Dawn broke this morning in a haze of red fire, amber light, and a pall of smoke veiling the turquoise skies and shimmering white clouds above the peaks. there are fires everywhere now: northwest to Ute country, apparently on both rezes, just below the state line at Farmington, multiple points of ignition further south on the Navajo Rez on both sides of the New Mexico/Arizona line.
And not a drop of rain in sight.
Summer Solstice now only two days hence, and what should be the best part of the warm season is rapidly turning into its worst. In a good year, this patch of high desert is a relative temperate zone, with plenty of monsoonal rains throughout the summer. But in drought conditions such as these, we live our days beneath a desert sun of extraordinary force and power, caught up in the vortex of a trickster wind, and part of life here is learning to navigate the dangers that come with them — not merely to survive, but to thrive, when this land’s stark beauty turns harsh and deadly.
And that work is required of us now. It risks becoming all-consuming, this effort to maintain a healthy world here in the face of elemental extremes coupled now with added threats from without. The fact that this is wildfire season would be more than enough, especially in the face of deepening drought, but now we must contend with pandemic, too. It’s easy to get so caught up in the fight for survival that we fail to notice the beauty of our world, even when it has turned dry as ash and bone.
Today’s featured throwback work is a reminder to stop, to notice, to recognize and acknowledge, to honor and give thanks. It’s a throwback only to last December, part of a nine-piece commission of coil bracelets by one of our dearest friends, and at that moment, it seemed like a bit of summer fire in the best possible way — a summoning of bright blue skies, red and golden light, to brighten a world caught in cold and early dark. Now, it’s a reminder of the stark beauty of this land at any and every season, no matter our outward circumstances: a world impossibly old, of animated and animating spirits become jewels beyond price.
The name of this bracelet was Beneath a Desert Sun, and like all of the coils in this nine-piece collection, it was wrought in the forms and shapes and shades of our natural world here in this ancient high-desert land. This one was one of my personal favorites, with a bold, chunky, nuggety texture and brilliant natural primary colors, blues and reds and golds set ashimmer with pure light.
The coil bracelets are always strung on what’s known as memory wire: It’s stainless steel, specially treated to create the spiraling, springy, Slinky-like effect, then plated with silver for color and shine. It holds its shape indefinitely, and it expands and contracts, so that the coils will fit nearly any size wrist. Our friend ordered a collection of nine as holiday gifts: six of a more usual four-wrap length, intended for women recipients; and three extended-length, each wrapping six times while sitting unworn (as in the photo above), intended for men with larger wrists. Today’s featured work was one of the usual four-wrap length.
It was also one without a single focal point, but rather, with many focal points scattered at intervals throughout its spiral: large rectangular blocks of glowing gold-lip mother-of-pearl shell, thick, chunky, and highly polished, interspersed with very large and very old free-form nuggets of deep red branch coral. These provided the fire and the light, the bright reds of summer desert wildflowers and the golden glow of a rising and setting sun. Connecting them were small chunks of pale carnelian and very, very old turquoise doughnut rondels from Wings’s personal collection. Extending outward from the central segments were lengths of other gems in the colors of water and light: plump nuggets of rich Baltic amber, more of the old turquoise doughnut rondels, old round beads of glowing brass, also from his personal collection, and as anchors, tiny round orbs of blue-green turquoise in matrix.
It produced a fiery vortex of the high desert in summer: blue skies with just a hint of green to them, brilliant golden light, and the crimson flames of Indian paintbrush petals dotting an earth shimmering in the heat. It captured the look and feel of our summer days perfectly, and it reminds us now to look for the beauty that surrounds us, even in these difficult times.
Our skies today are a hazy hot gray, pale with smoke, but directly overhead, you can still see the turquoise that is the hallmark of this season. And like the earth spread out at the feet of the mountains, those skies at dawn and dusk will be filled with coral fire, amber light, and the warm embracing glow of summer.
~ Aji
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