There is no fire in the sky this day. The whole world outside the window is white: white earth, white sky, white snow falling between. We’re already well past the forecast maximum, projected at something less than five inches overall, and still the heavy flakes fall.
Heavy, yes, but also dry; this is a cold snow, no hint of warmth or rain, and tonight the mercury will plunge to five below.
Winter has returned to Red Willow, and emphatically so — a reminder that no poor woodland creature forced into a cravat and a top hat to face the flash bulbs is going to tell the truth about what lies ahead.
Here, though, the wild beings are delighted by the snow’s reappearance. The birds particularly are in their element now; they are, after all, warmed by an internal fire, these feathered incubators of their young, and of a world with them, young and new as well.
For this is a year in its youth, and so is the world of opportunity born with it.
Perhaps by day’s end we shall have a return of the light, flames as visible through the curtain of flakes as the were on that New Year’s Day seven years ago when Wings captured the images featured here today. They were all of a series, all caught from separate but similar vantage points as the storm returned with the setting sun: snow born of fire, both gifts of the cosmos and expression of the love of the spirits of earth and sky. It’s storm and light bound together in a radiant courtship dance, a cascade reminiscent of precious gems and metals — amber and silver, coral and gold, crimson and copper.
The wearable art works featured here today date back only three years, the last two remaining of a small series Wings created for this season of love, romantic and otherwise. The complete collection was one whose symbolism was as well-suited to the love of family, of community and clan, of the spirits themselves, as it was to that of individuals caught up in the warming fires of passion and romance, but these final two works fall perfectly into that last category. They are a reminder that love is to be found in winter, too — indeed, in historical terms, it is arguably found most easily then, when the cold drives people into one another’s arms and blankets to share the warmth — but that is symbolism writ small, a sort than is accurately extrapolated to our world as a whole. After all, many of our cultures and traditions understand earth as mother and sky as father, recognize the animals and plants as our relatives, comprehend our cosmos as a family, born of an elemental love.
And so, today’s first work, a spiraling hoop of jewels and gems, is manifest as a symbol of love and one of the traditional tools of courtship itself. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
The Courting Flute Coil Bracelet
The courting flute is a traditional Native red cedar flute, carved and painted at the end in the form and shape of a bird’s head. A young man who wishes to court a young woman will announce his attentions publicly by serenading her from outside her lodge, giving her an opportunity to respond, but from a respectful distance. Here, Wings pays homage to the cranes and woodpeckers and other birds whose song the courting flute borrows with a spiraling melody of coppery reds. At the center are faceted round orbs of smoky quartz flanked by fiery amber that flows, lava-like, into segments of round blood-red jasper beads. Each length of jasper ends in more smoky quartz, flanked at either end by amber. Toward either end, tiny nuggets of soft red branch coral terminate in old-style faceted copper barrel beads. Beads are strung on memory wire, which expands and contracts to fit virtually any wrist. Jointly designed by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; red jasper; smoky quartz; amber; branch coral; copper
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The courting flute’s song is pure love, a melody of passion and fire, of rose hearts and flowers, of snowflake diamonds dusting golden light. It’s a tune for the whole world in winter, from the evening wind whispering through bare aspen branches to sound of the snowfall and the rose-gold song of the light.
I said last week that the water and the light were the First Medicines, twinned and entwined inextricably together. That was true, but it was not the whole of it. For the water and light, snow and sun in winter, are Love Medicine: that gift that allows earth and sky to wed anew and birth a new world, healed, healing, and whole.
It’s a eponymous medicine manifest in the second of today’s featured works, a cascading hoop of dark and light, dawn fire and the reds of night. From its description in the same section of the same gallery:
Love Medicine Coil Bracelet
In some cultures, it’s a charm; in others, more literal medicine; in still others, something more elemental yet. It’s love medicine, an aid in the seeking of love, sought for its talismanic power and ability to inspire love in the object of one’s affections, or at least in one’s confidence to approach him or her. Here, Wings brings together elemental medicine motifs in a charm that assumes a spiraling shape and power. The coil is anchored at either end with earthy round onyx beads that flow into larger round beads of sardonyx, red and orange and brown and black and white marbled together like the elements and the winds all melding in a powerful storm. Bright orange carnelian in polished nuggety chips lead toward a second length of sardonyx, all leading to a center segment of seven large round beads of deep red jasper, each highly polished and aswirl in mysterious wisps of color. Beads are strung on memory wire, which expands and contracts to fit virtually any wrist. Jointly designed by Wings and Aji.
Memory wire; red jasper; carnelian; sardonyx; onyx
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And speaking of the reds of night, they close these words this day, with a final image from the nascent night on which Wings first caught their fire:
At the final moments of the day, as the sun descends beyond our sight, even snow and storm cannot dim its light. Nor, in fact, do they wish to do so, for they, too, are susceptible to the cosmos’s love medicine: They meet, they court, they dance to the strains of the wind’s spirit flute; they wed, they love, they birth the day to come, and the year that follows it.
For here, the best world, a world healed and in harmony, is one conceived and birthed in winter: snow born of fire and fire of snow . . . the first medicines, the world’s love medicine.
~ 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.
