Today’s title might lead one to believe the post will be about hairstyles and ornamentation, but it’s not. It’s about cornsilk and rain, ribbons and braids of medicine, sustenance, abundance.
Today’s post is one of hope: for storm and rain, and for the corn newly planted amid prayers for their arrival, its survival.
And it’s not merely the delivery of the rain: Here at Red Willow, it’s deliverance, from the drought that still holds too much of this small patch of earth in a death grip, and from the ravages of climate change, which overnight saw the mercury plunge below the freezing mark.
The kernels lying new and vulnerable in the earth are at special risk now. The cold has the potential to freeze them, the dry air to foreclose any possibility of revival. And the wind — this trickster wind, so late in the season — has the ability to carry them away entirely. Planting this year will require extra work, a great deal of care, and no small amount of hope and prayer.
Still, it’s precisely this sort of season that reminds us how inextricably intertwined our fortunes are with those of Mother Earth herself. If her well-being fails, our own will fail first, and no amount of ornamentation can dress up that simple fact. This is a braided earth, where strands of cornsilk are woven with soil and sky, with ribbons of rain and rays of light, to grow, to rise, to feed the world. Once grown, the plants robe themselves in golden filaments and green stalks, echoing the traditional dress of the ground from which they rise, a ribbon shirt of earth and water and light.
Today’s images are from some twelve or thirteen years ago, captured on a summer’s day when we had been able to plant early and both warmth and rain had arrived on schedule. Ironically, the skies today resemble those of the photos, white thunderheads towering high above blue-black bases as they jockey for position against the broader turquoise expanse. But the air today is bone-dry, no chance of rain in the forecast, and fiercely cold, with a scalpel’s edge to the wind that cuts close to the bone. It is not a day for ribbons, but certainly one for sleeves . . . one to protect the land, and to pray for rain.
Today’s featured works of wearable art are both pairs of earrings, both wrought in silver and stones that are, in gemological parlance, known as ribbon turquoise. They share a family resemblance in style and symbolism, too, but each firmly inhabits its own unique identity. We begin with the ribbons, of water and of light. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Ribbon Shirt Earrings
Mother Earth wears a ribbon shirt of streaming blue waters and silvery light. Wings honors her regalia, and the beauty of our natural world, with these spectacularly mobile earrings built around a matched pair of high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The stones manifest in the warm dusky shades of rock and sand and dust, pale ivory and warm tan and deep rich veins of brown, each bisected by a fluttering turquoise ribbon like a river reflecting sun and sky. Each stone is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. From the base of each bezel, by way of hand-formed sterling silver jump rings, three long silver ribbons dance: Made of delicate yet solid sterling silver half-round wire, each of the six ribbons is meticulously stamped in a repeating pattern of butterflies fluttering down their considerable length. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ long overall (excluding the sterling silver wires); cabochons are 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; dangling silver “ribbons” are 1-5/8″ long by 3/32″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The turquoise in this pair is a near-perfect mix of robin’s-egg and sky blues, with just the smallest hint of green beneath the surface. It feels like the color that would result from a mix of sky and cornstalk in the image above, then diluted with the water the clouds hold so close to the earth.
And, of course, the silverwork does resemble ribbons, long strands of silver dancing in the wind, alive with and animated by the wings of tiny pollinators . . . ribbons like the flowing green husks below:
It’s an image that focuses on the link between earth and sky, bright jade stalks emergent, rising, swaying in the wind that precedes the summer storm. It’s reminder that they are all bound together, woven into a warp and weft far greater than the sum of its parts, a blanket of perfect balance and endless beauty.
This image’s shift in focus from the skies, its proximity to the land and shades intensified by the. light of the looming storm evoke the colors and patterns of the second of today’s featured works of wearable art, the second pair of earrings. From their description in the same gallery:
A Braided Earth Earrings
We are bound to a braided earth, our Mother’s brown locks wound with ribbons of water, adorned with rosettes beaded by summer flowers. Wings summons both the beauty of this indigenous land and the twining of our spirits with it in this pair of bold, earthy earrings built around a pair of stunning high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The matched cabochons are formed of a pair of beautifully polished host rock in warm natural shades of beige and tan, brown and bronze. Each is wound on a diagonal by a turquoise ribbon so brilliant that it is nearly opalescent, like a glowing blue river flowing through the earth’s body. The stones are set into scalloped bezels and trimmed with twisted silver. Each earring also terminates in three hand-made drops like the beaded rosettes used to bind our own braids. These are formed of sterling silver ingot, melted and shaped into tiny round beads, then stamped in a flowering pattern. Earrings hang 1-5/8″ long overall excluding the sterling silver wires); the cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; ingot blossoms are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I think most who know me would expect the first of these two pairs to be my favorite; I’m known, after all, for my devotion to long, dangling earrings. But these two pairs prove an exception to the rule: It is the second pair, just above, that has captured my spirit. It’s the stones that do it: earthy, in shades both stark and subtle, with an impossibly smooth finish, marbled by that indigo ribbon, the shades so intense and luminous as to be nearly opalescent. And between the ribbons of blue and lines in the earth, the twisted silver edging and the flowing ingot accents, they form as shimmering a braid as any shimmering tassel that tops a field of growing, glowing corn”
The last image makes the other strands of braid explicit: earth, manifest in the mountains in the background; water present in the gathering storm that has settled across the sky.
Our own forecast this day holds out no such hope of rain; indeed, there is none forecast until week’s end, and that precious little and only momentary. The long-range forecast now is bleak indeed.
But the clouds defy human forecasting, and so do the elements. Today’s cold will pass, the air warming once again. And perhaps the ribbons and braids of summer will manifest in a rainy season once again.
For now, there is still hope; there is prayer; and there is always the work.
~ 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.
