Dawn broke this morning in shades of gleaming silver and gold, a sliver moon and Venus facing off as they rode high in a pale peach sky. On the ground, the frost had beaded every surface, soon to become dew’s liquid diamonds as soon as the sun gained the ridgeline.
It was very cold this morning, and impossibly clear, not a single clouds anywhere in the sky. But that means that the mercury will rise along with the sun, and by midday the air will be twenty degrees warmer than it should be this time of year. Now, as the clock just begins the process of winding down the morning hours, the only break in the turquoise sky is that of the occasional bird flying overhead, and on the warming earth, the dewdrop heart of the dawn has melted almost whole and entire.
Still, those moments of early magic, a medicine of water and and fire that occurs only in the morning, are firmly imprinted in our memories. They are sacred moments, when you can feel the presence of the spirits sitting just beyond the edges of perception, when you can feel the Earth breathe as she awakens once more into the cold morning fire of renewal.
And we awaken with her to begin the work of our day.
Today’s featured work — one of Wings’s newest, completed on this day a week ago — distills this momentary morning magic into tangible, wearable form. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Dewdrop Heart Necklace
At the center of the dawn is the dewdrop heart, the pulse of the new day crowned with water and adance in the light of the rising sun. Wings calls the water, the sun, and the heart to the circle with this necklace, a dancing heart carved from the sky and webbed with golden light. The pendant is formed of an ethereal specimen of Hachita turquoise, pulled from the earth of the southern reaches of this land now called New Mexico, all sky blues and mottled mountain greens marbled with sunny golden-bronze matrix. The focal cabochon, cut into the shape of a dancing heart with the tail flying in the wind, is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, then crowned above the throat with a round cabochon of sunny translucent citrine. The slider-style bail is cut into a subtle flare and stamped freehand in a pattern reminiscent of an eagle’s feather. The pendant hangs from a cascading strand of ultra-high-grade gemstone beads in all the colors of the morning sky: blue spiderweb turquoise alternating with faceted citrine flowing upward into repeating gradients of electric green chrome diopside, rich light green jade, more citrine and webbed sky blue turquoise, and sterling silver accent beads. Each side is anchored by alternating chips of translucent green peridot and tiny rounds of blue spiderweb turquoise, culminating in a small series of tiny diamond-cut sterling silver miniature rounds. Pendant including bail is 2-3/8″ long by 1-3/4″ across at the widest point; bail is 3/8″ long by 5/16″ across at the widest point; heart cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-1/2″ across at the widest point; citrine cabochon is 3/8″ across; bead strand hangs 25″ long, excluding findings (all dimensions approximate). Full view shown below.
Pendant: Sterling silver; Hachita turquoise; citrine
Bead Strand: Blue spiderweb turquoise; faceted citrine; chrome diopside;
jade; sterling silver; peridot; diamond-cut sterling silver
$1,400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The shape of the heart calls to mind today’s conjunction of moon and Morning Star, dancing gently together in the newborn light. It’s a gift we are privileged to see only in the cold season, when the air is thin and clear — a cold so deep and sharp that it burns the lungs even as it steals one’s breath away for its own.
But that is often the way with beauty, and with medicine: not scarce, but rare, making itself available to anyone but found only by those with the awareness to take the time to perceive it.
With this work, though, it’s not only the heart that engages in the dance.
The whole work is one of motion, of animation, of the joy that attends renewal and rebirth. The tiny liquid drop of sun atop the turquoise heart seems to infuse it, as though its golden glow crackles all across its surface, flowing through the veins of its own golden matrix. It’s light, and warmth, for a world that at that moment has had little of either for some hours. The beads dance, too, sky blues and greens trading steps with the refracted radiance of faceted citrine and the same shimmering silver that limned moon and Morning Star.
This is the medicine of a winter’s dawn: the cold morning fire of renewal, setting our steps to dance through the work of the day. It’s magic made real . . . for we who remember to look for it, who let it animate our spirits.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
