I said in this space yesterday that, with the gift of the rain in recent days, we have to realize that we have lost the gift of the post-storm light. Here at Red Willow, that light is its own animated and animating spirit: magic, mystery, and medicine all at once.
I was referring then to an oddity of this very place, a product of its elevation, the colliding clouds and colors of the monsoonal storms, and the unique clarity they leave in their wake. But there is another form of that same light that has appeared to us only a few precious times this season: the rainbow.
Strangely enough, we have had another version of the rainbow repeatedly, drifting high in the skies. It’s called cloud iridescence (or sometimes irisation), and it occurs when a high-flying silver sun becomes veiled with the edges of altocumulus, cirrocumulus, cirrus, or lenticular clouds. The mechanism is the same one that births the rainbow: water droplets and/or ice crystals in the clouds catch and refract the sun’s light, scattering its arc to the color spectrum — but instead of forming a bow or a sun dog, it remains contained in shafts or bands. It’s a beautiful phenomenon, albeit one we tend to associate here more with the cold months. But in the rainbow’s absence, we will take it and be glad of its presence.
But why is the rainbow absent? It’s not, not wholly, of course; we have had . . . perhaps a half-dozen or so over the course of the season. But in an ordinary summer, which is to say, an ordinary rainy season, they become a near-daily, if not actual daily, occurrence. Because in an ordinary summer, the rains are a daylight phenomenon.
No longer.
Most of our rains this year have come at night. It’s been a phenomenon we’ve seen increasingly in recent years, one that once seemed impossible. Night rains were virtually never a thing here, at least in summer; by dark, the clouds had long since begun their journey eastward, leaving crystalline black skies in their wake, the night alight with the diamond fire of a million million stars.
This year, we have not even been able to catch a glimpse of the new comet, because the darkened skies are always veiled now.
And so, we look elsewhere for stars and fire, although the earthbound form have been not much in evidence, either, thanks to this drought. By July’s end, the wild sunflowers are normally beginning to bloom here, their larger and more domesticated cousins long since standing tall and bright.
Of the latter, we have only a couple, their growth as stunted as that of tree and grass, their heavy heads drooping even when the sun shines, to weak to follow the light. Of the former, only one real bank of them has appeared, and that because they live upon the resting place of the three horses whose spirits, over recent years, have themselves departed for the Starlands. Beyond that, a small sprig or two struggles here and there; the giant embankment on the berm of the west field ditch remains dry, consisting still only of last year’s withered bones.
Our high desert wildflowers are a hardy bunch, capable of withstanding conditions that would choke the life from weaker ones while they are still seeds swaddled in the cradle of the earth. But even these strong spirits can withstand only so much . . . and the scientists who know and understand the evidence this land provides pronounced this a five-hundred-year drought fully a quarter-century ago. A few seemingly lush years did not undo that, and the last five or so have seen it deepen drastically.
And so irisation in whatever form it chooses to appear, wild sunflowers in whatever number they produce? All are blessings to be welcomed, celebrated, honored, for they give us summer’s gift of radiant petals, a wild blossoming sun, a transient, transitory and temporary bestowing of medicine made of color and light.
I said yesterday that today’s photos would be of a piece with yesterday’s: all taken within moments of each other, all captured in the immediate aftermath of a perfect monsoonal storm one late afternoon in August five years ago. it was, frankly, our last good year for weather and climate, even though we had already long since noted the signs. In the intervening half-decade, drought has tightened its grasp, and in recent years has held much of our small world here in a death grip. And so this particular series of images, including those above and below and other previously featured here that show the rainbow from between the willows and portal opening among their fronds above a.n overflowing pond, are bittersweet now: a reminder of what was, a recognition of what no longer is, and yet, a hope and prayer for what might still be again.
Today’s featured silverwork piece of wearable art — and it’s only one today, shown from two separate vantage points — embodies the memory, the reality, the hope and the prayer, too. It’s an arc of summer wildflowers dancing on silvered light, set with the gold of the sunflowers’ petals and the green of stalk and leaf . . . and in this first image, set against a black velvet ground that reminds me of their own dark velvety centers. From its description in the Accessories Gallery here on the site:
Summer Wildflowers Barrette
Summer wildflowers rise from green-tipped stalks to blossom and dance in the light. Wings summons these spirits of warmer winds in this barrette, hand-milled in a random profusion of silvery petals across a gently arcing rectangle of medium-gauge sterling silver. In the center of the barrette, a single round citrine rests in a saw-toothed bezel, a small wild sunflower amid the larger blossoms. The “stalk” is formed of an elegant silver pick made of sterling silver half-round wire, hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of directional arrows alternating with tiny sacred hoops down its length. At one end, the pick is anchored by an elegant oval peridot cabochon, beautifully translucent in the color of summer greenery, set securely into a saw-toothed bezel. The barrette is 3-5/16″ long by 1-3/4″ high; the citrine cabochon is 1/4″ across; the pick is 3-7/8″ long by 3/16″ across (save at the bezel); the peridot cabochon is 3/8″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Another view shown below.
Sterling silver; citrine; peridot
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece has always been, to me, a capturing of the radiance and the riot of the petals present on that day in August of 2015 — petals at once fragile and flexible and impossibly strong, filled with life and light and dancing for purest joy:
This image is deceptive, in the best possible way. It’s one of the same banks of wild sunflowers that appear in the last image shown below, but from this vantage point, it appears to be a rolling meadow, shot up close, entirely adance with their golden glow. you can only barely see the tops of the trees behind them, and the sloping upper edge of the mountain off to the right.
It is this image that seems to me to embody the same spirit as the one that animates today’s featured work, petals close, layered and overlapping, jostling with joy and abandon:
As much as the former image of this piece suits its gallery presentation, this is the shot that shows its truest self and spirit. You can see the wildflowers, individual petals milled into sharp relief, centers coiled close to create a feeling that combines a ’60s Flower Power vibe with a more mysterious, yet no less liberating for its time, Art Nouveau sensibility. And it shows how the citrine and peridot cabochons glow, as though they, too, are animated by the very light itself.
Of course, it’s not merely the silverwork (or our perceptions of it) that benefits from a change in perspective. The flowers and the light, and the land and sky they link, need us to adjust our view at times, too.
The same spot that brought the light up close and personal, that thrust us into the very heart of the wildflowers, is the same one that, from a broader perspective, shows us our guardian mountains, old as time, above and earth robed in gold and green, radiant petals, a wild blossoming sun.
And it reminds us that, even if the wild sunflowers’ numbers are perforce fewer this year, still they return. They are as much a part of this place as the post-storm summer light. There are still some certainties upon which we can rely, and which we perhaps can rebuild, stronger than ever.
It begins with the rain, yes, and with the petals and the sun . . . and with the work. It’s time to get to it.
~ 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.
