Winter has returned with a vengeance.
There was no precipitation overnight, despite the forecast; nothing, in fact, until around nine o’clock this morning. Then the rain fell, briefly, to be replaced with intermittent episodes of graupel, hail, and sleet.
And, of course, the unabated battering of gale-force winds.
It’s been a difficult day on multiple fronts (some of which are contributing directly to the lateness of today’s post). But venturing out of doors today, as we have had to do, has felt like taking our lives in our hands; the winds are cold and brutal and land with all the force of a battering ram.
And despite the minute amounts of rain and sleet and snow, the land is still a tinderbox.
Officialdom has has cause to learn that now; there are at least two major fires raging uncontrolled in the state right now. One is just over a ridgeline from us, to the southeast; that means that we are likely to be safe from all bu the smoke when the wind shifts, as it did yesterday, but the state has just expanded the mandatory evacuation order far beyond yesterday’s scope and has alerted the residents of numerous other tiny towns and rural roads to be ready to leave at a literal moment’s notice. The other conflagration is in the south-central part of the state: As of this writing, ignition first reported around an hour ago, immediately ramping up to 1,000 acres ablaze, and within that hour, having grown to 15,000 acres, and mandatory evacuation notices spreading fast.
Such are spring’s trickster winds here.
Such, too, is this twelve-hundred-year drought and the resultant lack of water: rainwater, groundwater, surface water, any kind of water.
Here at Red Willow, “water is life” has never been a slogan, but a truth so fundamental, so elemental, as to be coded into the DNA of people and place alike. But the watersheds are badly wounded now.
Here, of course, the largest such spirit is the Río Grandé, the Great River that runs alongside this land to the west, its waters racing ever southward. It is as injured as any other now, water levels at record lows and habitats despoiled daily by abuse and an unforgiveable lack of stewardship. I’m referring not to the Indigenous peoples who have always belonged to these lands, of course, but to the colonial and insistently capitalistic exploiters who would rather damage it permanently than give up the proprietary practices of either “experiences” or profit.
The imagery featured in this week’s edition of Red Willow Spirit dates back some sixteen or seventeen years — not long at all, frankly, and yet, a time that was much less fraught in this regard. Drought was still an issue, and in point of fact, although most people did not know it, this land was already in the grip of a five-hundred-year drought, and had been for a decade or so. But there is a world of difference between five hundred years and twelve hundred years, and between the conditions that attended those two historic climatic events, as well.
A world of difference, too, between either of those and conditions now.
Wings shot all four of these photos, plus the subject of yesterday’s photo meditation and several others not featured here this week, all on film, all on the same spring day only moments apart. I suspect that these were taken a bit later in the season, perhaps April’s end, given the amount of snow still visible on the slopes; indeed, at this altitude and through the shadows of the Gorge, it could even have been May, but the lack of green says “April” to me. The Great River winds and wends through the Gorge, and in this stretch, it runs alongside the switchback curves of the highway between Taos and Velarde, a small town at the other end of the canyon on the drive down to Santa Fe. The river itself is a place of magic, of mystery, and of many kinds of medicine, a habitat for several species of ducks and geese year-round, but from fall to spring, also a refuge for bald eagles and the occasional blue heron or sandhill crane. We speak of turquoise, the gem, as the Skystone, and today’s imagery shows exactly why: At proper depth, these waters are so clear and bright that they catch the very color of the sky and reflect it back, a turquoise ribbon in a braid of land and light.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in the image above . . . and perhaps jewel captures it quite like the stones in today’s three featured works of wearable art. All three share commonalities of substance and identity. The first two come from the same category, and are found in the Earrings Gallery here on the site; the third can be found in the Rings Gallery, no ears required. We begin with the first of the earrings, a pair that embodies the ribbons of the river’s traditional spring regalia. From their description:
Ribbon Shirt Earrings
Mother Earth wears a ribbon shirt of streaming blue waters and silvery light. Wings honors her regalia, and the beauty of our natural world, with these spectacularly mobile earrings built around a matched pair of high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The stones manifest in the warm dusky shades of rock and sand and dust, pale ivory and warm tan and deep rich veins of brown, each bisected by a fluttering turquoise ribbon like a river reflecting sun and sky. Each stone is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. From the base of each bezel, by way of hand-formed sterling silver jump rings, three long silver ribbons dance: Made of delicate yet solid sterling silver half-round wire, each of the six ribbons is meticulously stamped in a repeating pattern of butterflies fluttering down their considerable length. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ long overall (excluding the sterling silver wires); cabochons are 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; dangling silver “ribbons” are 1-5/8″ long by 3/32″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair is at once bold and yet very subtle, the “fringe” of ribbons adance but still muted. The ribbons of blue that wend their way through the stones are similarly delicate, a pale robin’s-egg shade like the color of the spring sky. And yet, they are so bright that their lines appear almost opalized, as shimmery as the surface of the river that is their real-life counterpart.
The same river that, if not home quite yet to butterflies for the season, is certainly a sanctuary for goldeneyes.
