The forecast for tomorrow is now for six inches of snow by night’s end. In the last half-hour, the clouds have moved sufficiently to make it seem likely . . . were it not for the unseasonably warm air that has had me working out of doors with no jacket.
Such snow as remains from the last storm appears only in patches now, and everywhere between them is mud.
It feels like the end of April, not the latter half of February.
Still, we nearly always get at least one big, deep snow in April, even if the whole foot of it is mostly gone by noon. It does not, however, make up for the fact that the warmth is here two full months early, nor for the truth that we have all the long, bitter months of dry gale-force winds still ahead of us.
But all we can do for today is focus on what is, and at the moment, that is looking much more promising: lowering gray clouds that have supplanted the blue nearly entirely, and a breeze picking up force and speed slowly but steadily. It’s not that we want the winds, but it will take their talents to blow this latest system to us, and if it begins, as the forecast first suggested, with rain, at least the cold of the dark hours will crystallize it into something more useful over the long term.
People tend to think that rain is what we want and need, the heavier and harder the better, but in fact, even in ordinary times, the rain is really only useful in certain seasons and conditions. Unfortunately, a twelve-hundred-year drought and the record megafires and attendant climate collapse that it has visited upon the broader region have made cloudbursts sometimes dangerous, sometimes useless, sometimes actively harmful. In better times, the short sharp bursts of heavy rains that punctuated hot summer days were invariably a gift, because the heat and common aridity balanced them out; yes, in places there would be runoff and even flash flooding, but here? Here, the land absorbed nearly all of it, and the pond held what it couldn’t.
Now we have months, even years with no precipitation at all to speak of, no summer rains nor winter snows, and the deepening drought has ignited aridification. As a state of being, it’s not bad; as a process, it’s positively deadly, altering the chemical composition of the soil and making it impossible for indigenous plants and trees to survive in it no matter the water level. We have watched, helpless, over the last five years as rich, loamy fertile soil has turned to chalk, as trees have died and invasive species have moved in to supplant them (with the result that they overtake and kill off those that remain). There is no help to be had from colonial authorities: They can’t even be troubled to rip out the invasive water hogs that are the Russian olives, brought here by a colonizer a hundred years ago to launch one phase of the land’s destruction (because they reminded him of his wet and fertile home), never mind rein in the rampant and destructive colonialism that further encroaches on every aspect of these indigenous lands daily.
It’s a little easier to lock such thoughts into the furthest recesses of our minds while there is snow on the ground; winter is nothing if not a season of hope still, even if there’s less renewal and rebirth in it that only a scant half-decade ago. But as the snow recedes from a still-cold earth, we are reminded of the long and arduous task ahead of us: if nothing else, to save this bit of land, this small piece of earth and sky, air and water, for the generations to come. And while this week’s forecast will likely come to some fruition, at least, after the rain, after the snow, the wounds will be still be there waiting for healing and repair.
This week’s edition of Red Willow Spirit features two images that give shape and spirit to the previous words in hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful form. They are linked by a single work of wearable art that, although created with summer seasonal dynamics in mind, are almost eerily suited to those same words and to this day. We begin with the photos, at once snow and rain combined into ice retreating to reveal the ground beneath.
Wings shot both of these images on the first day of this month, just shy of three weeks ago. He captured them in digital format, taken only a second or two apart, and “captured” is exactly the word, for it was entirely opportunistic: He had walked up to close the gate, and in the process of closing it, he noticed the beauty of the ice crystals underfoot, pure white snow melted and then hardened into whorls and wands that contrasted with the rich brown of the earth that framed them. The photo above is perhaps the. slightly more beautiful of the two, simply for its flowing, graceful lines — glacier-like, with all the subtle sinuousness of a river in microcosm, wending its way across the soil as a shimmering sheet of ice.
As I noted in yesterday’s photo meditation, it is incumbent upon us to acknowledge and honor the beauty and medicine in everyday things.
The shades of the two distinct colors in the photo above, brown and white, call to mind the bands that mark today’s solitary featured work of wearable art. It’s a pair of earrings built entirely around a matched pair of extraordinary (and outsized) cabochons — landscape jasper in elegant columns rather than sprawling rectangles, seemingly manifest in all the shades of alpine desert earth and sky after the rain . . . or the snow. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
After the Rain Earrings
The high desert’s monsoon season is one of starkly beautiful landscapes, and after the rain, the sunset sets the sky aflame against a still-gray earth. Wings summons the spirits of storm and sunset simultaneously in these dangling drop earrings, each a long, elegant cascade of landscape jasper set into bezels backed with a feathery pattern as ethereal as the post-storm light. The cabochons are a matched pair, domed at the top and beveled at the corners, warm earthy bands of sand and burgundy and ivory at the top above a land still gray with storm and wind below. Each is set into a hand-filed, low-profile bezel trimmed with twisted silver and hung from sterling silver wires via hand-made jump rings; the back of each setting is hand-milled in a graceful feathered pattern, raised in a silky textured relief. Earrings hang 2.25″ in total length (excluding wires) by 5/8″ across; cabochons are 2″ long by .5″ across (dimensions approximate). [Note: These are large stones, requiring a significant amount of silver; the earrings are substantial, and should be worn by someone accustomed to wearing earrings with a bit of weight.] Reverse shown at the link.
Sterling silver; landscape jasper
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
At the moment, a glance outside the window shows us all the shades of the stones above save the reds . . . although we may see those at sunset, if the clouds have not coalesced into full cover by then. Even so, the bands of earth visible between swatches of snow and pale gold dormant grasses still hold much of those rich red shades, despite the drought’s best efforts to leach color and life from the soil.
A truth that brings us to the second of today’s featured images, also from twenty short days ago.
Wings shot this one both seconds and mere inches apart from the one above, and while the family resemblance is clear, its own distinctive spirit shows through plainly, too. This one is a bit sharper, harder-edged, more wands than whorls, with the terminated crystal patterns clearly visible, and the harsher, broken surface of the surrounding crystals obvious as well. If the first image calls to mind gentle flows, this one reminds us that the same elemental forces that create great beauty can also be hard in both senses of that word. Where the ice in the upper image seems to recede to reveal the earth beneath, in this one it seems to do the opposite, including into every available gap.
Neither contradicts the other; such is the very nature of elemental forces. But we are entering the downward slope of winter now, a period likely to be susceptible to sudden fierce storms of short duration, and much longer periods of too much wind and warmth, of the accelerating forces of climate collapse hurtling headlong into wildfire season. We can hope for the snow and pray for the rain, but we must never lose of the changes already inflicted, of those newly in process and those not yet wholly inevitable if only we can bring the world to the work.
It begins with the soil, the water, the air, and all of their collective (and wounded) children. And as the snow recedes from a still-cold earth, we must take our cues from what it has to tell us. Time is short; the days grow long, and so do the chances for destruction. It’s time to act.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
