The mercury has dropped a bit today, apparently in preparation for tomorrow’s forecast weather, and helped along by a fierce and rising wind. Those predictions have ranged from a mere dusting to three inches, and seem to change with the hour. The current radar map doesn’t look promising, but we know how rapidly conditions can change here, and the influx of clouds suggests that there is the potential, at least, for real snow.
We’ll be grateful for whatever falls.
For now, though the mix of sun and clouds yields that particular beauty of winter here, storm and light together, all the shades of the sun falling upon walls and slopes alike, and all the medicine of the snow, as well. It’s true that there is no snow falling here, but already small passing storms are enfolding the various peaks, releasing a little badly-needed precipitation before moving on to the next ridgeline.
And as it moves, the light moves with it — the serpentine dance of the sun in the storm.
These lands known as Red Willow are one of those places where it’s entirely possible for heavy snow to fall while the sun shines its brightest. It’s a function of the way storms localize here: Even now, I can see exposed ridges on the nearest side of Pueblo Peak, their angles dusted with new snow glowing in the light, while one the next ridge on the same mountaintop is entirely shrouded , snow falling as I write. It happens here at lower elevations, too, with snow falling overhead while one or more of our own fields glows brilliantly (and entirely dry) in the sun, or where the weather misses us entirely even as the next parcel of land is granted a windfall in more ways than one.
But it’s not just the dynamics of weather that are unusual here. As I’ve noted here so many times before, the light in this place is its own animated and animating spirit, whatever the season, but it’s also part of what defines this place. And this edition of Red Willow Spirit is dedicated to its relationship with earth and sky, a winter dance of mountain, snow, and light.
It begins with two photos of the same subject(s), both, like the one featured in yesterday’s photo meditation, taken on winter mornings some sixteen or seventeen years ago. Both were shot by Wings on film, both from the same vantage point: the close-up above on an early winter’s morning, not so very long after dawn, as the sun gained the eastern ridgeline to cast its rose-tinted glow across the eastern walls of North House; the distance shot below taken perhaps no more than a day later, from the perspective of a little distance, showing the same walls and rooflines and ladders, the same glowing adobe clay and stark shadows, wrapped with the mountain slopes in a dusting of new snow, the storm filtered with sunlight but still fully present. It used to be a common sight in the old village, more common than the near-complete lack of any white on the slopes and peaks these days, and it’s a stark reminder of what land, space, and place need here to survive.
Today’s two images are linked by a single masterwork in silver and stone, one that captures the interplay of light and shadow, sun and storm, and even the rich evergreen of the mountains that hold it all in their embrace. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
All the Shades of the Sun Necklace
One day beneath an alpine desert sky shows us all the shades of the sun, and all of the medicine of its warmth and light. With this necklace, Wings summons the fiery amber glow of the sunrise and the banded sunset flames to dance with the luminous shimmer that filters through the midday storm. The pendant, cut freehand of solid sterling silver, is built around three spectacular cabochons: at top, an elongated trapezoidal specimen of beautifully marbled Indonesian Maligano jasper, sunny shades of gold and peached veined with the slate blue-gray of trailing stormclouds; bookended below, the golden glow of dawn captured in an oval of agatized amber, and all the fires of the dusk in a bloodstone ellipse, beautifully banded in a gradient of dusty rose and ivory, teal and crimson. All three cabochons are set into scalloped bezels atop a single organic backing, framed on their extended edges by freehand stampwork in a raidant motif. The beads in the strand were all hand-selected to pick up the colors in the cabochons, from rounds of slate gray moonstone banded with peach inclusions to sunstone, gray-white moonstone, cloud jasper, and fire agate, punctuated by giant old amber rondels, faceted Indonesian silver barrels, and freeform nuggets of golden and cherry amber, anchored at either end by alternating rounds of fire agate and bloodstone followed by dusky teal Kambaba jasper. Bead strand is 22″ long, excluding findings; pendant including bail is 3-1/2″ long; pendant alone is 3″ long by 1-5/8″ across at the widest point; bail is 1/2″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; Maligano jasper cabochon is 1-3/8″ long by 15/16″ across at the widest point; amber cabochon is 15/16″ long by 5/8″ across; bloodstone cabochon is 1-3/16″ long by 9/16″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Pendant: Sterling silver; Maligano jasper; agatized amber; bloodstone
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings
Beads: Gray moonstone with peach inclusions; old amber; sunstone; Indonesian silver; moonstone; cloud jasper
fire agate; amber; cherry amber; black moonstone; bloodstone; Kambaba jasper
$2,000 + shipping, handling, and insurance
As I watched this piece take shape, I admit to being slightly unconvinced. The three stones all share commonalities, of course, but it would never have occurred to me to put them together in this way.
I should have known that Wings’s vision for the piece was right: The three stones do indeed combine all the shades of the sun here, but the bead strand also captures this alpine earth and sky, and the storms and light that sustain it.
And, indeed, they mix and merge and meld to capture the look and feel of the second image perfectly:
I have always loved this imager, both for the simple medicine of the snow and for the complexity that its composition represents: the stair-stepped rooflines of multi-story architecture that has stood for a thousand years and more, the clay walls that have done the same, the fact that, for that millennium-plus, they have weathered such extremes, both of the elements and of more dangerous arrivals yet, and remain in their original form. Yes, they’re resurfaced every few years, but even now all the mudding and plastering is down the old, with the same adobe clay the people’s ancestors used — itself a mix of earth and water and straw and air and, yes, light, infused as it is with local mica that shimmers beneath the gaze of an ancient sun.
It’s still difficult for us to grasp the fact that our world here has changed so drastically in such a short period of time — that what only a decade ago would be land covered with snow measured already in feet now struggles to attract even the barest dusting. And that very dissonance is a sharp reminder that we cannot be complacent now, nor ever again. Perhaps tomorrow we shall be granted that gift we once took for granted, the chance to witness a winter dance of mountain, snow, and light.
And we need to keep working to recreate and reclaim a world that makes possible its regular return.
~ 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.
