Finally, the weather has returned to something approaching normal for Red Willow in October: brilliant sun, nearly flawless blue skies, and for us, plenty of new gold on the trees now.
On both sides of the highway, our neighbors’ trees have mostly long since faded to yellow brown — thsoe that still have leaves, that is. This year, whole stands have already stripped to the bare bones of their branches, pale and skeletal in the lowering light. We are fortunate to have some days, perhaps weeks, of color left, even though on the opposite end of the year, they were also be among the last to leaf.
When I plotted out this week’s posts, the extended forecast still predicted rain for this week, although it’s become clear that there is precious little chance of any precipitation here. Last week’s rains were as unseasonal as they were unexpected, and we have seen such October weather here only a couple of times in current memory. The images in today’s featured post are of one of those rarest of autumn moments here, dating back a decade almost to the very day, from October of 2012. Wings shot them along the main highway heading north out of town, just north of the post office on the opposite side of the road, panoramic views of the frontage fields on tribal lands at the foot of the peaks.
On that particular day, the gold of the cottonwood stands glowed like molten amber against the lowering gray of the sky.
But on that day, I suspect that those clouds held snow even for us.
Now, climate warming and drought have meant that, despite the chill that attends the night, our days are still far too warm even for a hard frost, never mind snow. And in addition to the conspicuous lack of early flurries thus far, even the landscapes that are the subject of today’s two featured images are drastically altered now: This year, there is precious little gold, never mind remnant green, in that stand of cottonwoods; more than half of the trees were bare throughout the summer this year. the old sentries in the foreground? Reduced to one extended but broken stump and a few new clones that have managed to withstand our changed conditions for the moment, at least.
If the spirit of fall is to be found here mostly in the light, it’s one whose beauty benefits from the collaboration and conspiracy of earth and air, of trunk and leaf. In years such as this, when later rains are not enough to overcome the depradations of a truly deadly record drought, fall becomes a dull and faded thing by comparison, its colors washed out by a withering, shriveling gray —not, you understand, the rolling rich grays of the undulating cloud cover seen above and below (and last week, directly overhead), but rather the lifeless, fossilized look of leaves surrendered to winter before their time.
Even today, the clouds have moved in closer, rising high behind and above the peaks now. But the shraply angled light of the late-day sun has set the aspen outside the front window aflame, molten gold edged here and there with bronze, like doubloons already transforming into copper pennies as they await the arrival of the snow that here is worth more than both combined.
And as the peaks, themselves seemingly turned gray in the shadow of the cloudy skies in today’s pair of photos, remind us that here at Red Willow, there is always a spirit of green at the Earth’s heart.
It’s a truth found in the substance and spirit, and indeed in the name itself, of today’s featured work of wearable art. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
From the Heart of the Earth Necklace
From the heart of the earth our whole world grows. Wings pays tribute to this evolutionary process with this necklace, a cross that is not a cross, but the embodiment of elemental forces and nurturing spirits. The pendant’s form is a very old design, one that circumvented colonial insistence on Christianity by appearing to adopt its four-spoked shape — and then adding an extra bar and a curving end to produce the form of a much older spirit: that of Dragonfly, a pollinator, a messenger, a symbol of romantic love and life’s abundance. Here, Wings has honored another old adaptation of the style, turning the curved tail at the base of the lowest spoke into a stylized heart. Above the heart, the pendant extends upward and outward to the Four Sacred Directions, each of the remaining five spokes stamped with a single thunderhead symbol pointing inward toward the center, a sign of the rain that keeps our Earth herself alive. Above the top spoke, the hand-made bail flowers into a lush green peridot; at the base in the center of the heart, the place of emergence, two tiny hand-stamped flowers are wedded into the form of a butterfly, a small spirit rising from its own place of emergence to continue the processes of pollination and prosperity. The cross is made of solid fourteen-gauge silver, and hangs 2-5/8″, the bail 3/4″ (the pendant is 3-3/8″ in total length; 1-1/8″ across at the widest point); the stone is 3/8″ long; the pendant hangs from an 18″ sterling silver snake chain (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; peridot
$1,150 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work always makes me think of the old warriors that once stood sentry in the field in today’s photos: all but one stump now gone, yet their memory lives on. It’s a tribute to ancient ways and spirits, disguised a little, perhaps, in a way that protects imagery and people alike from the depredations of colonialism, and yet remains true to what lives at the heart of Earth and people, land and symbol.
Truths that withstand the unseasonal storm and the drought, the ravages of a climate already in collapse on too many fronts and the persistence of the colonial violence that drives it.
Now, as dusk encroaches and I see the gilded aspen before the clouds above the ridgeline outside our window, I feel as though I’m seeing one aspect of the image above up close. In truth, I am, of course; it’s merely a closer view and a different angle, but it’s the same mountains, the same season, a bit of the same light.
And it reminds me of the essential truth above: of a spirit of green at the Earth’s heart, one of abundance in the face of destruction, of medicine to spite the catastophic harm that attends our every day now.
It’s a lesson that the spirit(s) of fall seemingly must teach us again every year, but one with more urgent resonance in these days when earth, water, the breath of life itself are turned fully to the work of resistance. We, at least, are listening.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
