The smoke is back today. Not as bad as Sunday, true, but our small world is wrapped in haze instead of yesterday’s brilliant blue.
All that’s required is a shift in the winds and it all changes — these days, in potentially deadly fashion, given that much of this part of the state is in flames, and the conflagrations are growing.
Under circumstances such as these, it’s hard to see the air as a bearer of gifts, especially now when colonialism-drive climate catastrophe has plunged this land into a twelve-hundred-year drought, when its dry trickster winds have stripped it of all protective topsoil and aridified the rest so that indigenous plants struggle to grow, when even the stands of abundant red willow that lent their name to place and people have begun to die off . . . and when wildfire threatens from all sides.
This is air’s elemental spirit at its most chaotic and capricious, whose dance is one too frequently of destruction.
In spring, it seems that we should be looking forward to its opposite, but conditions conspire to keep us from celebrating new life, focused as we must be now on preventing death.
And yet . . . .
And yet, when I awakened this morning and looked out the upstairs window, the very first aspen leaves glowed like jade, backlit by the rising sun. It’s not much, but they are there, and after such a long, seemingly endless mix of cold and wind and devastation, these late-leafing relatives hold all the promise of summer to come.
These are leaves that breathe for the land, more essential than ever now as our atmosphere remains choked off with a pall of smoke and ash and particulate matter. But they do more: These leaves, in particular, are attractive to the butterflies, especially the monarchs whose numbers are so endangered by not only climate change but the baser works of contemporary colonialism now. And in these seasons of warmer winds, it is small spirits such as these who deliver gifts of the air, and of other elements — the messages that show us how to keep our world alive, and the medicine that helps us do it.
Today’s post is dedicated to these small spirits, three in particular: Butterfly, Bee, and Dragonfly. There are others, of course, from moths to hummingbirds and more, but these three share much in common besides their wings, and all are at particular risk now, especially here. The three images chosen for today honor them all in beautiful form: a pair of monarchs mating, above; at center, an indigenous bee (not a honeybee, whose colonial propagation across this continent is in fact a bad thing, not a good one, because it destroys the indigenous bee population so crucial to our habitats), arrived early a couple of years ago and finding a warm and sunny sanctuary among the feed; and at bottom, another mated pair from the same family of beings as Dragonfly, although these are technically its smaller cousins, damselflies. They, like their larger relatives, have long been summer residents here . . . until recent years, when there has been no runoff to fill the pond with water. Now, they appear rarely, and when they do, it seem doubly a gift, knowing that they must soon depart in search of a wetter environment.
The image above is one that Wings captured in the latter part of summer eight years ago: 2014, when our patterns, if not anything that could be called “normal,” at least included more seasonal and location-appropriate weather and levels of precipitation. Back then, the monarchs came annually — not many, a few singles and mated pairs who found sanctuary here in time to create offspring to make the journey south for the winter. It was one of those “lifetime shots” that a photographer always hopes for a chance to get, and it landed literally above our heads as we sat at the picnic table beneath the aspen. It was a perfect late-summer afternoon, the day’s monsoonal pattern having already moved through and left flawlessly clear blue skies and brilliant sunlight in its wake.
And it gave us a gift from the air, small wind spirits holding nothing less than the promise of the future.
It’s a promise wrought into the very silverwork, into the veins and wings and antennae and heart of the first of today’s two featured works of wearable art Both are found in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site. We begin with the one wrought in the form and shape of the two messenger spirits above — in this case, a messenger bearing, aptly enough for today, the light of a smoky sun. From its description:
Wings of the Sun Butterfly Necklace
The wings of the sun carry warmth and light to our whole world. Wings brings them to fluttering life with this necklace wrought freehand in the shape of that pollinating messenger of the spirits, Butterfly. Coaxed from sterling silver, her scalloped wings flare wide and graceful, veined with flowing arterial patterns scored freehand amid tiny sacred hoops and edged with images of the rising sun itself. Body and antennae are fully articulated, and at her heart rests a glowing near-orb of fabulously chatoyant tiger’s eye, a rich warm brown banded with fiery gold and nestled in a scalloped bezel. She sits atop flowers of her own via the slider-style bail on the reverse, hand-milled in a looping floral pattern and gently sculpted freehand. The pendant bears a velvety Florentine finish, and hangs from a strand of traditional sterling silver round beads, heavily oxidized and then buffed to a high polish. Pendant is 2.25″ across at the widest point by 2″ high at the highest point; tiger’s eye cabochon is 1/2″ high by 3/8″ across; bead strand hangs 21″ long (dimensions approximate). Coordinates with Solstice Light Butterfly Concha Belt [sold]. Close-up view shown below.
Sterling silver; tiger’s eye
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We have had a smoky sun for weeks now, as the extant fires rage and new ignitions spark. We have had far fewer of the spirits of the winds that can save such land as survives it: of butterflies, only the small whites and sulphurs and a solitary small mourning cloak (fitting for a place so shrouded in grief now); of bees, only a distant glimpse of tiny creatures with the smallest buzz, no pollinators hard at work, for their are no flowers yet; and a complete absence of dragon- or damselflies, as befits a complete absence of any water, either. Those last are unlikely this year, at least as things stand.
