Tonight’s skies are supposed to promise a show, but here, the heavens may have other ideas. A few hours after dawn, and the sky remains as much gray as it is blue, albeit luminous as ever: trailing bands of rippling cloud backlit by the morning sun, alternating with swaths and patches of turquoise, the combination producing a marbled effect. A few hours more, and the bands have dissipated, then found each other and reformed into thunderheads, small but growing on three sides. It’s an open question whether tonight’s sky will be clear enough to see the shooting stars dancing all around us.
Yes, we know they are not technically stars, nor shooting, either. But it’s an ancient colloquialism, one far more poetic than “chunks of meteor broken off from a comet mislabeled with a colonizer’s name.” Because Halley did not discover anything; the comet now burdened with his surname was “discovered” long before those of his tradition even thought of searching the skies, and Indigenous peoples the world over have always had their own names for such celestial spirits. Indeed, in our way, we know that such a force’s only true name is the one bestowed by its own, those ancient spirits of stars and sky who are as old as time itself.
Here at Red Willow, the night sky of spring can be a vast blue-black expanse, a blanket beaded with silver and diamonds to envelop the world in its cold embrace . . . or soft and heavy with the diffuse glow of clouds before the face of the moon, high-flown storms holding in the earth’s residual warmth. If current patterns and projections hold, we shall have both in the week ahead, perhaps even on the same night.
Tonight’s shower of stars, should they choose to reveal their paths to us, are the icy dust of creation shaken from the tail of so-called Halley’s Comet. It’s far from the only one of its kind to show itself here in generations past; the image above is of one with a similar-sounding (and similarly colonial) label: Hale-Bopp, a comet that became a deadly avatar of a colonial cult, and whose indigenous cosmic beauty Wings captured in the indigo hours, those moments at dusk and dawn that are the province of powers at once cosmic and otherworldly. It is often at such moments that the sky and its spirits seem closest to us, when we dare to imagine that we can set our course by starshine and walk safely by the haloed light of the moon.
They are the moments, too, when, if we are thoughtful, we realize how much depends upon these sky spirits: to hold our earth firmly in orbit around the sun, to keep it spinning apace upon its axis, to anchor the moon around us. They remind us that our survival depends upon not only a healthy earth but upon a cosmos in harmony, too, and that if we but look, if we acknowledge and honor these animating forces of the skies, our place in the universe remains secure, from dusk to dawn and in the light of the storm, too.
Today’s featured works capture the essence of the accompanying imagery in unique ways. The photos are a representation of the Red Willow skies: the flash of a comet at the bookends of the day, midnight and violet and the same mulberry shade of the lilac petals just ready this day to bloom; of the cosmic trinity of moon and star and planet in a clear cobalt expanse; the halo of the moon in a half-storm sky, greens and reds and gold and silver luminous and wholly otherworldly; the sheer power of the monsoon, slate blues and grays underlit with gold by a setting sun. All of today’s featured works are drawn from one of Wings’s more recent signature series, The Coiled Power Collections, and are found in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site. The first of these honors the forces beyond our control or ken that keep our world in balance and inspire us to do better; the second reminds us to give thanks for the spirits’ aid in our survival; the third, the embodiment of the power of prayer and the sacred objects that mediate and intercede with the spirits for us.
The first of these three jeweled works honors our place in the cosmos and the forces that keep our world in fundamental health and harmony. It’s a spiral of color form the skies in the image above, golden-reds of rising and setting sun, blues of the nearness of night, a flash of fire from the stars in a gift from the earth. From its description:
Rotation and Revolution Coil Bracelet
Our world, and our place in it, are powered by the twin forces of rotation and revolution, keeping the earth anchored in the proper space and time. Rotation keeps us humble, ensuring that we do not lose our place in the universe, while revolution teaches humility in the form of requiring us to look outside ourselves to greater things: a process essential to readying us for its counterpart, the other kind of revolution to which we are called. Wings honors these forces in all their forms in a rotating hoop of radiant light. At the coils center rest fourteen large round orbs of beautifully chatoyant tiger’s eye, the gold and bronze of pure flame glowing with life. At either end, four doughnut-shaped rondel beads of iron pyrite, fool’s gold, separate it from the next strand and caution against arrogance. Next come long strands of red tiger’s eye in large doughnut-shaped rondels, each shimmering with maroon chatoyant fire. These red flames of the sun flow into the cool watery expanse of the earth’s own atmosphere, smaller rondels of teal-colored kyanite lit from within with the silver of a million stars. Each end is anchored with a small length of pyrite rondels, once again, a caution against human frailty and a means of keeping us firmly grounded in the earth. Beads are strung on memory wire, which expands and contracts to fit virtually any wrist. Another view shown at the link. [Note: Kyanite beads are teal-colored in natural light, not the cornflower blue they appear above.] Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; tiger’s eye; iron pyrite; red tiger’s eye; kyanite
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The blues of the kyanite range from the ice of the stars to the deepest well of space; averaged together, I think perhaps they come out to something like this:
It was my own shot, from some half a decade ago now: a perfect trinity of celestial spirits in a night sky so clear as to show us the full face of the moon, even the portions unlit. It felt like a map, a chart for navigating existence itself, the kind of image that is such a gift in the moment that it reminds you, suddenly and with full force, how great is the obligation of gratitude.
In our cultures, gratitude is a way of life; our actions as we go about our days are themselves ways and means of giving thanks for the gifts that we are given in this world. Sometimes, though, a true honoring of the spirits responsible for those gifts requires more: an affirmative act of acknowledgment and appreciation.
