Today was a perfect example of the oppositional nature of this season: earth wet and muddy at dawn; dry and dusty by dusk. This has been the first day in some time that we have not had at least a few drops of rain; in August, days entirely free of precipitation are very much an oddity.
Then again, climate change has changed more than the climate.
Then, too, the day is not over.
This is, after all, a season when strange weather is the norm, when the only sure thing is its unpredictability. At sunrise, I would almost have sworn that today’s road would be a rainy one, heavy gray clouds lowering over a still-wet earth, each long rich blade of grass spangled with drops.
Almost.
But there are other indicators here, and it’s the foolhardy soul who presumes to “know” in advance the road a given day will take, especially at this time of year.
As always, the weather holds lessons for life.
We think of existence as a hoop, of time as circle and cycle. It’s not entirely metaphorical, either, given that our world orbits the sun. But the hoop is no the sort one rolls — no toy, this, nor even a wheel. It’s a path, a direction, a journey, a road . . . and it’s not merely one of those things, but all of them, and many of each, as well. Some paths feel like fate; other roads are clearly marked with options, choices, decisions, will, even if it’s not always especially free. Some are arid desert tracks, dry and dusty; others, filled with rocky outcroppings and boulders blocking the way. Still others are soft and easy to traverse; others, a way subject to sudden storms that turn the dirt to mud. They are past and present and days not yet come to pass, history and ancestry and identity, the earth’s own endless path.
These are the roads of time, grounded in our world and our ways, with all the variation of humanity and creation.
It was a given that today’s featured work should be what it is, an ancient spirit summoned from the earth itself to map a whole new world. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Roads of Time Necklace
The roads of time are neither simple nor straight, but they all meet at intersections of history and spirit. Wings honors their existence, and their patterns, with this contemporary tribute to ancient beings. The pendant’s cabochon is a slab of fossilized mammoth tooth, thousands of years old, its pale natural color warmed by the earth in which it lay, its veins and capillaries now turned into a network of roads in glowing blues and grays: roads that intersect, bisect, run parallel, and overlap, connecting up with each other and linking epochs in time and even time itself. Wings sliced the fossil material from a larger piece, shaped it gently and polished it lightly, then set it in a hand-made bezel of sterling silver. The embrasure is a modified saw-toothed bezel, hand-cut and trimmed in twisted silver. On the reverse, the setting is centered around an ajouré Morning Star, hand-cut to expose the fossil and allow its earthy glow to shine through the star’s spokes as they stretch to the Four Sacred Directions. Around the perimeter of the reverse side, hand-stamped blossoms emerge from the ancient materials and images to flower anew. the pendant hangs from a strand of graduated disc beads made of traditional olivella-shell heishi in two colors, accented near the findings with twin segments of faceted copper barrel beads. Pendant (including bail) hangs 2-1/4″ long by 1-1/4″ across at the widest point; cabochon is 1-11/16″ long by 1-1/16″ across at the widest point; bead strand is 18″ long (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and at the link.
Sterling silver; fossilized mammoth tooth; olivella-shell heishi; copper
$975 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We think of the mammoth as extinct, and in terms of the living being, it is. But it survives in its descendants, genetic markers that have followed their own roads to manifest in new form, adapted to their own new world. More, the mammoth exists even now as a part of our history, one salient element that lived with our ancestors and helped to make them who they were, and in turn made us who we are.
But it exists, even now, in tangible form: fossilized, yes; an artifact to some, perhaps; to us, a part of one of the Ancient Ones, one with much to teach us now.
Given that the great creature to whom this piece once belonged is now extinct in its living form, given the accelerating pace of the changes to our world, given the links between climate change and climatic damage and extinction events, it’s a history we would do well to learn. This ancestor can help us map the roads of time, help us chart a path in an again rapidly changing world. It is the earth’s own endless, but we must learn how to navigate it.
~ 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.