We still have hope for the bees.
Wings captured the image of this one more than two years ago: an unseasonably early arrival in March of 2020. It’s an indicator of how much our temperatures have changed in recent years; we have had days in the seventies even in January lately.
Still, a mercury ascendant at midday is belied by the subfreezing temperatures that attend those early nights, and such small spirits as appear too soon are constantly in search of the sanctuary of warmer spaces. This one found such a spot in the grain box, inside the tin pail that holds the chicken feed: the camouflaging colors of cracked corn and crumble and scratch, all warmed by heat of the midday sun on the metal surrounding it.
There are some 1,000 indigenous bee species in this land (the one now nominally known as “New Mexico”) alone. That’s fully one-quarter of the native bee species on this land mass, although that’s not reflective of their status; far too many are endangered now. Their survival is further threatened by all the many local colonial beekeepers who think that their honeybees will save the world, even though they’re very much an invasive species here, and one that is doing damage to this ecosystem. And so we do our best to keep this a welcoming, sustaining space for all those species who actually belong to this land. I noticed this afternoon that much of the grass is now studded with alpine dandelions, which means that the earth itself is warming for the season; these tiny pollinators, spirits of the air but also of the earth, will not be far behind, and they will remain with us at least until October.
Not so for the spirits of air and water combined.
They, like the bees and the butterflies, are messengers, in some ways more fragile than their counterparts. Still, their singular abilities of movement — capable as they are of flight up, down, forward, backward, to either side, or in hover mode — make them exceptionally powerful for their purpose. The second of today’s featured works of wearable art shares in the veined translucent wings of the bee above, but it is manifest as the spirit of the wind and waters that are its home. From its description:
Water Song and Fire Dance Dragonfly Necklace
Dragonfly is a messenger of the spirits, a manifestation of summer’s water song and fire dance. Wings summons the strength found in such fragile wings to carry the message safely through the season’s storm and light. The dragonfly pendant is cut freehand of a single piece of solid fourteen-gauge sterling silver and stamped similarly freehand, a repeating crescent pattern forming the segments of its lower body and long, flowing lines veining the wings in a design that evokes the elegance and natural grace of Art Nouveau imagery. The head is teardrop of perfect sky-blue Kingman turquoise set into a saw-toothed bezel; the upper body, a stunningly radiant rectangular cabochon of Rosarita (gold slag) nestled in a plain, low-profile bezel similarly hand-made. The bail, lightly flared at the top and tapered at the ends, is hand-milled in a feather pattern whose flowing lines pick up the veining in the wings. The pendant is buffed to a glowing Florentine finish and hangs suspended from an extraordinary strand of burnished sterling silver round beads. Bead strand is 18″ long, excluding findings; pendant hangs 2-7/8″ long, including bail, and is 3″ across at the widest point. The bail is 1/2″ across at the widest point; the turquoise cabochon is 5/16″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; and the Rosarita cabochon is 5/8″ long by 1/4″ wide (all dimensions approximate). Full view shown below.
Sterling silver; Rosarita (gold slag); Kingman turquoise
$1,450 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s perhaps an irony of this moment that “fire” should appear in the name of the work above, even as rampant wildfire is helping to keep its kind from their summer sojourns here. But their fire is a metaphorical flame, one that catches the sun and dances in the light even as their wings shimmer above the water.
Or would, had we any water at all.
Which brings us to our third and final image for today, one of mating damselflies balanced in heart formation among the reeds in our pond. Needless to say, it’s an image from several years ago.
I no longer recall definitively the origin of this shot; I believe Wings captured it in digital format, somewhere between, say, 2011 and 2013(if hard pressed, I’d pick that last year.) What I do know is that it was a time when the winter snowpack was still heavy, the runoff at thaw still abundant, and our pond full to overflowing as a result for most of the summer. Back then, it wasn’t even necessary to bring the water down to these ditches specifically every time, because there was always enough to overflow into ours even when they were routed along other paths.
That’s no longer remotely the case.
We are waiting to see whether there will be any point in trying to irrigate the old way this year. If not, all we can do is water by hand such crops as we can reasonably plant, which will limit both our options and our harvest substantially.
And it will mean no mating damselflies or dragonflies, because there will be no water in the pond.
Last summer, I caught a glimpse of a damselfly or two hovering by the bee balm, momentary visitors perhaps visiting a place of ancestral memory before moving on to someplace with sufficient water to host their young. Those were bittersweet moments, reminders all of this very image, and of the loss of such tiny spirits whose presence (or, conversely, absence) is so indicative of the health of this place.
And tonight, it’s especially bitter, with precious little that’s sweet; the wind shifted once again this afternoon, and is now raging outside amid clouds of brown dust and gray smoke., a reminder that it is, in fact, the atmospheric driver of conflagration. It’s hard, at this moment, to see anything it offers as a gift; chaos and catastrophe, yes, but certainly not medicine.
It is a message, though.
It’s one this world has failed to heed for too long, and we are now reaping its literal whirlwind. But there is still time to undo much of the damage. This should be a season of gifts of the air, and of other elements too, and the work of their restoration is long overdue.
~ 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.
