We were granted late rains yesterday, more overnight, and scattered showers already this morning with the prospect of more to come. The day is gray, the color of slate and the weathered basaltic rock in today’s featured images, air soft and close and even gentle now.
This is not our usual summer pattern here, nor even our more recent drought-ridden one, and the sense of relief that attends it is nearly indescribable.
When I speak of relief, I don’t mean only for us. True, it’s a welcome respite from the temperatures of recent weeks, which neared the century mark daily. I don’t even mean just for the land itself, although the earth is perceptibly relaxing, thirst finally slaked just a bit; the trees stand just a little straighter, the grasses a little taller, such wildflowers as we have at the moment just a little more open to the world, their colors brighter and petals more animated.
But even the creatures that most never notice are feeling it, too. Red Willow sits along a major migratory path, not merely for wild animals and birds but for much smaller beings, too: the butterflies, the dragonflies, the indigenous bees, and countless other tiny creatures of the earth, from insects to spiders to salamanders and snakes. We have seen most of them already in recent days (indeed, all but the salamanders, who have no standing water available to them now), and there will be more to come.
There are more mosquitoes to come, too, with all this damp weather, and for them, we need each small spirit of summer to bring our habitat back into balance. And so it is that we do not scorn such small creatures: the bullsnakes here now are keeping the population of deer mice, known for carrying bubonic plague and hantavirus, under control; while the bees and butterflies are focused mostly on badly needed pollination, the dragonflies and spiders suppress a good portion of the mosquito population. With West Nile endemic to mosquito colonies now, encouraging the presence of their natural predators has become, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
And so it is that these small spirits of the earth that so many others seek to exterminate are made welcome here. Even the black widow, like the one shown here in these three images from a series Wings shot on a damp and chilly May day some half-dozen years ago, we leave to her own devices: She doesn’t bother us, and we return the favor, allowing her the tiny haven of her preferred corner, well out of range of the rest of us, in which to trap mosquitoes and those annual pests, the flies.
But she is beautiful in her own right — a creature of visions and dreams and other worlds, too.
The rock in the image above is one of the giant boulders here on the land. It’s a blend of ancient basaltic and other matter, some granite-y shimmer here and there beneath the rough oxidation of long exposure to extreme elements. And on that gray spring day, she had found a relatively warm spot on which to sun herself, next to ragged feather dropped by one of the invasive collared doves that have colonized this place as surely as the humans who first ripped them from their own habitat and brought them to this land in the first place.
Of the whole series, the image above was by far the best, and I believe it was the first one in the series that Wings shot. We had had a little rain, which back then was vanishingly rare for the morning hours, and her glossy jet body was still beaded with drops. She was, momentarily, on a flat surface on a boulder that is, in fact, full of curves and angles, not much space for anything larger than she to find purchase; her legs and antennae were all extended fully, showing her off to best effect. And she seemed essentially unbothered by this giant creature, so woefully deficient in number of legs, looming high overhead with the black box full of clicking noises. She seemed content, for the moment, just to rest, perhaps dreaming of warming winds and finding a comfortable place to weave her web.
In some Indigenous traditions, her web is the guardian of dreams; in others, she is a gatekeeper of such worlds. It gives her, perhaps, a special status as a keeper of portals, a spirit of liminal spaces.
She certainly fulfills such a role at a more practical level, offering us beauty and keeping us safe even as she keeps us at arm’s, or rather, leg’s length; like all such beings, she gives, but it is unwise to approach her too closely or with any lack of respect for her power. She is manifest in a similar role, too, in today’s featured masterwork, one of my own personal favorites — a spirit whose very head and body form the beauty of a high-desert day and night. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Spider Woman Cuff Bracelet
Our dreams are the threshold between our contemporary existence and ways much older than memory. In many traditions, Spider Woman is the gatekeeper of such thresholds, and today, we still use the gift of her web to protect our dreams. Here, her ancient power is embodied in this spectacular cuff, hand-wrought from sterling silver and adorned with stones of protection and power. Her eight legs, texturized by hand-stamping extend from the dazzling oval lapis cabochon that forms her body. Hand-cut, hand-stamped pincers and silver spacer beads accent the protective Skystone of Sleeping Beauty turquoise that forms her head. Another view shown below.
Sterling silver, lapis lazuli, and Sleeping Beauty turquoise
$1,200 + shipping, handling, and insurance
You have never seen a lapis lazuli cabochon like this. The Sleeping Beauty turquoise cabochon that forms her head is flawlessly clear and bright as the morning sky, but the lapis that forms her body is a whole other level of mystery: a kaleidoscopic whirl of deepest violet blue, with hints of midnight and navy, cobalt and indigo, layer upon layer of dark night skies with the faintest traces of starlight.
Fitting, for a spirit who guards and guides dreams.
Of course, at the practical level of this plane of existence, it is her legs and their work that we notice most.
Wings took the second photo after she had decided to move . . . and promptly tumbled down the side of the boulder to land on her back, red diamond clearly visible. Using a twig, he helped her right herself, them stepped back to watch her progress. She had picked up a tiny bit of dried plant matter along the way, but it didn’t stop her from moving.
And it was an education in her expert use of her limbs and antennae, having learned rapidly from her mistake of a moment before. Instead of a panicked hurry, she slowed her progress, feeling ahead of her as she moved, making sure that each step would be on solid ground, or at least on solid rock, as the case might be.
It’s an aspect of her being that Wings captured in today’s featured work. The image above shows the beauty of her bejeweled body, but this second shot is all about her long legs.
It perhaps seems unlikely that a cuff could so thoroughly embody Spider Woman’s eight legs, but Wings managed it in masterful form. He cut four lengths of heavy sterling silver half-round wire, each six inches long, and stamped the entirety of their convex surfaces in a repeating pattern of crescent moons — fitting for a spirit who sits at the threshold between day and night. Then he soldered them all carefully together at the center, fusing them into one solid piece with eight legs extruding, four to a side. Once satisfied that the center would hold, he bent the entire piece gently around a mandrel to form the cuff, then stood it upright and separated the ends of each leg slightly to create a sense of animated motion. Only then did he add the body and head, all of a piece with the pincers, the distinctive bezels and the ingot separator beads.
Complete, the cuff looked a little like the final shot he captured of her black widow counterpart on that day six years ago:
By this point, she had found a new goal, and was headed toward it. Her legs were splayed on either side, the better to grip the ridgeline of the boulder, while she inched herself over it. From there, she probably found a place in the corner of the fence just beyond, concealed partially by plant matter, where she could safely set up housekeeping and begin her own work.
It’s the work of dreams — her dreams, but ours as well. The presence of this small being, so scorned and spurned in colonial spaces, is in fact a gift. For Spider Woman, whatever else she may be, is also a spirit of liminal spaces, a bringer of beauty and harmony.
~ 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.
