Today, we see the sun again.
It’s odd; we’ve had plenty of periods of sun contending with the stormclouds of recent days, and yet, it somehow feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve had a truly sunny day. Even then, it’s only been three or four days, but the deep cold, combined with this week’s terrible developments on seemingly every front, perhaps contribute to the sense that it’s been dark for a while now.
In truth, of course, it’ll get dark earlier tonight than last night, and tonight’s low will be much colder, too.
But the sun is sufficiently bright to be melting the snow rapidly now; what was still several inches deep at dawn is fast turning to something more like slush in early afternoon. It’s proof of Father Sun’s gifts in winter, certainly, and it also makes for a beautiful display of light and shadow dancing around and beneath peaks still wrapped in fog.
Even so, there remain plenty of dark bands of clouds stretching across the southern and western skies. They hold snow, if not, most likely, for us; and these early-darkening skies will tonight bring to this land a deep dangerous cold. It’s a time to be indoors, warm by the fire . . . but too many in our community have no fire, no home, no real shelter of any sort.
It is an absolute obscenity that in 2024, in what is collectively the wealthiest land on Earth, that anyone at all should be without shelter or other necessities and amenities, never mind the Indigenous peoples on whose stolen lands such wealth is extorted and exploited.
But here we are.
In this land of harsh extremes, climate already in collapse, the same risk of wildfire that stalks the summer season remains a deadly danger now, as people struggle simply to stay alive.
And so once again, this land reminds us of the power of elemental forces, of the great gifts that they bestow to ensure our survival, and the great risks they become when humanity, collectively, fails to engage with them with the proper respect.
We are reminded in other ways, too. just over the ridgeline to the south and east, the burn scars of the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Wildfire Complex are still raw. Both of those fires, which ultimately merged across miles into the single largest wildfire ever recorded on these lands now known to the outside world as “New Mexico,” were both started by human negligence and arrogance of the worst kind: official governmental arrogance, as forest service agents refused to heed the evidence of their own senses or to follow up in the barest way on their own dangerous acts, and ignited a conflagration for which this land will be paying for centuries. In the two years since, flooding monsoonal rains have turned the burn scars into flood zones, not just of water but also of deadly contaminated mud. And this week’s series of snowstorms that deposited less than a foot here on this side of the ridge instead dumped five feet in short order there, stranding livestock and humans both and leaving much of the land in need of aid once more.
For now, we need to summon the animating spirit of the flames in a way that warms rather than burns, shelters rather than evicts, protects and heals instead of birthing disaster.
Sometimes we need a reminder of these truths. Today’s featured work embodies them in a wearable form, a way to keep always firmly in mind the need to engage respectfully with forces greater than ourselves, and to balance the risks they pose with the medicine they offer, if handled correctly. It’s a pair of earrings from Wings’s signature series of gemstone-bead works, one originally created with thoughts of summer’s warmth and magic firmly in mind — a tribute to wildfire nights when the only fire near us is that in the warm sunset sky. From its description in The Standing Stones Collection in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Wildfire Nights Earrings
Summer is the season of wildfire nights, sparked by lightning, quenched by the storm, and lending the color of their flames to moon and stars and sky. With these earrings, the second work in his new Midnight Magic trio, Wings evokes the electric shades of fire against the darkened skies. At the top sit large. round spheres of natural Pietersite, gold with hints of underlying red marbled with the shimmering blue-black magic of the season’s electric atmosphere. Beneath them sit glowing barrels of ultra-high-grade fossilized palm wood, metallic hints glimmering throughout them in the light; flame-red spheres of crackling fire agate, like sparks against a moon hanging low and close; and lastly, a smaller round orb of glossy black onyx, the silken sky of the summer night. All are strung on filament-thin sterling silver half-round wire, suspended from extended-length sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead earring wires. Earrings hang 1.5″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with The Moons of Summer necklace [sold] and Whirlwind Night coil bracelet [sold]. From Wings’s new Midnight Magic limited series (all pieces shown at the link).
Sterling silver; Pietersite; ultra-high-grade fossilized palm wood; crackling fire agate; onyx
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
As the description notes, the name of this collection in miniature was Midnight Magic, a reference to the unusual warmth and beauty of alpine desert nights, when the red fire of sunset remains visible in the west many long hours after its source has descended beyond the horizon, when the stars are bright silver against black velvet, without that icy aspect that animates our night skies now.
And yet, we still have fire in the skies even in winter. Two of the last three nights have seen a western horizon alight with a scarlet ribbon before the fall of full dark. An amber crescent moon showed itself briefly two nights ago as it made its own descent. And the stars still show themselves, perfect white fire, in the shapes of the spirits that dwell at their great unfathomable distances.
For us, theirs is a cold fire now, but that’s not the fire that matters most. Nor are the fires currently blazing in each woodstove and in the many stoves and fireplaces around the region; even the bonfires of the winter holidays to come are not what matters most.
The fire that matters most is the one we ignite, stoke, and tend in our hearts and spirits, the one we allow to warm not only ourselves, but those around us who need our help so desperately now. It’s the fire of ancient teachings, and of prophecy too, the one that counsels us to summon the animating spirit of the flames and use their power to guide our own actions.
It’s cold out there.
And we have a world to rebuild.
It’s time to get to work.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
