They tell us snow is on the way, and for once, we believe it: The violet clouds to the north at sunrise have met and melded with paler ones overhead, turning the sky a few shades off white. Those clouds are all too high for the moment to amount to anything here below, but by day’s end, we should have at least a new dusting.
And through it all, the sun’s mien shifts and shimmers with the spirits of cloud and storm and snow, all of them now with the wild horses of the heavens, running on the light.
Today’s featured work, Wings’s newest, embodies the magic and mystery and medicine of these spirits of the skies, our hoofed relatives who ride the crescent of the moon and race among the stars. Three of our own have joined them in recent years, a brown and white paint, a bay, and my beloved white mustang, and their colors run through the cascade of light that holds this miniature spirit so like their own. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Light Horse Necklace
The Light Horse rides the rays of sun, moon, and stars, illuminating the path of a darkened earth. Wings summons a miniature version from the skies to share his colorful radiance with this world. This wholly Indian horse is cut freehand from sterling silver, with articulated ears, muzzle, hooves, and tail, and a small slider-style bail extending organically from his back. His deep-set eye holds its own illuminating spark; mane and tail radiate their own light by way of hand-stamped chased arrowheads and bold score marks. The Light Spirit has marked him as its own by way of a tiny round bezel-set cabochon of a fiery Ethiopian opal on his left flank. He floats, suspended, from a strand of mixed beads in the shades of the sky, tiny round turquoise beads alternating with bright rounds of indigo-hued apatite, translucent Montana agate webbed here and there with rich brown rutile trading space with paired barrels of spiderweb turquoise, and anchored by more tiny rounds of impression jasper in rich shades of turquoise and and rust. The horse pendant is 1-5/8″ long by 2″ across at its widest point; the opal cabochon is 1/8″ across; and the bead strand hangs 21″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Close-up view shown at top.
Sterling silver; Ethiopian opal; turquoise; apatite; Montana agate; impression jasper
$875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Up close, the bead strand evokes the feel of a rainbow, a tall and narrow arc in all the colors of the spectrum. Step back a bit and view the whole, though, and it becomes clear that this is piece to connect earth to sky, to bring together the rich browns and fertile greens in union with the turquoise and indigo of the desert sky and the clear radiant glow of the arc of the light. And the opal on this Hoof Spirit’s flank seems the very distillation of sun, moon, and stars, a radiant refractive glow.
As a human owned by horses, this miniature equine holds my heart. He is light in the storm, and the light of the storm, and his spirit races along its arc with perfect wild grace. It’s fitting for a place like this, and for the season, too, a place where the light is its own animating spirit, a lover of the storm that likewise runs wild and free.
This tiny being holds talismanic power: He reminds us that, even in these short days of winter, the sun and moon and stars are here to illuminate our path. Even in the cold and the dark, we, too, may go running on — and with — 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.
