Dawn broke this morning across a banded sky, pale expanse scored by clouds lined and limned in the shades of silver and pale brass. They would not last long; as soon as the sun transcended their topline, they fled eastward between the peaks and out of sight.
Now, at midday, the skies are mostly clear, only faint filamentary wisps trailing around the horizon. The wind, though, is rising now, the young maple wavering beneath it; its edge cuts to the bone in an instant. Still, there are moments of quiet, of near-silence broken only by the chattering of spring birds here out of season and the white noise of vehicles on the highway. It’s almost possible to believe that we are alone here, we and the wild creatures. On this day, anything that makes the colonial world seem far away is a gift indeed.
Arundhati Roy is supposed to have said, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” [I say “supposed,” not because I doubt the Indian writer’s brilliance, but because I find that particular quote on memes but in no parent source.] It is a truth that our peoples have always known, this notion of Mother Earth’s renewal and rebirth. Our dreamers, our visionaries and prophets, have foretold her many births, including the one whose long labor pains are already under way now. It is one of the great gifts of the quiet of this season and place that we have sufficient silence to be able to listen, to wait: And we do hear her breathing; hear and feel her heart beating, weakened yet insistent; feel her stirring, those first nascent movements as she shifts her position to deliver even as she is to be born.
This is the sound, the feel, of Earth rising now: the quickening of heartbeat and of breath, the animating force of her spirit, the elemental sacred and the refuge of rebirth.
Today’s featured work embodies these lines of life itself, of skies scored by clouds and a land textured and rising to meet the light, of Mother Earth’s children rising to the work of creating the world anew. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Earth Rising Cuff Bracelet
It is a time of elemental change, Earth rising to link past and present and future in a sacred hoop of protection and survival. Wings links them in more tangible ways with this spectacularly complex cuff, one that fuses one of his very early pieces into a whole new work that honors elemental powers, sacred numbers, and ancient spirits. It begins with a solid sterling silver cuff, scored freehand into eight separate lines, the number of the cardinal and ordinal directions. At either end, a sterling silver overlay in the shape of Grandmother Turtle, she who holds the world on her back, climbs steadily upward. Each turtle is cut, freehand, with a tiny jeweler’s saw, articulated head, legs, and tail each stamped with traditional patterns to form scales and provide texture and dimensionality. Each turtle’s shell is gently scalloped with stampwork around the edge, a Morning Star stretched across the shell’s center. Wings brought old to new and melded them together at the top of the cuff with the addition of one of his very early pieces from his personal collection: a hat pin in the form of a medicine shield that doubles as a medicine wheel, cut freehand and centered by Buffalo’s skull, our Elder Brother of the Earth. The horizontal spokes of the medicine shield are sculpted and stamped in the shape of a ceremonial pipe, eagle feathers suspended at either end. The entire wheel is overlaid onto a backing of hand-hammered sterling silver. Cuff band is 7″ long by roughly 1-1/8″ across; turtle overlays are 1-1/4″ long by 15/16″ across at the widest point; buffalo medicine wheel overlay is 1-7/16″ high by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver
$1,900 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work is one on my frankly very short list of all-time favorites among Wings’s entire body of work. For context, that’s thousands of pieces of silverwork over decades, and I’m referring to a list of probably two dozen items, no more. It’s a piece that is phenomenon unto itself, a mix of silverwork techniques by a master manifest as a mix of elemental forces and ancient spirits that embody our oldest stories and most traditional ways.
It’s Grandmother Turtle rising from silvered waters, ready to provide refuge for The People in the rebirth of the world.
It’s Buffalo, our elder brother, giver of food and warmth and shelter that has kept our peoples alive in the face of dangers more deadly than most can conceive or comprehend.
It’s wheel and pipe, smoke and water, earth and light, the tools and spirits of ceremony and medicine, of that elemental sacred stirring now below the surface.
It is Earth rising in the quiet, our mother making ready for her own deliverance once more.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
