This morning marks the return of clear skies and the omnipresent haze in the air. Yesterday’s weather forecast, a much-vaunted eighty-percent chance of precipitation, turned out to be no more than sight and sound and impotent fury: Wave after wave of clouds moved past us on all sides until end of day, when the last big storm cell settled directly overhead for some hours, punctuated by the occasional roll of thunder and the wind lashing the trees, but refusing to release a solitary drop of rain.
Today’s forecast has been a marvel of change, ranging, at any given point over the last few days, from a sixty-percent chance to a flat and absolute zero. Neither extreme inspires much confidence in the weather service’s prediction of monsoonal patterns from tomorrow well into next week.
Meanwhile, the earth here at Red Willow continues to dry apace. It’s still green, but the soil is already ashy and arid, patches of grass already receding in the face of too little moisture. There’s unlikely to be any water this year, thanks to the logistical barriers pandemic restrictions impose. If we don’t get some rain soon, the green will vanish like so much dust drawn along in the wake of yesterday’s winds.
And so we watch the forecast daily, near hourly, even as we watch the skies. We hope, and we pray. Our survival depends upon the gift of the rain now.
In this place, the rainy season is one of harsh extremes, hot mornings followed by sudden temperature inversions of twenty degrees and more, of cloudbursts capable of producing lashing winds and flooding rains and even a dusting of new snow on the peaks . . . and of a living, lively, thriving earth, abloom with wildflowers that catch the petals of the light in all the shades of the rainbow.
The images in today’s post are a trio of shots that Wings captured on a late summer’s day some seven years ago. All were taken from slightly different angles at roughly the same moment, all showing the electric intensity of the light in the aftermath of a monsoonal storm. The one above was, in some ways, my favorite, for the faint wisp of trailing cloud veiling a small section of the rainbow, yet utterly unable to mute its color or glow. We had no such weather yesterday, save clouds and wind, but we were granted a glimpse of the sun through parting thunderheads that gave its white-hot glow the faintest hint of rainbow iridescence. If the long-term forecast holds, these colorful cascading petals of the light will begin to visit regularly once again.
Speaking of colorful cascading petals, the first of today’s featured works embodies both the flowers and a small rainbow of shades, too, a cuff hand-milled in a floral pattern at once bold and graceful, and set with four jewels in brilliant shades. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Wildflowers Cuff Bracelet
Wildflowers paint a summer earth with color and light. Wings summons a profusion in soft yet brilliant shades, scattered along the length of this cuff in sharp relief. The band is formed of sterling silver hand-milled in a repeating pattern of large blossoms, each formed of multiple bold teardrop-shaped petals and arrayed in a random fashion. Across the length of the band, four of the flowers show their center pistils to the light; at each of these points is set a small round cabochon of a different color: citrine, aquamarine, amethyst, and peach moonstone. Each jewel is set into a saw-toothed bezel, creating an effect of petals within petals. The band is buffed to a high polish, allowing the flowers to seem to dance in the light. Cuff is 6″ long by 1″ high; cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; citrine; aquamarine; amethyst; peach moonstone
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The second of today’s featured images always puts me in mind of summer wildflowers, even though not a single one appears in the photo itself.
It’s leaves instead of petals here, fluttering above the standing stone and the cool slender trunks, but an aspen leaf is distinctly petal-like in form and shape, and never more so than when fluttering in the wind and shimmering in the rain’s own light. They take on on ethereal quality, a glow of their own mostly denied them except in the fiery days of fall.
Wings caught these images not long before dusk: no surprise, since the monsoon season’s customary pattern here is to allow for hot clear mornings, the coalescing of the clouds at midday, and a parade of storms arriving mostly in short sharp bursts until the hours just before sunset, when the sun retakes his place at the center of the skies. It’s a darkening glow, one that finds expression in the wildflowers of deeper hue — in the blues and violets of the rainbow’s inner edge, on the tree above conceals but the expanse below reveals.
It’s a set of shades found, too, in the work immediately below, a pair of earrings hand-milled in the same delicately bold floral pattern as the cuff, set with larger stones to pick up the amethyst glow of their smaller counterpart in the bracelet. From their description in the Earrings Gallery:
Flowers At Twilight Earrings
Flowers at twilight open to embrace the night. Wings coaxes blossoms into being beneath the moon’s silvery light with these dangling drops. Each earring is formed of a long, slender shaft of sterling silver, flared lightly and gracefully at the end and hand-milled in a stylized wildflower pattern, a profusion of petals scattering randomly across its surface. Near the bottom of each drop, a high-domed cabochon of deep violet amethyst, the shade of the desert’s dusken skies, sits in the embrace of a saw-toothed bezel. Earrings hang 2″ long (excluding wires) by 3/8″ across at the widest point; amethyst cabochons are 5/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; amethyst
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Of this series of photos (and there were more than these three), this one was captured last, if memory serves. It’s taken from a vantage point farther west than the others, with an unobstructed view across the south field. It was also last in time, as the first hint of twilight begins to encroach behind the wall of stormcloud, preparatory to the fall of a clearer dark.
We don’t anticipate any such fall of color this evening, nor any rain to precede it. We will, in all likelihood, see the rise of the clouds throughout the day, although we expect that they will deliver nothing beyond a trickster wind.
But if we are fortunate, if we are blessed, we may yet receive the gift of the rain this week . . . and with it, of the wildflowers, and the petals of the light.
~ 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.
