It may be far too early for spring, but it’s welcome all the same.
The high today is projected to hit the sixties, and the mercury is already well on its way. The skies are clear, save for the ugly web on contrails criss-crossing the blue, and for the moment there is precious little wind to disturb the day’s gentle air. That will likely change by mid-afternoon, but for now, we’ll enjoy it while we can.
Perhaps the greatest gift of recent days has been that of the earth itself: not planet, but soil, the rich dark dirt and reddish clay that forms the land here. It’s newly exposed to air and light now, the warmth of recent days having melted virtually all trace of the snow, save for a few remnant patches of icy slush in places locked permanently in shadow. What is unusual is the pattern of this thaw, one slow enough and steady enough to allow the earth to absorb virtually all of the water. To often, especially over the last decade and a half, our winter weather patterns here have swung wildly between two extremes: in a better year, protracted heavy snows that then melt so rapidly there is no hope for absorption and we are left to navigate rivers of mud; in substantially less good years, drought so deep and all-encompassing as to produce no snow at all.
The worst such year was 2018, when what was already a 500-year drought turned immediately deadly. The following year produced a bit of rain and snow, but nowhere near sufficient for an ordinary year, much less enough to ameliorate the killing effects of the year before. We had hoped that would be the worst of it, although we knew better than to depend on it, and last year, our worst fears were confirmed.
If ever there were a year that we needed to be able to the pandemic year that was 2020 was it. Unfortunately, despite a smattering of small storms, still far more than 2018 produced, the damage of two years prior had run deep. Last year, the earth dried to dust, cracking wide and long. The fields burned up; not a blade of green anywhere between them. We planted carefully, hoping that regular waterings via hose and sprinkler hooked up to the well would be enough.
It wasn’t.
A few heads of lettuce, a few tiny tomatoes, a few onions, and one single stunted young ear of corn were our harvest. There was no water, and the damage had run too deep.
And so it has been a gift of nearly indescribable proportions to see whole patches of bright green grass emergent now these two weeks past and more: blades bright and sturdy, welcoming the recent snows and putting them to work without freezing in the cold night air. Within the past couple of days, Wings had occasion to dig in a couple of spots northwest of the house, not far from the giant blue spruce . . . and he was stunned, happily so, to discover that the soil is moist and rich a good foot down and beyond.
It bodes well for the planting season, even if only for this year. And while we know better than to bank on it, after last year’s lack of yield, hope is both badly needed and very welcome now.
There is a spirit of transformation upon the gentle winds now, one that whispers of possibility and promise if only we are willing to put in the work. Already signs of growth, scribed upon the earth, echo those whispers and invite us to join in the process and practice and praxis that produces abundance.
Today’s featured work embodies the growth, the signs, the lines, and the promise, all in one earthy symbol of feminine abundance. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Earth Mother/Mother Earth Necklace
Earth Mother/Mother Earth, two spirits in one: The latter births the former, the former emerges from the very being of the latter. Wings summons this most elemental spirit of the Sacred Feminine into being in this necklace, one to hang beneath the throat and over the heart. She is wrought, freehand, out of sterling silver, arms stretched high above her head to embrace the universe, separated from head and body by delicate ajouré cutwork. She dances, swaying gently, as she emerges from the womb of the earth itself, all red canyons and warm rocky soil beneath a gray and stormy sky; her face is pure golden light, the radiance of sun and moon reflected off the surface of the world. Her body, and that of the earth, is formed from a bold oval cabochon of exquisite picture jasper set into a hand-made, hand-scalloped bezel; her face appears in the form of a spectacularly chatoyant golden-brown tiger’s eye, highly domed and radiating out of a saw-toothed bezel. She hangs suspended from a bail fashioned of wide sterling silver pattern wire molded in a fertile and flowering pattern, through which cascades a strand of hand-made African barrel beads of varnished bone strung on a sterling silver snake chain. Pendant, including bail, hangs 3″ long; pendant only is 2.5″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; bail is 5/8″ long by 5/16″ across; picture jasper cabochon is 1-3/16″ long by 13/16″ across at the widest point; tiger’s eye cabochon is 1/2″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; bead strand is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Side view of hand-scalloped bezel shown below. Jointly designed by Aji and Wings.
Sterling silver; picture jasper; tiger’s eye; varnished African bone beads
$1,275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece began life as a pendant, but Wings’s acquisition of the imported varnished bone beads changed all that; it was instantly apparent where they belonged. Of course, even that description is getting ahead of itself a bit. This piece was really born in a bin of silver scrap, where a remnant excised from an earlier piece provided its creative genesis: a shape, a form, an idea, one that would become a tribute to our collective mother, wrought in the jewels that are her own gifts. The red-rock rim against a monsoonal sky that creates her body, the radiant darkening sun that forms her face, the rich earthy polished bone from which she hangs suspended, held safe by her own children, all embody the synthesis of Earth Mother/Mother Earth in beautifully apt substance and style.
She reminds us that, however deep the drought or dark the days, life remains, strong, resilient, waiting for its chance. And now signs of growth, scribed upon the earth, welcome us to the practice and process of their fruition.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
