Finally, we have a day of full sun and a perceptible new warmth in the air. It’s especially welcome now, with most of us more or less confined in self-isolation. It seems somehow more urgent now to get out of doors and work in and with the earth, to till, to plant, to cultivate, and we are more eager than usual to begin.
The water is flowing now, too — if not here at Red Willow yet, then at least in its broader lands down the Gorge and through the other large local watersheds. Those spaces are animated now with the flow of the First Medicine, animated and animating the earth and her children with the very breath and blood of life.
Today’s imagery was taken at the same time and place as the photo that was the subject of yesterday’s meditation here in this space, or very nearly so: the Río Grande Gorge, which runs from above us to the northwest to points south of here, at this season the same shade as the turquoise skies, beaded here and there with frothy whitecaps born of the speed with which it races downstream. It unfurls through the craggy slopes like a bright blue-green ribbon, soft and shimmering and deceptively delicate-looking, yet endlessly powerful in its force and strength.
That animated and animating spirit is also one of a love ancient and eternal as the mountains that embrace it, as its earthen floor and the blue sky overhead. Its timeless nature infuses the shapes and shades and whole of the first of today’s featured works, one of Wings’s most recent tributes the the undying power of love. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
A Love Ancient and Eternal Necklace
The gifts of this indigenous earth are jewels beyond price, symbols of an ancient and eternal love. Wings honors the love, the gifts, and the example set for us with this necklace, wrought in the oldest of gems wrapped in the embrace of precious metal in the shade of the light. The work is built around a pendant of extraordinary proportions, an outsized heart cut freehand and set at the center with a total of sixteen gems. The focal point is a giant heart-shaped cabochon of Turkish colla wood, a rare and ancient fossilized wood spangled over time on a geologic scale with inclusions of its namesake, opalized chrysocolla, along with azurite and malachite, set here into a scalloped bezel. This luminous center is embraced by a ring of round bezel-set cabochons separated by tiny hand-stamped hoops, seven each of alternating blood-red carnelian and fiery amber with a single ethereal aquamarine, like tiny dawn sky, at the very tip. The pendant hangs from a flared slider-style bezel chased down its center in a repeating pattern of stylized hearts. It hangs from a chunky strand of textured beads strung on three-ply silver-plated foxtail: at the center, hand-carved oval ebony wood separated first by carnelian rondels, then slender amber chips; moving upward, Labradorite rondels alternating with pairs of spiky hand-textured ebony cylinders separated by oval ebony spacers; at the upper half, jet barrel beads alternating with segments of very old green turquoise doughnut rondels, followed by sterling silver-plated round spacers flowing into lengths of round chatoyant kyanite and smaller, intensely-hued indigo apatite. The strand is anchored by oversized sterling silver hook-and-eye findings. Including the bail, the pendant is 2-11/16″ long; the pendant alone is 2″ long from highest to lowest points by 1-7/8″ across at the widest point; the bail is 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; the colla wood heart cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-7/16″ across at the widest point; the smaller cabochons are each 3/16″ across; the bead strand, excluding findings, is 20″ long (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Pendant: Sterling silver; Turkish colla wood; aquamarine; amber; carnelian
Bead Strand: Hand-carved African ebony; carnelian; amber; Labradorite; jet;
old green turquoise; silverplate; kyanite; apatite; all over tri-ply silver-plated foxtail.
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a work that holds the colors of earth and water and sky, of wind and fire and light. It’s the amber of the sun upon plants still in winter dress, the red of the willows that give people and place their name; it’s the silver and light and black of the shadows, the green of chamisa and sage, the pale blues of a new spring sky and the deeper blues of the waters, reflective even running fast. Eternal, yes, and eternally changing, too, at work and at rest.
But love, life, and medicine all share more in common than an eternal nature. The same is true of the elemental forces and spirits of our world: At times they embody all the strength of stillness, of the serenity and silence that informs the waters shown above. At others, they are animated in the other sense of the term: active, volatile, ready to erupt at a moment’s notice, to bound and splash over the rocks, to dance for the sheer joy of being.
