It’s another oppressively hot day. Yesterday the mercury shot past the predicted high, nearing ninety by late afternoon, and today appears on track to do likewise. The one difference today is that we have clouds in the sky, thunderheads roiling in blinding white against a hard hot blue, amassing themselves into great towers of the sort that might hold rain for those on the other sides of our various ridgelines.

The day didn’t begin that way. Dawn broke across a quite literally white-hot sky, not a single cloud in sight, the glow of the sun below the northeast ridgeline burnishing snow-white into silver. It was the sort of sky that, even with the sun still hidden from view, mortal eyes dare not grant more than a glimpse before turning to safer perspectives. It seemed to promise another day of suffocating heat, and of the kind of conditions that make it dangerous to be outside for long.

But n this morning, the winds kicked up, unwilling to remain still and silent, and they have ushered in the great towering masses of white cloud that surrounds us on all sides now. And both developments have conspired to make the day seem slightly cooler than it is, providing just a hint of relief for those times when we are forced to be out of doors.

The long-range forecast, though, is grim: Despite a slight cooling trend later this week, there is virtually no chance of precipitation in the offing, and that is deadly for this land now. This should be the first tentative days of a summer-long monsoon season, and instead, current indications are that such rains as we have been granted may all be behind us now.

If so, it’s going to be a long, hard summer. We are charged with being grateful for the gifts that we are given, but deadly drought makes those gifts much harder to identify now.

But we have long experience with such practice, and so we fall back upon those habits now. It’s the new green shoots in our garden; it’s the brilliant clear blue of skies adrift with white; it’s the gathering of thunderheads to the southeast that hold out an attenuated but tantalizing possibility of rain. And it’s all the things we don’t see, conspiring to create those we do.

Like the work of the sun, so distant that we only see its light illuminating our own world. The last couple of years have seen this season become a time of heightened solar activity, from sunspots to the coronal mass ejections that we know in lay terms as solar flares. The latter are what ignite the fiery glow of the Aurora borealis, visible in the north in summer as well as in winter, events that my own people refer to as examples of times when the spirits dance.

And last year and this, such activity has been so intense that on rare occasions, we have been granted the privilege of seeing the Northern Lights even this far south, a gift if ever there were one. Last year, we were able to see great subtle swaths of scarlet against the inky black of the northern sky; and although they were beyond the perception of the naked human eye, those who shot such images with cell phone cameras found those lenses able to pick up the iridescent magenta and foxfire green shades that we tend more to associate with such events — this haunting, eerie phenomenon of the dark hours named for the goddess of the dawn.

Today’s featured works, a necklace and pair of earrings that originally were part of a coordinating trio that were collectively named for precisely this gift . . . but in our way, one that recognizes their immanent power and agency, a series in miniature called Spirits Dance. The third item in the series, the coil bracelet, sold almost instantly, but the necklace and earrings remain available. We begin with the former, a strand of jewels seemingly lit from within by Aurora’s flame, manifest in natural light in the gentle shades of the dawn . . . and beneath ultraviolet light, in the intense wild colors of the night. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:

Aurora’s Flame Necklace

The Northern Lights set even southern skies ablaze with the beauty and brilliance of Aurora’s flame. With this necklace, the first work in Wings’s new trio, the Spirits Dance series, he pays tribute to the spirit of the dawn, the fiery power of the sun, the boreal glow of deepest night, and all the shades of the spirits who dance across the darkened sky. At center, eight spectacular giant orbs of high-grade lepidolite in shimmering lilac shades alternate, respectively, with bright green serpentine doughnut rondels and small rounds of syenite sodalite. Syenite minerals are found in the waters of northern Lake Michigan, where they have included with other minerals over time on a geologic scale; when exposed to ultra-violet light, they shift in color and glow brilliantly. This particular form of sodalite is marbled black and silvery-white, like the Bridge of Stars across the night sky; beneath ultra-violet light, they turn electric and translucent shades of magenta and amethyst. Here, they serve as accents additionally for South Sea shell pearls in shimmering green and pink and rose; for giant faceted vintage barrels of old, old green glass; for large sunset jasper barrels in marbled reds and purples and ivories and grays; and for the smaller anchor segments at either end: more green serpentine doughnut rondels flanked by genuine ruby, in larger rounds below and tiny faceted rondels above. Necklace is 22″ long (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown below. Necklace coordinates with Arctic Foxfire earrings and Polar Storm coil bracelet [sold]. From Wings’s new Spirits Dance limited series. Full view of necklace, full trio as a coordinating set, and both necklace and set under UV lighting shown above, below, and at the link.

