Since my birthday is the day after tomorrow, and since we have spent the week thus far exploring magic and mystery and medicine, today’s featured work, a throwback to some eight and a half years ago, nominated itself, in a manner of speaking. It’s a work that was a gift to me, albeit not a birthday gift — more a combination “I love you” and “here’s something to get you a through a rough time” kind of gift, given that at the time I was going through one of the most difficult tasks of my life, away from home and all I held dear. It’s also a work that embodied a part of my very identity, manifest as a melding of earth magic and sky spirits.
My traditional name translates in a couple of ways. I am named, in the word’s most basic form, for the sandhill crane, although in some regions it applies to the Thunderbird, as well. Both are spirits of the skies, at home upon the winds, with strong voices and a command the currents and, in the latter case, the storm as well.
It’s a rare occurrence indeed to find them represented in literal earth.
I don’t recall precisely when we found this pair of cabochons. I believe it was in 2009, although it might have been earlier. They called to me from the very bottom of a showcase, buried in the middle of a large assortment of stones of different sizes and shapes and shades. They were labeled picture jasper, a pair of long teardrop-shaped slabs cut from the same deposit, two perfect halves of a larger whole. Wings found me looking at them, and he, too, was struck instantly by the pattern of the stones, and the clear resemblance to a pair of cranes facing each other.
He bought them on the spot.
They sat in his inventory of stones for a time; we were busy with a great many tasks and projects, and since these were not intended for sale, there was no particular urgency. It was not so much that either of us forgot them as that there were so very, very many other things requiring our more immediate attention. But in the first half of 2010, I had to be away from home for the better part of six months while a family member underwent various hospitalizations. It was an extraordinarily difficult time, made all the moreso by the separation and distance it necessarily involved.
One day, a package was delivered to me there. Wings had not told me to expect something; he simply popped the box and a card into a package and sent them as a surprise.
I opened it . . . and wept.
It was one of those gifts that holds meaning and value far beyond that which the market declares: earth magic and sky spirits, summoned into being to serve as objects not only of beauty, but of identity, as well.
I turned them over in my hands for a time, looking at the small details of their making. I don’t have a photo of the reverse side of them, but it was significant. In this instance, the earrings began with the stones, because the silver was fitted to them in a very particular way.
Wings began, of course, by cutting the silver to size, as usual — leaving enough room around the edges for the bezel and, in this case, for the twisted silver he would ultimately use to accent them. Once the backings for the bezel were created, he turned them over, drew, freehand, a Tree of Life on each one, then pierced the silver and cut out the tree’s trunk and branches, in a process known as ajouré, with a tiny jeweler’s saw. At the base of one tree, he added a tiny round bezel that would ultimately hold a protective turquoise cabochon. Lastly for this stage of the creative process, he soldered a slender sterling silver jump ring to the top of each backing; these would make it possible to attach the wires.
Next, he turned the setting backs right side up, and carefully crafted the saw-toothed bezels, their serration useful both for holding flat cabochons securely and for setting off the patterns of the stones. Then, he soldered a delicate strand of twisted silver all the way around each bezel — just enough to fill the space between bezel and edge of backing. It was also just enough to emphasize the beauty and simplicity of the stones, making them “pop.” He oxidized all the joins between pieces of silver, the twisted wire and the borders of the tiny bezel on the back, and the Tree of Life, then buffed them all to a medium polish.
At this point, it was time to set the stones. And these were magnificent stones . . . but not what we at first thought. As I said above, they were sold as picture jasper. By that token, these were already unusual, appearing as they did in varying shades of taupe with wisps of ivory-colored matrix, with a single large dark line curving upward from the base like the head and neck of a crane. Picture jasper typically manifests in taupe and gray, yes, but virtually always combined with bands and patches and lines of beige and rich brown and coppery red in bold geometric designs. Moreover, this pair, sliced from the same nugget, appeared to have been not only fossilized, but coralized.
Nevertheless, we didn’t question it . . . until Wings created the earrings, and we both had occasion to examine them closely.
The appearance of fossilization and coralization, neither of which is common to picture jasper, became not merely natural but expected when we realized that these cabochons were actually examples of form of jasper that falls, with variants, under the heading of orbicular jasper. If you look at the upper portions of the cabochons, what we might call the “background” of the stones, you’ll see that they are ivory with roundish (and stretched oval) shapes in taupe ringed with darker taupe edges. This manifestation is the “orb” whence the name “orbicular” comes. There area few variants of orbicular jasper, but one of the most popular is known colloquially as “ocean jasper,” not for the sea-green color that often rings the orbs, but from the manner of its creation: ocean-floor sediment combines with the waters c and, occasionally, with the shells of small sea creatures, such as coral — to create a hardened stone that, when polished, exhibits the beautiful patterning and colors we now call ocean jasper.
This pair of cabochons, however, remained unusual. The earthy taupe and ivory combination is still relatively rare in ocean jasper; it more often appears with an off-white background and orbs in shades of dusty pink and deep sea green, sometimes mottled with gray. More, the curving solid line that form’s the head and neck of the “crane” is exceedingly rare; I don’t think I’ve ever seen another specimen of orbicular jasper in any of its forms that featured such a pattern. Finally, while fossilization of jasper is not all that unusual, and the jasperization of coral is not unheard-of, to find the appearance of fossilized coral so clearly, so tangibly, in a pair of stones is unusual in the extreme: The bits of coral that formed the bases, or the “bodies” of the cranes, remained open holes in the surface of the stones, readily felt by the touch of a fingertip.
Once Wings had set the two large cabochons, he turned them over and set a single tiny Sleeping Beauty turquoise cabochon into the round bezel on the reverse of the one drop. All that remained was a final buffing by hand, blessing, and shipping them out.
In this instance, to me.
As I said above, when I opened the package, I wept. They immediately reconnected me, so very many miles from home, isolated and lonely, to Wings, to our home, to myself. It’s little wonder that the cabochons called to me initially from the nearly-hidden place at the bottom of a showcase. They are positively elemental: a mix of earth mysteries, water magic, sky spirit medicine . . . and a gift that meant so much in its own right, but all the moreso for returning my very self to me at a time when my connections had perforce become so very, very tenuous.
There are gifts, and there are gifts. The latter are perhaps more properly termed a blessing, something unexpected and essential, a conferring of something so elemental and powerful that, like the object, the very act holds power. These have, needless to say, become one of my closely held works by Wings, a pair that are among the closest to my heart . . . and to my spirit, as well.
I’m coming up on another birthday, another marking of my years on the earth, traveling around the sun. Perhaps now is the perfect time to wear them.
~ Aji
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