Last night’s breathless weather forecast notwithstanding, the skies produced only the faintest dusting of snow overnight — not enough to cover a single surface, much less the ground. We were forced to be out of the house very early this morning, and the roads were a slick mess, mostly a faint rime of slush that was still iced over, and the skies were the color of dull pewter on all sides.
There was a feeling not precisely of anticipation in the air, but of breath held all the same: a winter’s Earth, waiting, praying for the snow.
Now, in late morning, the skies are white, and fine, light flurry is falling outside the window. Predictions are still for half a foot to a foot or more, so perhaps we shall yet see a genuine storm here, but at the moment, it feels as though the real weather will be confined mostly to the peaks.
But if that’s the way the storms shakes out today, it’s better than the reverse; if we can have snow only in one place or the other, the mountains take precedence. Here at Red Willow, snow on the peaks is what feeds the whole of our earth here, peaks and slopes and valley, land and trees and wild creatures alike. It is the snowpack that feeds the waters of our whole small world here, the mountain lakes and the wild rivers and the streams and ditches that transport the first medicine to a thirsty earth in spring.
The photo above and the two below are early-generation digital images, if memory serves: from the winter of 2006 into 2007, or perhaps 2007 into 2008 or 2008 into 2009; no later than that, certainly. They show this land as it existed in this season just over a decade ago, when climate change’s effects were already beginning to show themselves, but the extent of the ravages to come was yet unknown and indeed unimagined. Drought is, of course, always a possibility here, even in the best of years, but we were unprepared for just how rapidly colonialism’s farthest-reaching sins would plunge our world into one that remains unbroken today, despite the small amounts of precipitation the skies scatter here and there. More than five years ago, our snowpack was a two-thirds of its usual level, a catastrophic state of affairs (and that descriptor is not even the slightest bit of hyperbole). Now? We no longer even know, beyond the fact that it is now at deadly lows, far lower than at any time in living memory.
For today, though, we are granted at least the gift of flurries, and of more at higher elevations. It will feed the waters, and the land, keep the evergreens true to their names and allow most of the wild indigenous plants to leaf and flower. And so we hope, and we pray, like a winter’s Earth, waiting in the stillness of the nascent storm.
Today’s featured silverwork items are winter spirits, too, even as they nurture our world year-round. These are two entries in one of Wings’s longest-running and mostly informal signature series; there is a third remaining in inventory, and it does not appear here today because it will be featured on its own this weekend. Both of today’s works, which assume the form and shape and spirit of their real-life counterparts, just visible in the backcountry at the farthest reaches of today’s photographs, are found in the Pins Gallery here on the site. We begin with one adorned with the colors of the images that embrace it, forested greens, rich turquoise, the silvery white of the snow. From its description:
Icicled Juniper Tree Pin
An icicled juniper shines with tinsel made of snow and light. Wings honors the shades of winter green and the power of the light with this tiny tree, cut freehand of sterling silver with upturned boughs and and flared trunk. The small but steady rays of the winter sun garland its branches as the scattered blossoms of remnant berries, hand-stamped, peek through; a winter butterfly, a bit of holiday magic, floats past beneath the twinkling star at its top. The icy tinsel shimmers in a single moonstone, while the jade and turquoise of the evergreen shows through above, all by way of small round bezel-set cabochons. Tree stands 1-1/2″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; jade; blue turquoise; moonstone
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It seems to me to be a perfect combination of stones and silver, shape and spirit, for the turquoise-edged silence of the image above and the slightly-haunted feel of the storm road below:
And it is, in a sense, very much a storm road, barely more than a track that follows the fence and the ditch, but one that leads from the local streams and snowfall all the way back to the high heavy clouds that cling to the slopes.
And the slopes here are evergreen, mostly, although the shades of green change throughout the year. But even up high, there are stands of indigenous aspen that at this season are as gray as the storm-laden sky. Come spring, they will begin to green, too, and then go gold in autumn, but for now, they stand silver among the blue-greens of the giant Ponderosa pines.
It’s an image that the second of today’s two featured works of wearable art evokes: the deeper blues of storm and clearing skies, of the undertones of the rich needles on each shimmering snow-studded bough. From its description:
Snow-Wreathed Fir Tree Pin
A snow-wreathed fir stands strong in the blue of a winter’s twilight. Wings summons the spirits of tree and storm in this diminutive pin, a tree for the holidays adance beneath the falling flakes. Cut freehand from sterling silver, the little fir’s boughs are garlanded with chased symbols of a sun setting beneath the clouds. Flowering snowflakes are scattered across its branches, three hand-stamped and two formed of overlaid conchas, tiny repoussé sterling silver starbursts fanned out in crystalline form. In winter holiday tradition, a hand-stamped star twinkles from the treetop. Tree stands 1-1/2″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 1/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s also a piece that finds expression in the third and final of today’s photographic images, evergreened slopes and peaks clad in silver and snow white, capped with a single piece of indigo sky breaking through the storm, as the lower lands lie waiting for the snow:
It’s the same storm road from a different vantage, the same waiting earth beneath clouds that perhaps have yet more gifts to bestow.
The clouds today are not so uniquely visible; today, they are a flat white mass, hanging low and heavy with snow yet withheld. But their very presence is cause for hope, and hope is a stubborn thing, even now. We feel it, the wild birds seem to feel it, the evergreens, too: hope, and the possibility of abundance. We are all part of a winter’s Earth, waiting, praying for the snow.
~ Aji
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