At long last, it is warm today. Just after ten A.M., and the mercury is reaching for seventy; at this rate, the high will far surpass the forecast 71. The skies are a clear bright blue, only one band of white clouds near the north-northwest horizon, and the wind is no more than a gentle breeze.
Summer finally feels possible, a promise soon kept.
Perhaps the rest of the lilacs will bloom today.
In an ordinary year, we would have already begun planting by now, but we have not had an ordinary year for some time. It will have to wait for June, at this rate, and we can only hope that the delayed warmth extends itself into the far end of the season sufficiently to permit a decent harvest.
For now, though, it appears that we can at last begin preparing the earth for planting. And we can bear witness to the medicine of wildflowers, blossoming in the light.
Today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest, captures both flowering petals and the light that coaxes them into full bloom. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
SunPetals Earrings
The worlds of spring and summer flower in sunpetals of warmth and light. Wings evokes source and act alike with these earrings, a pair of bold dangling petals of hand-cut sterling silver built around fiery red orbs at the center. Each drop is shaped halfway between an ellipse and a crescent, a flowering ray of light that dances from the ear. Around the molten center stones are arrayed four additional “petals,” each hand-stamped, repoussé-fashion, and extending to the Four Sacred Directions. Sterling silver wires hold the drops by way of delicate silver jump rings. Earrings hang 1.5″ long by 15/16″ across at the widest point; carnelian cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; carnelian
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Every year that we have been able to plant a garden (or, more often, gardens, plural), we include flowers, wild and otherwise. Some hold the power of literal medicine, others the less tangible healing of simple beauty. Each year, they join the lilacs, the flowering of the fruit trees, the recurrent blooms of rose and forsythia, the errant lilies and tulips and poppies that find their way into the hidden spaces of the land. They blossom with the golden light of early dandelions and late sunflowers, dancing in the breeze, stalks bent beneath the storms, petals radiant in the fiery light of a red summer sun.
Today’s work captures them all, and more: It holds, in small silver petals and tiny red suns, the world in which they are born, live, thrive.
It’s a world we have been granted today — a glimpse, and a promise.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