I know that it’s much simpler now with digital photography, to say nothing of digital filters and photo editing capabilities, to capture and create images that are at once sharp and full of mystical shades. Back when it was all done purely on film, it was a bit harder. Yes, there’s less refinement in this photo, less sharpness to the lines, but this one’s rippling surface and goldeneye’s wake, all in fabulous gradient blues touched with gold and silver light, has always been among my favorites. It shows the depth of these waters in a way more compositionally “perfect” shots can’t do, and in so doing, shows the river’s immanent power and animating spirit, too.
And those blues . . . !
Those blues appear in the second of today’s featured works of wearable art. This is also the second pair of earrings, and these are personal favorites, a braiding of earth and water and sky into a pair of bold, beautiful drops. From their description:
A Braided Earth Earrings
We are bound to a braided earth, our Mother’s brown locks wound with ribbons of water, adorned with rosettes beaded by summer flowers. Wings summons both the beauty of this indigenous land and the twining of our spirits with it in this pair of bold, earthy earrings built around a pair of stunning high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The matched cabochons are formed of a pair of beautifully polished host rock in warm natural shades of beige and tan, brown and bronze. Each is wound on a diagonal by a turquoise ribbon so brilliant that it is nearly opalescent, like a glowing blue river flowing through the earth’s body. The stones are set into scalloped bezels and trimmed with twisted silver. Each earring also terminates in three hand-made drops like the beaded rosettes used to bind our own braids. These are formed of sterling silver ingot, melted and shaped into tiny round beads, then stamped in a flowering pattern. Earrings hang 1-5/8″ long overall excluding the sterling silver wires); the cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; ingot blossoms are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The imagery of this pair is special. It works well: These are weightier, heavy enough that you feel their substance and solidity on your ears, and yet the near-opalescent indigo of the turquoise ribbons braided into them by time is as ethereal as the shimmer upon the waters.
The “earth” of this pair, the “boulder” part of each cabochon, is richer, too — in that regard, a bit like the section of riverbank visible in the third of today’s featured photos.
Yes, the bank wears the same earthy golden-brown of dormant vegetation glowing in the chill light, but here it’s webbed by the darkened strands of bare chamisa and the silvery stalks of local sage. It shows a habitat braided together as one, its elements in community with each other, stronger than the sum of their parts and a more expansive habitat for those who depend upon it, too.
And it shows the role, for earth and water alike, of the light.
The third and final of today’s featured works in silver and stone is a single item, no pairs here. It, too, is braided — a ring, like the image above, in all the shades of sky-reflecting river intertwined with the still-gold of spring earth, the ripples and crests of its locks limned in silvery light. From its description:
A World Braided With Light Ring
At home on Mother Earth, we are blessed to live in a world braided with light. With this ring, Wings weaves strands of earth and water and sky with ribbons of pure silver sunlight, never long distant and proof against the dark. This piece begins with an extraordinary high-grade cabochon of freeform boulder turquoise — likely Kingman, given its colors: rich and earthy golden-brown host rock shot through with patches and pools of perfect sky blue, a world in miniature dotted with flecks of iron pyrite that set the whole of it ashimmer. It’s set into a low-profile scalloped bezel, edged with twisted silver, then placed atop a band split by hand at the top and spread to hold stone and setting boldly aloft. The band is formed of wide, heavy-gauge sterling silver pattern wire, molded in a scored and braided motif that evokes an angular Art Deco sensibility and pays tribute to old local styles of Indigenous smithing. The band is 1/4″ wide; the bezel is 1-1/16″ high by 1″ across at the widest point; the cabochon is 7/8″ high by 3/4″ across at the widest point (all dimensions approximate). [The band is currently size 11; its detail work makes it unsizeable in its current form; a new band can be created in a different size for a $100 fee.] Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; high-grade American boulder turquoise (likely Kingman)
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
[Note: Not resizeable; a new band can be created in any size for a $100 fee]
This work, to me, shows well the way in which the elements of our world braid themselves together into something stronger, better, more beautiful, and more mysterious than anything we could do on our won. [And you really do want to visit the link and see the photos of the ring from other angles; it’ll make clear why its name is so particularly apt.]
Speaking of mysterious, the last of today’s featured photos illustrates the mystery of the river’s beauty perfectly.
Wings shot this one a little further on from the two middle photos — at one of the bends in the river that, at that season and that time of day, was largely in shadow, rendering the river and its waves in shades of turquoise and teal and indigo and even midnight. A solitary goldeneye, separated a bit from the rest of his clan, seems to be a magnet for such sunlight as manages to make it through the peaks, setting the surface of the waters aflame: gold, amber, coral, copper, as though oppositional elements have decided to marry and dance.
It might be a lonely photo, given the duck’s solitude, were it not for the others; we know that he is merely enjoying a quiet moment, his family all within reach. And that in turn reminds me that, colonial systems and structures and worldviews and behaviors notwithstanding, we are not alone, and our actions must reflect that as surely as these waters reflect the very colors of the stormy skies passing by outside our window at this moment.
We must take our cues from this earth, from its elemental forces and animating spirits. In a world so badly wounded now, we must be the jewel, the stone, the water and sky combined: a turquoise ribbon in a braid of land and light.
~ 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.
