Ten minutes before the moment of the Solstice, the dogs came tearing upstairs, demanding to be let outside. I know because I glanced at the clock: 2:10 AM. And it occurred to me that perhaps they, and the other area dogs outside with whom they wished to commune and bark, knew of its significance, too.
It would not surprise me at all to learn that our animal relatives feel the moments of solstice and equinox physically in ways we do not . . . or at least in ways that we have suppressed so thoroughly that we no longer notice.
It’s a significant moment in the course of a year. The outside world will tell you that it’s the first day of winter, but earth and air and waters and sky know that winter arrives on much of this land mass long before a particular date in the latter half of December. It’s the Earth’s own new year: Having just bade farewell to the one ending, the actual moment of the Winter Solstice is the one in which it welcomes its own newborn year to come. In our ways, it has its own significance, for some peoples serving as a marker of the new year, for others, something different, and for still others, like my own, the beginning of one of two different ways of reckoning the next cycle of the sun [neither of which falls on what’s now generally known as January first; indeed, the other one comes much later].
It’s become popular to say that the Solstice marks the return of the light, and that is true; tonight, the sun will set a second or two later than it did last night, making the night just that momentary bit shorter. But “return” in this context is a long process, and there is much road left to travel in the winter cold and dark. I tend to think of this day’s meaning more in terms of rebirth, of the cleansing properties of winter snows and the nurturing slumber that long cold hours of darkness so readily enable: The Earth’s newest year is a child of the dawn, setting out upon the path of the light, and there is a whole sun cycle of growth and life along the way ahead.
Today’s featured works are animated by the spirits of birth and life, of the dawn of a new year and a young child’s promise. There are three offerings comprising four separate items — two individual bangle bracelets and two more paired as a small set, all of them sized to young wrists and a perfect reminder for a child of all the potential and possibilities they hold within their being, of their inherent value and worth, of the roots that hold them and the sky that awaits their reach and all the love the embraces them in the hoop of community.
All three are found in the Cuffs and Links and Bangles section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site. We begin with the largest of the group, one that will in fact fit an adult whose hands are small enough to slide a seven-inch silver hoop over them. It is, in fact, a perfect symbol of this Solstice day, marking the Earth’s new year, born in a circle made of dawn and light. From its description:
Circle Made of Dawn Child’s Bangle Bracelet
Life begins in a circle made of dawn, every child’s birth a new addition expanding its scope and power. With this child’s bangle, Wings honors life’s sacred hoop, the essential role every child plays in braiding it more tightly together, and the light of the world that shines upon us all. This perfect shimmering circle is formed of a lightweight gauge of sterling silver triangle wire, its apex rising from the center in sharp relief. Each end is fused seamlessly together in a fine, slender hoop, buffed smooth to a beautifully aged and glowing finish just a shade brighter than Florentine. The circumference of the inner band is 7″ long (and will fit a small adult hand and wrist); the outer band is 3/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Solid sterling silver
$225 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is my personal favorite of the group. That’s not just because it actually fits me, although it’s true that it does — only my left wrist, because, as my non-dominant hand, the thumb joint is smaller. But the real reason I love it is for its filament-like beauty, a bit like a single strand of spiderweb silk glistening in the winter light. It is indeed a perfect circle, a hoop, with that sharp yet subtle apex that helps refract the light and reinforce its glow.
The second of today’s featured works, though, has its own particular glow. It’s formed of a heavier gauge of sterling silver “wire,” this one pattern wire in a flowing, floral design that bespeaks an Art Nouveau spirit. This second bracelet is larger in width, smaller in circumference, but its detailing makes it beautifully apt — like its wearer, growing on the vine of culture and community. From its description:
Growing On the Vine Child’s Bangle Bracelet
Our cultures value community, collective power and medicine and love, to keep both children and cultural traditions well and healthy and growing on the vine. With this child’s bangle, Wings pays tribute to the communal nature of culture and tradition, honoring both the children who hold our collective future and to those who nurture their growth. This elegant hoop is formed of sterling silver pattern wire, the design molded into an Art Nouveau motif of a vine winding itself along a central stalk, in flower and thriving. It’s molded carefully into a perfect circle, fused seamlessly at the ends and buffed to warm and glowing aged patina just a shade brighter than Florentine. The circumference of the inner band is 6.5″ long; the outer band is 5/16″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Solid sterling silver
$225 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This one is definitely sized for small hands, unlikely to fit too many adults. For a child or small teen, though, it’s perfect, and a lovely, gentle reminder that their beauty and value lies not merely in their potential, but in the wonders of who they are now, and of they contributions they accordingly make, simply by being. It’s a gift that colonial cultures undervalue, tending to treat children simply as inconveniently miniature adults, society waiting impatiently for them to mature into adults whose bodies, minds, talents, and skills exist solely to feed the machinery of profit and exploitation.
