I stood outside yesterday evening, capturing images of a fiery sunset. The air was barely cool, even in the gathering dark.
And I realized the the next day — today — would be our last day of Indian summer.
I felt the slightest twinge of melancholy, despite my love for fall and winter. Yesterday was beautiful, as nearly perfect as a day can get — sixty-five degrees with only a gentle breeze, electric blue skies and trees in shades of forest and amber and copper and crimson. It was a day to be spent out of doors, and we did so, enjoying these last few moments of warm weather.
More of the same is awaiting us today, but that will change overnight: The forecast predicts a one hundred percent chance of rain turning to snow for tomorrow. At our elevation, eight inches are possible, although given the inaccuracy of such forecasts over the last couple of years, we’ll believe it when we see it. But the weather is about to turn very cold, and even rain will make travel exceedingly messy. Our days of wandering out of doors without bundling up are effectively over for another season.
And the winter weather’s outrider is already here: For two weeks or more already, people locally are already catching colds, getting sick. We are doing our best to stave it off, mostly through simple avoidance.
Another thought occurred to me yesterday evening as I gazed through the trees at the western sky. Thanks to this year’s record drought, many of our trees began to turn in early July. The weeping willows were half-yellow before August, their long slender, curving leaves shedding their rich green, drifting to the ground on the southwest winds three months before their appointed time. And yet, last night, the willow leaves looked remarkably green — the second week of October, and now almost no gold to be seen.
It took me a split second to understand.
What made it come clear, after a moment’s reflection, was the amount of light visible through the trees. The leaves are thin now, in relative terms, no longer dense in mass and volume. They are green because those that have so far remained green are all that is left; those already gone gold have also already gone to ground, literally. The grass beneath them, itself still mostly green, is carpeted with yellow and amber now.
That, in turn, reminded me of how important the trees are to our peoples, to our environment and our way of life, yes, but also something more. The trees are medicine in many forms: for the body, for the spirit. And while such medicine is very soon to be reduced to that of the evergreen variety, or of that found only in bark, for the moment, plenty of leaves remain. The trees are standing medicine in perhaps its truest, most literal form.
Today’s featured work honors that identity, that spirit, its purpose and effects. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Leaf Medicine Cuff Bracelet
Leaf medicine is one of the most powerful healers, one our peoples have used in hundreds of forms over thousands of years. With this pattern-rolled cuff, hand-milled in a repeating geometric design of feathery fronds and leaves, Wings honors the medicines that have ensured our survival since the dawn of time, gifts of the earth used in ceremony and spirit. The leaves rise, three-dimensional, from the band’s surface, creating a flowing, elegant texture; the band is lightly oxidized and buffed to a soft, bright polish. The focal point is a free-form stone (not a cabochon) of lightly polished, slightly translucent pounamu, known in English as New Zealand greenstone, a form of fine nephrite jade sacred to that land’s indigenous Māori peoples. This specimen (part of a lot Wings acquired ethically through legal channels) curves in a gentle, asymmetrical arc that follows the lines of the leaves on the cuff. It sits in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, the bezel raised slightly above the cuff on a columnar sterling silver pedestal. The band is 7″ long by 1″ across; the stone is 1.25″ long by 5/8″ across at the highest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; pounamu (New Zealand greenstone)
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is, among Wings’s current inventory of cuffs, one of my favorites: not merely for the stone, which is softly and deeply beautiful, but for the way the design comes together to embody that which sustains us, that which we hold sacred. It’s a work of remarkable balance, lines and weight and angle all coming together in perfect harmony, shimmering like the leaves on the trees in the autumn light. The color of the stone hints at summer, and the millwork pattern, too, but to me, it’s a way of keeping the gifts of warmer winds close through the cold months.
By this time tomorrow, the winds will be very much colder; the rain will have arrived, and perhaps already have turned to snow. The world will need all the medicine it can get, and we will, too.
~ 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.
