The clouds were building by dawn: high white towers climbing a sky newly free of the dark of a moonless night. Now, through the middle of the day, those white towers have become violet banks of thunderheads, driven on a high trickster wind but as yet unwilling to release the rain.
Here at Red Willow, a land no longer quite so dry as ash and bone is still caught in the grip of a dangerous thirst. It feels as though earth and sky, new moon and hard relentless sun alike, all join us now in prayer, in ceremony, in dreaming — dreams of a medicine rain.
There is a frankly silly article in today’s edition of the state capital’s newspaper, pronouncing the drought’s effects a short distance down the Gorge to be “a ground-level mystery.” It would almost be humorous if it weren’t so colonially privileged, and just as colonially dangerous. There’s no mystery about it whatsoever: This is what drought looks like in this land, and we have been in the grip of a five-hundred-year drought for a full quarter-century now. A few years of unusually heavy episodic rains are not enough to ameliorate catastrophe on this scale, no matter how much colonial mindsets want to believe they can control the very climate itself.
Unlike those in quoted in this silly piece, our corn is thriving, for the moment at least. So are our squash and some of the other vegetables. Why? Because we paid attention to the land and the weather, to the sudden unseasonal sub-freezing lows. We waited to plant, and when we did, we scaled back our original plans drastically, to a couple of small plots only. It’s enough for such rains as we get and such watering as hose and sprinkler can provide. We nurture the plants, talk to them and pray for them and make our offerings for a healthy earth. And we have long since adjusted our expectation, forcing ourselves to adapt on the fly, knowing well that “normal” patterns have not held for years now, and that we have reached no new equilibrium that we can call by that descriptor, either.
We watch the skies, put in the work to discern such patterns as may be found in the behavior of the clouds now. We offer tobacco for the water, for the First Medicine in all its forms. We pray, and we dream and we refuse to surrender the possibility and promise of a world better than our own.
The towering, power-filled thunderheads in today’s pair of featured images were shots that Wings captured on a hot summer’s day about half a decade ago. Both were caught in the hours of late morning to midday, while the day’s monsoonal patterns were still forming. The close-up, above, shows the remarkable force and power that is present even early in their development, amid the seeming purity of their large puffy outlines. The world thinks of white clouds as gentle, drifting, not merely harmless but nurturing, like a soft pale embrace. Here, up close and personal, it’s possible to see just how thoroughly they are animated by spirit: You can sense their forceful movement, the thunder of their collisions, even in a still photograph.
It reminds me that so much of our natural world is neither one thing nor the other, but in fact a sum not merely more than its constituent parts, but one made up of diametrically opposing forces that nonetheless cooperate in their very colliding, creating something greater than themselves, and better for our world, too.
It’s the stuff of dreams, of visions and prophecy, and we are privileged to witness it here daily, whether the rains fall or not. And it puts me in mind of today’s featured work, one with a storm-webbed Skystone at its center, flanked by the pale rainbow glow of moon and sun, upon an arc of flowing water and silvered light. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Dream Medicine Cuff Bracelet
Dream medicine heals the spirit, illuminating our worldly path by means of a link to the forces of other worlds. Wings evokes healing powers and visionary experiences with this cuff, wrought of heavy-gauge sterling silver triangle wire. On each angled side of the band’s surface, graceful, flowing lines link bearpaw prints, traditional symbols of protection and medicine. Directly on top of the triangle’s apex, he has stamped scores of tiny crescents in a meticulous, consistent repeating pattern. The stampwork is bold, deep, and clean; the ends of the band are rounded and filed smooth for comfort. At the very center of the band’s surface, in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, rests a freeform oval cabochon of ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise, an electric sky blue tightly spiderwebbed with an inky black matrix and shimmering flashes of pyrite. The spectacular center cabochon is flanked on either side by richly textured moon-like orbs, a pair of highly domed, faceted cabochons of rainbow moonstone set in plain, low-profile bezels. The stones suggest the luminous web of visions and dreams, holding within it the illuminating powers of Medicine. Cuff is 6″ long by 3/8″ across at the triangle’s “base”; turquoise cabochon is 3/4″ long by 3/8″ across at the widest point; rainbow moonstone cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black-Web Kingman turquoise; rainbow moonstone
$2,000 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work is one of wider perspective, one not limited by our mortal senses. Our peoples have always known the pow3r of dreams and the force of prophecy; we know that we are living both now, and that there is more of both ahead, calling upon us to be ready to stand up, to fight and defend, and always, always, to do the work.
The second of today’s paired images brings such cosmological viewpoints down to earth and close to home. The powerful puffy white clouds in the first image are still present, but viewed form several paces back and put squarely into the proper context and perspective.
What seems benign, even insignificant, is actually only one small part of something very, very powerful.
Much like us.
Of course we cannot heal the world alone. But every one of us has work to do. And now, in the heat of the summer and the depths of the drought, it’s time to work, and also time to dream: along with the earth, dreams of a medicine rain.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