The second of today’s rippling gemstone works embodies just such an act. It’s one common to many of our various cultures, one that shows acknowledgment and appreciation, yes, thanks and gratitude, yes, but also serves as an affirmation to the spirits, ancestral and elemental, cosmic and creator alike, that we have not forgotten them, and that we welcome them, in their present form, into our worlds and lives. From its description:
Spirit Bowl Coil Bracelet
The spirit bowl is a traditional means of marking special occasions, of acknowledging the lives of those who have walked on and demonstrating respect for more elemental spirits, too. Wings blends the bold tones of traditional black-on-white and micaceous pottery with an earthy mix representing water and light and the warmth of tradition, all coiled in their own round vessel. At either end are strands of translucent dark heishi, earth tones that appear black on white in the light, melding into lengths of iron pyrite with all the flash and fire of local mica. Next come round orbs of fire and ice, black and white snowflake obsidian, separated by more pyrite from round shimmering spheres of mother-of-pearl shell. Another small expanse of iron pyrite leads to the glowing warm center, large orbs of chatoyant tiger’s eye, like the light glimmers in the clay of the bowls and plates that serve the spirits. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; olivella-shell heishi; iron pyrite; snowflake obsidian; mother-of-pearl shell; tiger’s eye
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The use of a spirit bowl is something Wings and I both practice. It’s especially common at holiday, a way of including the ancestors and the spirits in celebration and feasting. Sometimes, it’s an offering to a particular spirit, whether in gratitude or as recompense for the harms humanity collectively seems so fond of inflicting on our world. Sometimes it’s accompanied by supplication, a request for illumination from the moon’s light or for rain from the clouds that form her halo:
Sometimes, it’s, as we humans are wont to put it, just because. The corona’d moon above is one of my own, as well, caught last year on the night of a full moon when the clouds were not going to cooperate in creating a clear shot. And it reminded me that sometimes, more powerful forces know better, for had I not taken a chance on the unclear skies, I would never have been granted a glimpse of such otherworldly beauty.
It was a lesson, one that seems so simple but for humankind is so hard to remember: We become so focused on the pursuit of what we want at a given moment that we fail to notice the beauty and power of what we are being given unasked instead. It is our task to notice those gifts, too, to acknowledge them, welcome them, give thanks for them.
And the giving of thanks occurs most commonly as, or at least in the company of, prayer. Prayer, too, is a way of life for us, one that informs all we do, from the silent request to the formal ceremony. And for that way of life, the spirits have given us tools: feathers, and smoke.
The third and final of today’s featured works is manifest as just such a tool, the eagle feather that fans the smoke into a vortex capable of lifting our prayers skyward to the place where the spirits dwell. From its description:
Eagle Feather Coil Bracelet
The eagle feather carries our prayers to spirit; as a gift, it is an honor conferred, a sign of respect for the person who has earned it. Wings calls its power into the spiraling hoop of this coil bracelet, one strung with gifts of the earth in the mottled earthy tones of Eagle’s own robes. At either end are the feather’s downy fringe, made of Hawai’ian puka shell in hue a shade off snow-white. Just above, the raptor’s characteristic mottling begins, expressed in the form of a length of doughnut-shaped rondels of variegated fossilized dinosaur bone. The bone flows into shades of black with round matte onyx, thence to more round beads of mottled black and white snowflake obsidian, fire and ice that flows into lengths of ovaled barrel beads of basaltic lava rock. At the center rest seven large faceted diamond-shaped barrel beads in smoky quartz, the color of a young eagle’s feathers and the shape of the Eye of Spirit itself. Note: Puka shell fringe beads are fragile; best worn for special occasions, not everyday wear. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; Hawai’ian puka shell; fossilized dinosaur bone; onyx;
snowflake obsidian; basaltic lava rock; smoky quartz
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Like most cultures, I suspect, our peoples avail themselves of prayer at least as much in time of need as otherwise. It’s easy to elide our obligations when times are good; harder when we find ourselves at the center of the storm.
The image above is one Wings caught with his film camera, if memory serves, making it nearly a decade and a half old, at the very least. It’s a monsoonal sky somewhat out of season; the relative bareness of the tree branches at the bottom of the frame testify to that. Of course, climate change’s effects were already well under way by then, a gathering storm of its own just off to the side, hovering over the horizon.
This one is of a sunset sky, clouds departing at day’s end, the dark ready to move into the space they would leave behind. It appears, from the image, that it was taken in the full light of day, but I can tell you from long experience that the sun was already almost entirely down, perhaps a half-moon of its fire still sitting momentarily on the horizon. In this place, with such clarity of air usual even in the stormy season, the sun’s glow lasts well into the darkening hours, casting remnant clouds by turns silver, gold, copper, rose.
Clouds such as we may well see this evening.
For now, though, as I noted above, the first lilac buds have just begun to open, their petals still the mulberry of the sunset sky. The clouds have parted in the east to show plenty of blue at midday, and the wind ripples through the new aspen leaves like a series of small waves. Before many more ours pass, the waxing moon will rise from behind the peaks; a bit longer, and the clouds to the west will coalesce around the fire of the setting sun. The dark will descend, the diamond beads that embroider its blanket catching the light, first one by one and then all at once.
And if we are lucky, the clouds will thin enough to permit us a sight of the heavens’ show. From dusk to dawn, in the light of the storm, in the clear cold hours between: the dust of creation, streaks and showers of quicksilver light, showing us all the paths across the sky.
~ 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.