Strand:  Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: High-grade lepidolite; serpentine; syenite sodalite; South Sea shell pearls;
vintage faceted green glass; sunset jasper; ruby
$400 + shipping, handling, and insurance

I love the works in this collection for the whimsical effects they display beneath ultraviolet light, but even more, I love the colors and textures and effects of this strand in natural light. I would not normally envision shades of orange and green and purple complementing each other, but the spectrum of hues here, from palest peach to fiery coral, from natural ruby’s mulberry tones to the rich marbled lilac of lepidolite, all accented with greens in opaque neon and glassy bottle-green foxfire?

They work.

And in that, they are like the phenomenon whose name they bear, even without the benefit of the UV-reactive accents.

The earrings are another matter, perfectly coordinating but without the shades of orange fire. This pair comprises two strands of Arctic foxfire, named for the region where such light effects make their home, more luminescent green and shades of pale purple that, beneath ultraviolet light with their pale icy gray accent beads, turn shades of neon magenta and cobalt. From its description in The Standing Stones Collection in the Earrings Gallery:

Arctic Foxfire Earrings

The Northern Lights paint the sky with the cold magic of Arctic foxfire, phosphorescent greens adance with luminous shades of rose and lilac. With these earrings, the second work in Wings’s new trio, the Spirits Dance series, he evokes the iridescence of opposing colors conspiring to set the night sky aflame. At center, the focal beads consist of vintage faceted barrels of old, old green glass, flanked by warm chatoyant shades of lilac and rose: above, by a single giant orb of high-grade lepidolite; below, by a smaller round of shimmering genuine ruby. Above and below the two violet spheres are a single doughnut rondel of electric-green serpentine, followed at either end by a single small orb of syenite sodalite. Syenite minerals are found in the waters of northern Lake Michigan, where they have included with other minerals over time on a geologic scale; when exposed to ultra-violet light, they shift in color and glow brilliantly. This particular form of sodalite is marbled black and silvery-white, like the Bridge of Stars across the night sky; beneath ultra-violet light, they turn electric and translucent shades of magenta and amethyst. 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 2.25″ long, excluding earring wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with Aurora’s Flame necklace and Polar Storm coil bracelet [sold]. From Wings’s new Spirits Dance limited series. Full set shown above and at the link; UV effects shown below and at the link.

Sterling silver; high-grade lepidolite; vintage faceted green glass; ruby; serpentine; syenite sodalite
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance

These are, I believe, the very last of these old, old bottle-green faceted glass beads. They’re extraordinary entirely on their own, big and bold and possessed of an intense color and translucence you don’t find any longer. The color is not the olive green of ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies glassware, but the much deeper emerald shades of the turn of the last century, colors still found in soda bottles from the 1920s into the 1950s.

But again, part of the attraction of the Northern Lights is the haunting sense of mystery and wonder that surrounds them . . . and the childlike sense of fun that accompanies such mysteries that hold no real fear for us now. And that is where the syenite sodalite, known in my own homelands as Yooperlite, comes into its own.

The UV light saturates the beads with color along a spectrum invisible to the naked eye in natural light. And it’s a reminder just how mysterious light itself truly is: We can’t touch it; it’s not tangible, but it exists in very literal, empirically measurable terms. We take it for granted with the sunrise each morning, and rarely question its demonstrable effects . . . which means that we don’t acknowledge and appreciate it enough, either.

Whether we associate the name with the dawn, or wit the otherworldly glow of night, the aurora’s mystery is summer’s gift to us now — vanishingly rare, yes, but all the more valuable for that.

And it reminds us, even in these hard times, to value all the gifts of the light.

~ Aji

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.