With the dawn of a new year, one that promises to be forbidding and perhaps even downright frightening, we find ourselves in search of guidance.
Wisdom.
Medicine and healing.
Visions and dreams.
Whatever will help us not only to navigate the dark difficult days ahead, but to come out the other side whole in body, mind, and spirit.
We look to the spirits for aid: the Creator, the spirits of earth and sky, water and light, the elements and the winds and the sacred directions. We call upon the ancestors, warriors and healers alike.
And as Wings has always understood, sometimes the most powerful of both are the women.
It was what prompted him to create the very first Warrior Woman, some two decades ago. It was a gift for his mother, to honor her own bravery and strength and resilient power in the face of an extraordinary physical challenge. Thereafter, he created new versions for sale, each one unique: first, in honor of his mother; then, after she walked on, in her memory; always, always, to honor the power of women.
In recent weeks, he has had occasion to create a few — commissioned works, each designed for a specific person. Once they were completed, he created a few more for inventory. This is the first, one garbed in the power of Medicine writ large, both as agent of healing and giver of dreams. From its description in the Pins Gallery here on the site:
Medicine Visions Warrior Woman Pin
The Warrior Woman is Wings’s most closely held signature series, each created in memory of his mother, in honor of all women. Here, she wears traditional dress adorned with four Eyes of Spirit, symbols of wisdom and guidance, visions and dreams, each Eye fashioned by means of paired lodge symbols conjoined at the open end. In her left hand she holds the moon, hand-stamped with bearpaw prints, signs of medicine and healing, physical strength, and extraordinary power. In her right she carries a small round cabochon of rich green jade, the color of the sage used in purification, prayer, and healing. Over her right shoulder coils a patterned serpent, a signifier of prosperity, and she wears traditional jewelry at hands and heart. Pin stands 2.75″ high at the highest point by 2″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; jade
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This one is composed of especially powerful medicine symbols: bear paws, lodges, Eyes of Spirit. But to me, the one addition that pulls all of the imagery together is the choice of stone: jade, soft in hue and intense in shade, the color of the plant spirits, the color of renewal.
The color of Medicine.
It’s a color in relatively short supply in this season, although climate change has brought us, from New Year’s Day onward, high pollen warnings . . . for grass. But even when the snow comes again, as it is expected to do tonight, there are still the evergreens — the piñon, the cedar, the supplies laid by of dried sweetgrass and sage. Medicine is all around us, and so is the wisdom it imparts.
Sometimes, we just need to be reminded where — and to whom — to look.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
