The storm raged all around us last night, but produced only the faintest dusting of crystalline white. Midday, and every trace of snow is gone, but the air is bitterly cold and the wind cuts straight to the bone.
It’s hard to reconcile the wintry feel of the day with the first emergent green, spreading slowly but steadily now. It’s not mostly green, nor even half-green yet — more a tweedy mix of browns threaded with green — but the omnispresence of it now is remarkable.
And it’s not just the fact of the grass’s existence; it’s the height and the density and the intensity of color, too. Some years, such as grass as we are granted by now is a dry and pale thing, but these blades are vibrant, jewel tones like peridot and jade and emerald rising from the heart of the earth.
On a day when hope in other contexts is ascendant (and perhaps, too, on a day when the dominant culture celebrates a holiday rooted in a culture half a world away by wearing the same color), it seems fitting that winter white should have given way to a brilliant and visible green in all directions.
It’s a shade and spirit found in today’s featured work, as well, one that embodies directions and color, the shapes of medicine and the spirits of warmer winds. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
From the Heart of the Earth Necklace
From the heart of the earth our whole world grows. Wings pays tribute to this evolutionary process with this necklace, a cross that is not a cross, but the embodiment of elemental forces and nurturing spirits. The pendant’s form is a very old design, one that circumvented colonial insistence on Christianity by appearing to adopt its four-spoked shape — and then adding an extra bar and a curving end to produce the form of a much older spirit: that of Dragonfly, a pollinator, a messenger, a symbol of romantic love and life’s abundance. Here, Wings has honored another old adaptation of the style, turning the curved tail at the base of the lowest spoke into a stylized heart. Above the heart, the pendant extends upward and outward to the Four Sacred Directions, each of the remaining five spokes stamped with a single thunderhead symbol pointing inward toward the center, a sign of the rain that keeps our Earth herself alive. Above the top spoke, the hand-made bail flowers into a lush green peridot; at the base in the center of the heart, the place of emergence, two tiny hand-stamped flowers are wedded into the form of a butterfly, a small spirit rising from its own place of emergence to continue the processes of pollination and prosperity. The cross is made of solid fourteen-gauge silver, and hangs 2-5/8″, the bail 3/4″ (the pendant is 3-3/8″ in total length; 1-1/8″ across at the widest point); the stone is 3/8″ long; the pendant hangs from an 18″ sterling silver snake chain (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; peridot
$1,150 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s an old traditional design reimagined for a contemporary world, structure entirely the same, spirit summoned from the winds of summer. It’s Dragonfly holding the sacred directions within his wings, and a nod to Butterfly, too, all in the jeweled light of sun-spangled grass and the warming waters of the rivers.
It’s the medicine of summer, shared now with a world still shivering with winter’s chill but already warming to the lengthening light. It’s a gift from the heart of the earth, too, the first emergent green that holds all the promise of abundance.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
