I said some days were harder than others. Some weeks are, too.
This is one.
Mostly the problems are mechanical, technological, logistical — the curse of living in a contemporary colonial world that requires constant virtual connection to function. But those problem necessarily spill over into other areas, and after two months of extreme and unexpected, entirely unpredictable expenses, plus the regularly scheduled costs that are July in our world, a long-term Internet outage becomes a worst-case scenario on multiple fronts.
And, of course, as I write this, I have no idea whether it will actually post by Tuesday evening, or whether we shall be without service much longer than that.
Time was, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but things are different now. It’s what happens when colonialism pushes Indigeneity out by force, displacing not merely people but flora and fauna, as well. We were among the lucky ones, able to move to on online format, but most are not so fortunate. Here at Red Willow, climate change and pandemic have made the dangers of colonial invasion all too abundantly clear now.
And still they come: invading, occupying, taking, depleting. This is a land that cannot handle the load, was never intended to bear such a burden, and the strain is showing, cracks becoming open fissures, whole crevices — in the earth, in the skies, between the soul and spirit of this place and of those who belong not it it but would seek to possess, to own, to control and pillage it.
Some things never change, not even after five hundred years.
On Sunday, the weather patterns pursued similar extremes, alternating being a steamy sun and the battering force of giant hail driven hard on the horizontal — perhaps rightly so, given that what hid behind the wall of clouds to the west was a giant plume of gray-white smoke, sufficient to turn the setting sun red.
The whole sky was white by yesterday morning, afternoon monsoonal clouds tinged pink. Today, a glance out the window might lead one unfamiliar with our patterns to believe the clouds have returned in force, but there are no clouds this morning.
Only smoke.
There is a wildfire somewhere not so very far away.
It’s hard to find real shelter, to feel safe or to see a way forward, when we are constantly batted back and forth between them, these extremes of climate and weather, of colonial politics, always at each end of the storm.
Today’s three featured images are of a piece with each other, and yet all are distinctly different: shot in different years, at different seasons, with different cameras and for different purposes.
The one above is from May or June some eight years ago, a midday sky at the outset of summer, before the monsoon patterns are really under way and when the whole season still seems alive with every possibility. It was shot from the dusty earth of the old village itself, a Pueblo summer sky at its most archetypal: sun fully overhead to the south and the first of the gentle white clouds just rolling in to enfold it, as though to shelter the blue against its fiery heat . . . and yet, to allow its illuminating glow to shine upon the ancient walls and earth below.
In that, it presaged the first of today’s two featured works of wearable art, cuff bracelets both, all rendered in solid sterling silver and old-style freehand stampwork, both animated by the spirits of sun and storm together. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
At Each End of the Storm Cuff Bracelet
At each end of the storm is a world of sun and light. With this cuff, Wings calls sunrise and sunset to the dance with the midday storm and the sacred directions. The spare, slender band is wrought of solid fourteen-gauge sterling silver, substantial but not heavy. Its entire outer surface chased with traditional thunderhead symbols conjoined at their open bases, melding together motifs of abundance with those of sacred space, all of the stampwork so deep and regular that it displaces the silver at the sides slightly into an elegant, faintly rippling edge. At either end, the band’s are rounded by hand and filed smooth, then stamped with a single radiant sun symbol, equally deep, even, and sharply defined. On the inner band at either end rests an eight-pointed star in the shape of a mariner’s compass, a little secret link between the wearer and the sacred directions that appear in more classic fashion on the outer band. The stampwork is oxidized thoroughly, then the whole polished to a mirror-like finish. Cuff is 6″ long by 3/8 wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The point, of course, is that there is sunlight at each end of the storm: sunrise, sunset, a radiant light to assure us that all is well.
But here at Red Willow, and across much of the land of this broader region, we know well that sometimes the safest place to be, especially in the heat of summer, is in the middle of the storm itself.
For a child of the Great Waters like myself, the storm is usually the safest place to be anyway; I am far more at home in wild weather than in any amount of sun. But here, it is the storm that keeps this place alive, as we all know better than ever after these last few years of deepening 1,200-year drought.
Here, the storm has its own special kind of beauty, one of dark and light played off against each other, of the howling winds and hammering rain that depart as rapidly as they come, leaving a rainbow iridescence in their wake. And then, of course, there are the clouds themselves.
