The Eve of All Souls, and at this moment, our world is white.
It’s only a dusting so far, not even an inch of accumulation in most areas outside the window, but that’s more a product of the wind than the volume of snow itself: driving in hard from the northeast, the winds blowing the flakes before them on a hard diagonal. What were only the faintest of flurries at dawn, the world speckled white as far as the eye could see, has fast turned into a genuine storm, the sort that veils the whole world beyond the fenceline. The cottonwoods on the neighbor’s land an acre or so over are the merest suggestions, now-skeletal silhouettes that resemble the oldest of ghosts. The mountains? If visibility were a requirement as proof that they remain in place, we would have to conclude that they no longer exist. The forecast predicted one to three inches overnight, with another one to three inches today.
We may get it.
As the storm gathered late yesterday, the winds, riding vanguard, sent gold leaves spiraling downward off the aspens, now increasingly brown and bare. Two of them are little more than bare branches now; two others will follow suit by tomorrow. It’s curiously fitting, this early snow, for the day the outside world marks as Halloween: an eerie underlying quiet, broken only by the sound of the wind; weather capable of hiding a multitude of spirits and their mischief within the folds of its pale robes.
Halloween has never frightened me — indeed, children in our cultures have tended to take to this colonial celebration with great enthusiasm, finding joy in dressing up, in trick-or-treating, in being out with friends in the crisp autumn air and fading light. For our children, it’s an expression of innocence, of pure fun; there is no terror here. Certainly, this ancient world knows that there is more than enough to fear in this reality for all of us; ghosts and goblins, black cats and bats, skeletons and witches in pointy black hats are not among the actual dangers we face daily, and so they become a safety valve, an outlet for the artifice of fear that allows us to forget, for a moment, that of which we need truly be afraid.
Here in this place, there are traditions around All Souls, which is how the people refer to the day after Halloween. The point, of course, is to mark not merely the passing, but the erstwhile living, of those who have walked on: remembering their lives, their selves, so that they are not forgotten. And the forecast for tomorrow is bright and clear and cold, a day of blue skies and low golden light upon whatever snow remains, if any.
Today and tomorrow — these twinned days, bound inextricably together — this year are days of spirits, storm, and shadows, and blue worlds of dust and light.
And so today seems a remarkably apt time for today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest, manifest in appropriately ghostly shades of earthy browns and icy blues and skeletal silver fringe. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Worlds of Dust and Light Earrings
Our cosmologies teach of multiple worlds that inhabit the same universe, our own and those inhabited by the spirits. Wings calls both into being with these earrings, worlds of dust and light that exist by virtue of the elemental powers of the cosmos, the dust of creation and the light of the first dawn. Each dangling drop is formed around a central free-form cabochon of natural turquoise, its telltale earthy browns and bronzes scattered across pale greens and blues an indicator that it was likely pulled from beneath the ground of Colorado. Each cabochon is set into a smooth hand-filed bezel and trimmed with twisted silver; beneath each setting extends a small flange, hand-drilled with three tiny round holes. A fringe of silvery light cascades from each flange, three long elegant strands of fine sterling silver wire per earring. The drops are held fast by sterling silver wires attached via delicate silver jump rings. Each earring hangs 3-1/2″ in overall length (excluding wires); cabochons are 1-3/8″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; sterling silver “tassels” hang 1-7/8″ in total length (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; natural American turquoise (likely from Colorado)
$925 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I am not usually much given to pale shades of turquoise; I prefer the brilliantly intense blues and greens. But these are different. The color and patterning of the stones is remarkable entirely on its own; this is the third pair of earrings Wings has created with stones from this particular deposit. These, too, are unusually long and elegant, and the setting, with the tasseled silver “fringe,” creates a sense of graceful motion. They remind me of slender spirits dancing in the light.
There will be no real dancing today, not in this storm. But there will be opportunity again before true winter arrives to stay. For this day and night, and tomorrow, too, we can welcome the storm and shadows, and let our own spirits dance — for now, in a world of snow and light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
