Two days ago, the fields were still covered in snow — the same snow that fell several weeks ago, to a depth in some places of three feet, and then froze solid. Piles of frozen slush, the product of Wings’s repeated efforts at plowing and clearing it, were scattered all over the landscape.
It’s all gone.
Oh, there are small mounds of a dirty brown substance here and there, neither snow nor ice but something in between, in the few shaded areas where the sun never reaches. But the yard and fields are entirely clear for the first time in recent memory.
I awakened before dawn to a temperature of thirty-one degrees, only one off the freezing mark (and a far cry from the thirty-four below zero of two short weeks ago). Spring is in full swing, heedless of the calendar’s proscriptions, and our talk here has already turned to discussions of planting. The wildlife sense it, too, even if they are not entirely sure what this too-early warmth requires of them.
Among our early visitors are the magpies, big beautiful birds with tapered bodies and bold black and white robes.
Oh, the magpies live here year-round, of course; this is their home at least as much as it is that of any human. But once their internal clocks have identified a sufficient change in temperature and weather for them to recognize it as “spring,” their activities ramp up rapidly. They begin to gather in small familial flocks, alighting on the tall trees and poles, zooming and zigzagging between earth and sky. It’s almost time for them to pair off and begin nesting, but for now, they are scouting the territory, so to speak: seeking appropriate nesting sites, a search best conducted while still gathered in the safety of numbers and clan. Meanwhile, they chatter and converse, voices as busy as their eyes and wings.
The sight of them reminds me, a bit, of today’s featured work. We’ve spent the week looking at spirits —familial, ancestral, metaphorical, and those stranger and more powerful yet, singular spirits and spirits that manifest in multiples, sometimes simultaneously. Today, we have a pair of them . . . paired off like the magpies whose colors they evoke, yet bound together in one work, familiar and familial simultaneously. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here no the site:
The First Sisters Earrings
Corn is the first of the Three Sisters, those sustaining spirits that feed The People. Among the Pueblo peoples of this land, the first sister is personified by the Corn Maidens, female spirit beings whose gift is abundance. Wings has summoned them from sterling silver in this tribute to old-style Native earrings, large, bold pieces that sit at the top of the lobe and hang halfway down the neck. Each is hand-cut in an elongated teardrop. Their faces, hair, dress, and tablita headresses are created from a variety of hand-stamped traditional symbols: sun signs, crescent moons, Eyes of Spirit, running waters. At the center of each lies a single round onyx cabochon, a stone of grounding in the deep rich color of the earth from which the corn itself emerges. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ long by 7/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate); on the back, extended-length sterling silver wires hold them securely in place.
Sterling silver; onyx
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is far too early for planting here. Much depends on the consistency of weather and season: there will be more snow between now and time to till the ground. It becomes a question of how much, and how often, and how drastically the pendulum will swing in the process. We normally plant corn in late May (or, if winter tarries too late, sometimes even in June); will this be the year in which climate change finally forces us to scrap our ordinary schedule entirely?
For now, we wait. We watch what the other beings whose home is this place do. We look to them and to other spirits for guidance: the sun, the winds, the rains . . . the spirit of the corn itself. The First Sisters have been remarkably consistent in their ability and willingness to sustain our peoples. Like the magpies, they return each year, ready to gather and grow.
And while the warming trend lasts, we will enjoy its gift. It may not be a good thing, this byproduct of climate change, but with hard work, we, like the Sisters and like the magpies, are adaptable. It is time to adjust, to become spirits ready to gather and grow.
~ Aji
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