With a high once again in the sixties, we worked out of doors all afternoon minus jackets, or in my case, minus sleeves. Today was another bright blue day, an indigo sky webbed with trailing white clouds, and an outsider would be hard-pressed to believe that snow is now likely only hours away.
Here at Red Willow, the mercury can swing a full fifty degrees in a matter of hours, the weather invert in the beat of a bird’s wing. And this week marks what is likely the end of autumn in any real sense, the moment when we cross the threshold into what is, for all practical purposes, winter.
Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow night, assuredly Thursday, our small world here will become a frost matrix: blanketed in white, inclusions formed of limbs and branches, shadows on snow and reflections in ice.
Even without snow this night, tomorrow may dawn like the one depicted above, predawn fog having swaddled the willows in slender threads of ice crystals, diamond-studded branches against the hot blue of a cold winter sky. Perhaps the blue will be the violet-gray of the gathering storm, and the beads will less diamond than silver, softly brushed by a low ancient light. Perhaps we shall even be granted both: clear skies in the moments after sunrise, giving way to cloudier skies.
Any or all, they call to mind the first of today’s informal collection of featured works, entries in what has long been Wings’s mostly-annual informal signature series of holiday tree pins. All are found in the Pins Gallery here on the site. The first, evoking the image of its willowy counterpart above, is manifest in shades of silver and blue. From its description:
Snow-Wreathed Fir Holiday Tree Pin
A snow-wreathed fir stands strong in the blue of a winter’s twilight. Wings summons the spirits of tree and storm in this diminutive pin, a tree for the holidays adance beneath the falling flakes. Cut freehand from sterling silver, the little fir’s boughs are garlanded with chased symbols of a sun setting beneath the clouds. Flowering snowflakes are scattered across its branches, three hand-stamped and two formed of overlaid conchas, tiny repoussé sterling silver starbursts fanned out in crystalline form. In winter holiday tradition, a hand-stamped star twinkles from the treetop. Tree stands 1-1/2″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 1/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Such delicately frosted limbs are rare in the dead of winter, when that shot was captured; they are more likely to occur in the occasional fog-bound mornings of autumn, or more often, in the spring, seasons when temperature inversions are sudden and thorough. Even then, the diamond-like crystals of frost are often subsumed in the early hours by a deeper cold, transmuted into ice and snow.
Where I come from, ice storms were once a semi-regular winter occurrence, with results inevitably inconvenient and occasionally disastrous. Here, the tree limbs are ore often likely to break beneath the weight of too much snow than that of water frozen solid. Still, an ordinary winter will at least once or twice bring us a web of willow branches encased in ice and shimmering in the light, dark wood momentarily radiant against a turquoise sky.
It calls to mind the second in today’s group of featured works, a tree webbed by flowering silver garlands, studded with onyx and blue turquoise and a single moonstone glowing like ice among the branches. From its description:
Icicled Juniper Holiday Tree Pin
An icicled juniper shines with tinsel made of snow and light. Wings honors the shades of winter green and the power of the light with this tiny tree, cut freehand of sterling silver with upturned boughs and and flared trunk. The small but steady rays of the winter sun garland its branches as the scattered blossoms of remnant berries, hand-stamped, peek through; a winter butterfly, a bit of holiday magic, floats past beneath the twinkling star at its top. The icy tinsel shimmers in a single moonstone, while the jade and turquoise of the evergreen shows through above, all by way of small round bezel-set cabochons. Tree stands 1-1/2″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; jade; blue turquoise; moonstone
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
When the water comes, of course, it comes as it will, and in the hours and days to come we may see frost, rain, sleet, ice, and snow combined. Much depends on the mercury, and on the track of the winds. If we awaken to snow, whether a dusting or drifting deep, we may be granted a vision of the world split into more than one matrix, rimed branches above casting a web of shadows below, their image spreading across the surface, crossing each other, bending with hill and drift, shifting with the light.
The matrix of shadows upon snow is an active one, ever-changing, never content to stay in one place for much more than a moment even as the more tangible one that creates it stands tall and straight and unmoved by all save the strongest wind.
But shadows require light, and one of the most beautiful aspects of winter here arises from the congress between sun and earth: shimmer and shadow, motion and light, bare branches and bits of evergreen shining silvered against the storm-ridden blue of the sky, the whole world backlit by the amber glow of a setting sun. It’s a manifestation of the colors of the third and last in today’s informal set of featured work, and my personal favorite for its wedding of storm and fire. From its description:
Sunlit Cedar Holiday Tree Pin
A sunlit cedar welcomes the winter light. Wings pays tribute to sun and season, tree and earth on which it stands, with this little pin cut freehand from sterling silver. The flared and scalloped trunk stands sturdy and firm, while the tips of the branches reach upward slightly, as though to meet the sun. The orb’s rays, peeking out faintly from beneath snowclouds, garland the boughs, while the small flowery tips of the cones, hand-stamped, spangle the surface. At the middle, the evergreen’s rich hues show themselves by way of bezel-set cabochons of lapis and jade, while a fiery amber sun rests near the top. Tree stands 1-1/2″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; amber; lapis lazuli; jade
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Of course, even on cloudy days, the fire is there, if muted to the glow of low-burning embers. And its warmth works its own magic on the ice, turning shadows into reflection, a flat image upon the snow into a whole world be neath the surface.
Frost, snow, ice, it makes no matter. The shadows speak of this world. The reflection shows us more.
And that, too, is winter here, a season of extremes, of hardships, yes, but also of possibility, of potentiality.
Winter is water web and crystal matrix: a marriage of the first medicine and the light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
