun by then, and, as happens here occasional in this land of the mystical, magical light, it turned our whole small world shades of pink and green: a double rainbow, shining neon in the mist, the hazy green of the fields below, clouds and sky transformed into a flowering rose light . . . and around the edges, the shadows of his hands, cupping the screen to keep it as free as possible from the scattered raindrops, and turning the scene simultaneously into shadowbox and snow[less] globe.
We do still get these extraordinary manifestations of the light at this season, particularly when storm clouds are still present, even if we get no rain from them. Of course, it is the rain that we need, but perhaps the light is the best this wounded earth can do at times: an offering of a gift, a little medicine, if not to mend the body then at least to heal the spirit. Given the looks of today’s clouds, that may be what we are granted tonight.
And that, too, is a lushness of earth and sky, if not in the usual meaning of such words. These are days no longer of climate change, but of climate collapse, which makes them perforce days of adaptation, of endurance, of strength, of resilience. Such beauty helps us to endure, even to thrive.
And that in turn helps us to rebuild, to renew, to reclaim and rebirth.
This day, for us, has nothing to do with so-called “independence.” This is a day for gratitude, for courage, for truth . . . and for the work.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
