It has been a week to explore paths, roads, connections, and the spirits who travel them — not only in this virtual space, but in the real space of our lives here. Although in some ways it seems much longer, it has been less than a week since Halloween, still less than the day that the people of this place mark as All Souls’.
The week just past has been one in which the spirits walk, and the wise person is one who learns not only to recognize and acknowledge the spirit, but to know its path.
Of course, in our way, not all spirits are beings that once were human. Many assume other forms and identities: the directions, the elements, the winds, celestial bodies and weather phenomena, the very rocks of the earth and the plant life that emerges from it. In such instances, spirit and road sometimes seem indistinguishable from each other — and indeed, sometimes if such a distinction exists, it is one without a difference.
This way of understanding our world and the spirits that animate it holds especially true for those that represent, or perhaps better put, simply are, what we might call the physical aspects of this world: Mother Earth herself, the plant life she nurtures, the mountains and rocks and clay of her body, the lakes and rivers and other waters that sustain her. And then there are the spirits who dwell in the skies, from sun and moon and stars to wind and rain, light and dark . . . and to the larger collective bodies of the cosmos, solar systems and galaxies and the very universe itself.
One need look no farther than the Milky Way to understand this phenomenon.
If you’ve ever been outside on a truly clear night, especially the sort of mid- to late-autumn nights we get in this part of our world, you’ve seen the collections of stars that form what the dominant culture calls the Milky Way, arcing overhead like a giant celestial bridge. It is a bridge composed of hundreds of billions of stars; contemporary estimates put it anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion “solar masses,” with “stars” as the layperson’s term that brings the concept a little closer to ordinary human comprehension.
It is not, of course, really possible to wrap our mortal minds around the notion of hundreds of billions of stars. Then again, it is not a bridge that we will walk in this life, and so metaphor is sufficient for ordinary appreciation.
For many of our peoples, it is, however, a bridge they will travel one day: the day on which it is time for them to leave behind this particular form and place of existence, to walk on to the world beyond. And for some, the path will be fraught with potential pitfalls.
When the bridge arcs across the very sky, that’s a long way to fall.
We have spent the weekend largely under cloud cover, the skies alternating between bright turquoise and dusky violet, sometimes simultaneously. The clouds have been welcome, bringing, as they have, a good amount of badly-needed rain. But tonight, as the skies clear and the air turns sharply cold, the night charts a map of the sky roads once again.
They are visible during the day, too, of course. Sometimes it’s the path of the clouds; sometimes merely the angle of the light. But if you look carefully, you can see the faint lines of the roads the spirits travel across the skies. It is this phenomenon, both road and traveling spirit, that Wings has captured with today’s featured work. From its description in the Rings Gallery here on the site:
Sky Roads Ring
Eventually, all roads lead to the sky. The path is often long and winding, but Wings has coaxed a map from Skystone and silver. Three strong, heavy strands of sterling silver triangle wire are soldered into one finely polished band in the shape the earth’s own hoop. It holds up a smooth silver setting that stretches to the four corners of the sky, edges elegantly rounded, surface bearing a softly aged patina. The setting flows upward into a scalloped bezel that holds an exquisitely webbed turquoise cabochon fast within its embrace: a perfect round jewel the color of a robin’s egg, an earth-shaped atlas of the roads of the skies. The band is 9/16″ wide; the setting is 7/8″ square; the stone is 3/4″ across (dimensions approximate). Sizeable. Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; ultra high-grade black web Kingman turquoise
$675 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work is one much like the sky roads themselves, and the spirits who walk them: one that straddles worlds and defies easy categorization. It shows itself in the colors of clear day and bright light, yet its paths are apparent only by virtue of the colors of storm and night.
Perhaps that is fitting. After all, it is in the contrast between day and night, between calm and storm, between this world and the one not yet ours to walk that we are able to see to chart our path. Going well through life requires an understanding of what to avoid as much as what to embrace.
And while they may not yet be ours to walk, the sky roads (and the spirits who travel them) help to show us the way even as our path remains firmly bound to earth.
~ 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.