We know that children are sacred in and of themselves, at every stage and every age.
And we know that we have obligations to them, too, including those not yet born. There is a reason that our ancestors counseled us to act in our daily lives in ways that would ensure a good life for the next seven generations to come, and it’s perhaps here that colonial cultures’ failures are most obvious, and most deadly too.
It’s also a mark of their essential mendacity. Most people know, or think they know, of the supposedly old aphorism that includes the phrase “as long as the grass grows and the water flows.” It’s actually none of those things, but in the pop-culture mind, it’s become settled mostly as the wise words of some old, nameless “Indian chief” [although often incorrectly attributed to various famous Indigenous leaders, most of whom would likely have scorned the title “chief” as utterly inapt]. In truth, it’s a corruption of a phrase that then-president Andrew Jackson, the famed “Indian killer” and the most overtly genocidal of an entire pantheon of genocidaires, modern presidents included, instructed a major of the U.S. Army to include in a message to the Cherokee and Choctaw, an inducement and false promise that if they would cede their lands Jackson so coveted in favor of the “new” lands he was offering them, they would be permitted to stay in those new lands for “as long as the grass grows or water runs.”
We all know how that turned out [and if you don’t, then you need to learn, immediately].
And so both versions, the original and the corruption, are code for genocidal lies, at least among us in Indian Country.
But there is a deeper truth behind the phrasing, behind the lies that were deliberately formed in such a locution because it echoed the way our ancestors understood and engaged with the world that kept them, and everyone else, alive.
And so we make promises to our children, to generations of children yet unborn, that we will leave them the kind of world we were fortunate to know . . . but that promise is being broken daily now, not by us but by the same colonial forces and agents that embarked upon their campaigns of genocide against our peoples centuries ago. Now, though, it’s not just a matter of exterminating certain peoples [the most profound of evils], but a matter of exterminating the earth itself, the one upon which they, too, depend for their survival but are too arrogant and blinkered to notice or care.
And so it is our promise, the kind that our ancestors made to us and that we, in turn, are trying desperately to keep for our own grandchildren’s grandchildren, that this third and final work embodies. This work is actually a pair, two matched miniature bangles that form a small set. They’re manifest as the promise the earth makes to us, and that we in turn owe to future generations — of a world healthy and thriving, as long as the water flows. From their description:
As the Water Flows Child’s Bangle Bracelet Pair
A world in good health and harmony, as long as the water flows, is a promise we make to our children that we will ensure their future, unto the seventh generation and beyond. With this pair of sterling silver child’s bangles, Wings summons the spirit of that promise and distills it into a perfect hoop, a wearable reminder to keep the promises we make. Each slender circle is formed of sterling silver pattern wire molded in a flowing, graceful Art Nouveau pattern that evokes the crests and waves of the waters that keep our world alive. Each is soldered seamlessly into that perfect hoop, a symbol of the eternal and infinite nature of life itself. Edges are smoothed and the surfaces are buffed to a rich aged finish just a shade brighter than Florentine. The circumference of each bangle’s inner band is 6.5″ long; each is roughly 1/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Sold as a pair. Other views shown at the link.
Solid sterling silver
$275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
If the world has learned nothing else this year, the one lesson it must internalize is that it cannot remain upon its current path. This journey, as currently plotted and charted and planned, ends in nothing but destruction and death, for everyone and for everything.
It’s not a matter of reversing course; it is not given to us to go back, only forward. But we must do so in a way that halts this current headlong race to humanity’s extinction, that rejects the evils that have plagued this entire year and our entire world in favor of a worldview and way of being that is life-giving, life-sustaining for us all.
The Solstice has come in the early hours of this morning, and we are now some hours toward the first bit of lengthening of the days again. What better time to recommit to doing what we know must be done than in the dawn of a whole new year of the Earth, setting out upon the path of the light?
It’s how we all survive, and we owe it to our children.
And they are all our children.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
