It’s another gorgeous spring day, warm and bright with just a hint of breeze. We do have clouds that arrived with the dawn, the kind of trailing wispy bands that can, under some circumstances, indicate a change in the weather to come.
Whether that change will involve rain or merely violent wind remains to be seen; every few hours, the forecast for tomorrow reverses itself, swinging wildly between the two possibilities. We, of course, are holding out hope for rain, but we know better than to depend on it. Meanwhile, we pray that if it should turn out to be the trickster winds, it will not also involve any recklessness with regard to fire.
With respect to the latter, the new warmth is more than enough.
Of course, despite the fact that the weather people insist that the current temperature is seventy-one [our own thermometer shows the mercury registering sixty-five or -six in the shade], there is still that sharp chill edge to the air, and when the wind kicks up, it feels much colder still. There is no escape the need for indoor fire yet, but that’s usual for this time of year; it’s typically late June or even July before we can reliably do without at least a single small daily fire in the woodstove. There is medicine to be found in its warmth, and beauty too. But if you look closely, if you contemplate the flames’ origins and effects, you can find more than simple illumination in them: shades of smoke, force of fire, and a sacred wisdom in the prayer and purification and healing for which they are used.
Today’s featured work, another of Wings’s newest and another of the most recent iterations in his long-standing signature series, the Warrior Woman, embodies all of these gifts. From its description in the Pins Gallery here on the site:
A Sacred Wisdom Warrior Woman Pin
There is a sacred wisdom to be found in the spirits of darkened skies, in their guidance and in the teachings of our ancestors. With this newest entry in his longstanding signature series of Warrior Woman pins, Wings evokes the oldest signifiers of wisdom and guidance accented with the shimmering glow of the night. The entire pin is saw-cut freehand, her face and traditional bun evoked with the sparest of stampwork; her dress is adorned with paired old-style thunderhead symbols placed perpendicular to each other, spokes and corners evoking all the points of the sacred directions. Her heart is veiled here beneath the repoussé stampwork of a diamond-shaped Eye of Spirit, an ancient symbol of wisdom rising in sharp relief. In her left hand she holds the crescent moon in miniature, its surface traced with stylized dancing hearts, a nod to the spirit of love that infuses true wisdom. In her right hand she holds a tiny round cabochon of hematite, at once regarded as both magnetic and grounding, a reminder of what we owe each other as part of the gift of humanity. Over her right shoulder coils a serpent formed of hammered sterling silver braid wire, a symbol of prosperity and abundance. Pin stands 2-3/4″ high by 2-7/8″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; hematite
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
In this version, she wears garments adorned with the symbols of the First Medicine, of the Sacred Directions and the similarly sacred spaces they hold within their boundaries. The crescent moon in her left hand is accented with the love’s most recognized avatar, manifest here in its most joyous form. It seems no accident that Wings shold have chosen braid wire, gently hammered, to create the coiled power of Serpent over her right shoulder: He is, after all, a signifier of prosperity, and there is not greater prosperity that that which reaches everyone and everything, for all of our fates are irrevocably entwined with each other’s.
And then there is the stone in her right hand. It’s hematite, a metallic-finish mineral whose color is often described as “gunmetal.” While descriptive, that which refers to the “long knives” is perhaps not the most welcome label for this gem for our peoples, but the material itself is subtly spectacular. It’s a truly elemental mineral, one formed, quite literally, of earth, air, fire, and water. I’ve written about it here before, nearly a decade ago:
Hematite is one of several iron oxides, one distilled to mineral form (indeed, it is the main ore that is mined from iron today). It manifests in discrete varieties, such as iron rose, kidney ore, and specularite; in compound form, as maghemite (hematite and magnetite), and as an independent solid compound of hematite and limenite when heated to temperatures exceeding 1700 degrees Fahrenheit; and as a pseudomorph of magnetite.
Hematite occurs in banded iron formations, large iron deposits exposed to elemental forces that oxidize the metal, creating byproducts such as hematite. Oxidation, in its most basic form, consists of two intertwined definitional acts: In chemical terms, it is the process by which something loses electrons; and it does so via a process by which the substance combines with oxygen. In geological and mineralogical terms, this often occurs when a substance (metal or mineral) is exposed to air, heat, water, pressure, or any combination(s) thereof over extended periods time.
In the case of banded iron formations, the iron deposits are subject to weathering processes that oxidize portions of the metal, creating other substances known as oxides. One such oxide, hematite, becomes its own mineral. This weathering process involves elemental forces on an epic (and epochal) scale, particularly air and the shifting pressures of earth.
Hematite also occurs in water: in standing pools (i.e., still waters), or in mineral-infused hot springs. One famous example is Yellowstone National Park, where chemicals present in the waters spark a process called precipitation, by which come particles in the liquid recombine to form a solid. In such environments, sedimentation occurs, causing the solid material to descend to the floor of the body of water.
Hematite is also formed by fire, in the form of volcanic activity. In such processes, no water is needed for its formation. NASA’s Mars explorations have reportedly established the presence of hematite there; the mineral is likely the source of its nickname, the “Red Planet.”
So how does a metallic gray stone become responsible for a planet’s red color?
Hematite occurs, generally speaking, in two spectra of dominant colors: gray and red. Most (perhaps all) hematite actually carries, somewhere within its source deposits, streaks or bands of dark red, a product of the iron from which the mineral derives. It’s also the source of its name: The word hematite is rooted in the Greek word haima, or “blood,” a direct reference to the dark red color found in it, whether in streaks within larger gray pieces of rock, or in the color of the whole rock itself. Indeed, red hematite is the coloring agent found in ochre, a powdered pigment: the form found in red ochre is unhydrated hematite; in yellow ochre, the hydrated form is present. In its ochre manifestation, it has been used for millennia by cultures the world over as a coloring agent, in art and for other purposes.
This is hematite in its more commonly-recognized gray form, but that does not preclude its formation from fire [or from within water, for that matter]. It’s not a stone that Wings uses frequently; indeed, I can only recall one or two other instances, over the years, of him having used it in a Warrior Woman pin. Against such infrequency, its use here seems to take on greater significance and meaning.
I suspect that it was not a conscious choice, but it’s also interesting to me that he chose this particular stone for one of only two of this cohort of five Warrior Woman pins, all created simultaneously, in which her heart is veiled by a diamond shape: an Eye of Spirit. It’s an old traditional symbol of wisdom, of enlightenment, of guidance — and how do we avail ourselves of such gifts but through the offering of prayers upon the smoke, of seeking the sacred through ceremony?
Of this particular group, this is one of my personal favorites, precisely because of its departure from his more usual patterns in this series. It’s a work manifest in shades of smoke, force of fire, a sacred wisdom, and the elemental medicine of survival itself.
~ Aji
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