You see it in the rapids and in the shallows, too, this eagerness of motion: an ebullient, headlong rush downstream that is as efficient as it is dynamic, not a moment or a motion wasted.
The path of least resistance has little meaning for a life’s journey danced with joy.
It’s a lesson that brings us to the second of today’s featured works, one of simplicity as profound as that of a world in love, one as complete as the river’s own existence. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery:
A World In Love Cuff Bracelet
A world in harmony is a world in love, adance with joy and flowering with romance. Wings sets the Earth’s heart dancing on this delicate cuff bracelet, set with a spectacularly asymmetrical stone in the shades of earth and water and sky. At the center sits a heart-shaped cabochon of Hachita turquoise from southwestern New Mexico’s Little Hatchet Mountains, a stone cut in whimsically irregular shape, as though dancing in the saw-toothed bezel that holds it securely in place. The cabochon’s surface is highly-domed and beautifully textured, with shades of robin’s-egg blue underlying a rich summery green and a marbling of coppery-gold matrix. It sits against a bezel backing cut freehand and flaring just enough to limn the bezel itself. The whole setting rises from a slender silver band, heavy-gauge sterling buffed to a glowing high polish. The band is 6″ long and 5/16″ across; the heart cabochon is 9/16″ between its highest and lowest points by 1/2″ across at its widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; Hachita turquoise
$975 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And it is this animated spirit of love, this animated spirit of healing, that invite the earth’s children to join in the dance. Along the Great River, in its waters and on its banks, ducks and snow geese and goldeneyes add motion to the rare moments of stillness in spring. Even now, an eagle or two may watch from the upper perches; a few more weeks, they will depart and the occasional sandhill crane may come skimming in upon the water’s shimmering surface.
The birds link the waters with the sky in a way that goes beyond mere color and reflection. Their dance is one of timelessness, too: of life descending and love rising and medicine flowing through the whole cyclical journey.
The third and final of today’s featured works manifests this same healing, renewing, life-affirming spirit. From its description in the same section of the same gallery as the one above:
Love Rising Cuff Bracelet
The spirit of the Earth is love rising: reborn, renewed, healed and in harmony. Wings honors the love, the land, and the medicine that rises from both with this delicate cuff bracelet in the colors of earth and light. At the center sits a small, high-domed focal cabochon of Hachita turquoise from southwestern New Mexico, wrought in the perfect shape of a heart and the equally perfect shades of spring and summer green marbled with rich red-gold earth. It sits in the gentle but secure embrace of a saw-toothed bezel, perfect for a stone of the Little Hatchet Mountains, set upon heart-shaped sterling silver back, cut freehand with a tiny jeweler’s saw and extending just beyond the bezel’s borders. The entire setting rests atop a graceful sterling silver band, heavy of gauge and slender of form and polished to a near-mirror finish. The band is 6″ long and 5/16″ across; the heart cabochon is 9/16″ from its highest to lowest points by 1/2″ across at its widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; Hachita turquoise
$975 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work is the green of shoreline waters, reflecting the new leaves and tinted with the blues of the turquoise sky, shot through with the gold of an emergent earth, all set upon the arc of a silver light. It’s a world that not merely supports, not only sustains, but invites and welcomes life to the dance.
This section of the Great River is just far enough south to be greening up already; the ducks will be there in force now, as will the late-winter goldeneyes. The raptors will have mostly departed now, their own prey more readily available in spaces further removed from the predation, both casual and purposeful, of the human population. For the spirits indigenous to this space, it is indeed a time for healing, for renewal and rebirth.
It is no accident that it should be a space so central to this land and place. It is, after all, the major artery of this land’s own heart.
For this moment, too, it is the healing we all need now, and the animating spirit, too: the flow of the First Medicine, the lifeblood of the land in the waters of spring.
~ 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.
