September first, and autumn is fully arrived.
This is the first day of meteorological fall, of course, but the equinox remains some three weeks distant yet. No matter; the Earth has made her decree already.
The sunrise projected its glow against a gathering mass of slate blue to north and west. Dawn was bright, but not long thereafter, a rising wind with an edge sharp as any blade swept the clouds overhead, delivering scattered smatterings of raindrops. It wasn’t much by volume, but we are grateful for whatever we get now.
By late morning, of course, the sun rode high in the sky once more, but the wind retained its sharp edge, air full of clarity and chill. And now, through the hours of midday, we have had more small storms gather overhead, deliver a few drops, and cede the space to the sun again. Small masses of clouds still hover on all sides, gray pearls shimmering in the light, awaiting their next cue to coalesce.
It is strange weather for this turn of month at Red Willow, and our whole small world here feels just the slightest bit eerie, as though the sheltering summer sky itself is haunted by the spirits of winter.
But these same forces and spirits lead us, teach us, embrace us in the shortening days and lengthening nights of the long chill road between. And in these days of deadly pandemic, of a killing drought and a future uncertain even in the very near term, they remind us that solitude is no bad thing now, and that we possess deep reservoirs of strength ourselves: Even solitary, we sit with a soundness of spirit.
It’s a sureness, and an assurance, too, a certainty that comes of being not merely firmly grounded but also deeply rooted. In our way, with roots that reach backward and forward in an infinite hoop of being, stormclouds do not sweep us away, but rather take their place as a sheltering sky that holds us safely in place.
The title of the image above, one Wings captured only a few weeks ago, appears three paragraphs up; our single featured work today, below and absent the seasonal identifier, share its name, and to no small degree, its deeper identity, too. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Sheltering Sky Earrings
We live beneath the protection of a sheltering sky. Wings honors its shape and shade and spirit with these earrings, long dangling drops anchored by a protective Skystone. Two rich blue squares of natural American turquoise, likely from Arizona, are set into spare, low-profile bezels and sit atop sterling silver posts. Each stone is the intense, electric blue of pale indigo, marbled faintly with white host rock and occasional whorls of coppery-red matrix. At the bases of each anchor stone hangs a long sterling silver pendant, each attached via a pair of silver jump rings: a flared skirt of sterling silver edged on either side with sterling silver triangle wire. The image of a bear paw, symbol of protection and healing, is hand-stamped at the base of each pendant, magnifying the sheltering effects of the turquoise. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ in overall length; cabochons are 1/4″ square; pendants are 2-1/16″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; blue American turquoise
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair evokes shelter, protection, in multiple forms: the lodge-shaped pendants; the bear’s pawprint stamped at the base of each; the extraordinary deep dense blue of the stones themselves, adrift with clouds of smoky red Bisbee siltstone, solid as the four corners of the sky.
They call to mind another image, too, one from a September dawn some four or five years ago.
It was the season of the flickers’ return here, although since that time they have taken up residence here year-round. It was a morning much like this, too, an early harbinger of such seasonal change, with a sky much like the one in the image at top: shades of cornflower and indigo, silver and slate, pewter and charcoal, all aswirl in mist and mystery. And the solitary flicker, the sacred bird, finding a perch upon which to sit and absorb the beauty of fading night.
The flickers, like us, seek companionship; it’s rare that we see one without also, at least intermittently, seeing its mate. But even mated, they are often alone now, their population decimated here so that they no longer have the luxury, the gift, of community and clan in large numbers. It no doubt makes for a lonelier existence, even partnered; it certainly makes for a more dangerous one. The magpies, still thriving against all odds, can attest to the importance of their numbers and communal practices in their own survival.
Our peoples were historically like the magpies, but colonialism has reduced our circumstances, shrunk our communities and narrowed our prospects, so that in these dangerous times, survival is, if not solitary, at least much more lonely than it should by all rights be.
But we take our cues from history and prophecy, from the teachings of the ancestors and the spirits . . . and from the flicker, too. A colonized world is a dangerous one, filled with predation and depredation, but there is still beauty to acknowledge, blessings to be honored. We know how to find our place, and like the flicker, we sit with a soundness of spirit, in the sureness and substance of ways as old as time, as wise and healing, too.
~ 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.
