At this midpoint of an elemental month, one that will tomorrow feature the outside world’s devotion to all things green and that today serves as a melancholy marker for Wings, we have returned to the things of the earth in the most literal sense. Warm red-gold sand and rich brown soil, green grass and new-leafing trees and the plants that heal us — all of these are hallmarks of a month that heralds the official change of seasons and, this year, the day known to much of the rest of the world as Easter.
Today will be a difficult one for Wings; anniversaries of loss always are. It is a reminder of mortality, of our own inevitable return to the earth and the dust thereof . . . but viewed through the lens of our peoples’ ways, it can also serve as a reminder of our origins, of emergence, of renewal in other worlds, of the ultimate unbreakability of life’s sacred hoop.
And so, on this day, the symbolism of today’s featured piece seems especially fitting. It is one of Wings’s more recent masterworks, one that embodies themes of ancestral emergence and the keeping of the old ways, of grounding in senses both literal and metaphorical, of, a return, as the name of the work implies, to the center of all things. From its description in the Buckles Gallery here on the site:
The Center of All Things Concha Belt Buckle
In our own small plane of existence, from our own human perspective, our world is the center of all things. Indigenous cultures affirm this reality in our origin stories, in how we understand Turtle Island beneath the skies, amidst the winds, above the point of emergence. Wings pays tribute to this vision, one lived daily among his own people, in this complex concha belt buckle, a flowering shell-shaped disc of heavy sterling silver that blossoms into traditional symbols of the world as we know it. Celestial patterns, rising sun and setting moon and the light that flows between them, edge the scalloped buckle in concentric rings. Its repoussé center, lightly domed by hand, is chased in a loop of hundreds of individual arrow stamps tracking the motion of the spiraling winds. Ancient kiva steps symbols lead inward to the very center, heart and womb alike, where rests a large oval cabochon of emerald green turquoise with a golden brown matrix that looks for all the world like a map of Turtle Island. On the reverse, only Wings’s hallmark appears, in the embrace of another spiritual center: the Morning Star Lodge, a place of healing and medicine, guidance and power. The buckle stretches 3.75 inches across by 3-1/8 inches high; the stone is 1-3/16 inches across by 7/8″ high (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; Colorado Evans Mine turquoise
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is one of his most exquisite works. A stone as beautifully earthy as this one deserved a breathtaking setting, and Wings gave it one: stampwork all done freehand, flawless and meticulously even; symbolism selected in such a way as to illustrate a complex spiral of stories within stories.
In a week when the spring winds have already roared in, threatening to upend our world here, when the days are rife with reminders and markers and lines in the sand, of “befores” and “afters” and the loss in the spaces between, it’s a work that sets one’s feet firmly on the soil and simultaneously grounds the spirit.
It’s a beautiful way of getting back down to earth, of returning, once again, to the center of all things.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