Sometimes it’s thunderheads piled impossibly high, towers like skyscrapers for the spirits, except they have no need to scrape the vault that lies beneath their feet. Sometimes it’s the contrast between the blue violet and and the radiant sun, a violence of color and light all its own. And sometimes it’s a watercolor sky worthy of the Spirit World’s finest Impressionists, daubs of color and feathery brush marks of gentle light behind.
A sky like the sheltering summer sky in the second of today’s featured images, one captured on an early summer’s afternoon a year or so ago.
It looks, perhaps, like something painted by Courbet, stormy skies roiling in mirror form above even stormier seas. But the seas here are sandy brown, dry as ash and bone, the heat and drought and nearby flames far more threatening than any storm born of water could ever be.
Perhaps that’s why I see this image as one of a sheltering summer sky: all gentle blending of softly rounded edges, hanging low as though to embrace the land. For one born of the storms of smaller seas, the Great Waters the rest of the world knows as the Great Lakes, wild weather carries with it all the comfort of long familiarity, a refuge from this deadly drought, yes, but also from whatever else might otherwise be inclined to wander abroad creating mischief and worse.
Weather can be deadly, but it can also mean safe harbor.
The second of today’s featured works of wearable art is a larger, heavier version of the cuff above — not identical, but with enough of a family resemblance that it almost feels as though this piece is the object, the one above its echo: lighter, a bit less substantial, but with the same voice and song and spirit. From its description in the same section of the same gallery:
Refuge Cuff Bracelet
The space between Spirit’s eyes is a place of refuge, a sanctuary filled with life in full abundant flower that extends to all directions. With this simple, spare traditional cuff, Wings combines the symbologies of sacred space and Spirit with the imagery of the directions, of illuminating guidance and the forces of abundance. Cut freehand of heavy-gauge sterling silver, the slender band is chased with traditional imagery on all four sides: top, bottom, and either edge, all stamped deeply, consistently, and similarly freehand. At the center sits a deeply stamped ancient motif used variously to represent the force of the thunderhead, the powers of the winds and the sacred directions, and the traditional stair-stepped lines that evoke a specific kind of sacred space. It’s flanked by paired sunrise symbols, the rays emergent from a bank of clouds to create triangles that, when conjoined at their open bases, together produce Eyes of Spirit, symbols of wisdom, illumination, and guidance. The pattern alternates down each side of the band, ending in paired directional spaces and anchored at each end by a single deep flower; more flowering motifs edge the narrow sides of the band. The inner band is lined at either edge in a repeating pattern of subtler motifs of illumination, the silvery light of crescent moons. Cuff is 6″ long by 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver
$1,050 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work is special, eminently traditional in shape and style and spirit, with a solidity and substance to it found in the silverware of those old masters of a century and more ago.
It’s also a radiant piece that weaves together the powers of sun and cloud and storm and crescent moon, all edged by the medicine they together summon into being. It’s a work to reinforce the truth that all of these elemental forces are our refuge, that it is human efforts to harness and control them beyond what it is given to us to do that unleashes their destructive power and places them squarely beyond our control.
Which is what is being delivered to us all now.
Still, our peoples have been witnessing the progression of such evils for half a millennium now, and still we endure. Sometimes it cannot properly be called much more than that: endurance, existence. But we remain, and because we do, more than eighty percent of the world’s still-extant biodiversity remains as well.
Across the plant, Indigenous peoples have become Mother Earth’s refuge now.
And eventually, this storm, too, will clear.
It will clear as in the image above, the last of today’s featured photographic works: one Wings shot on one of his early digital cameras some eight to ten years ago, caught just before dusk in the chill of what might have been late fall or even the dead of winter but I suspect was actually early spring, back in the days before the trees began budding in December and we could still depend upon a clear spring night to come.
Today, we have no such assurances; every season is out of balance, because the earth and sky that carry them have been too brutalized to hold them steady now. This is a storm of humanity’s own making, one born of colonialism and continually fed by the fires of capitalism, humanity’s twinned modern political sins always hand in hand.
But our memories are far longer; our ancestors made sure that we would know the past, and hold fast to the truths of prophecy for the future. We know that these storms will clear, these clouds will part, Grandmother Moon will show her face again.
Because the sky spirits know our own, Sun and Moon and, yes, Storm as well, and they are waiting for us still. At colonialism’s end, we will be there waiting, too.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
