Two days out from the longest day of the year.
Last night, I watched as the flurries and furies of the wind that ushered in a late rainshower subsided to reveal a slow-darkening world. By ten o’clock, it was still possible to see slim bands of harmless clouds silhouetted against a faint golden glow in the western sky, possible to feel the earth breathe, slow and deep, as she prepared herself for sleep.
She needs her rest now, after all; these are the days when she is awake and at work the longest.
Today’s featured work seems to me to belong with this season, the days surrounding the summer solstice. Everything moves a bit more slowly in summer, enough that it’s possible to believe one can feel the world turn more slowly, too. Despite the added hours of light and the colonial culture’s incessant need to fill them with something — work, or simply activity, anything to avoid having to sit quietly with the world and ourselves — as day drifts slowly into night one can feel the earth herself stretching languorously, already indulgently at rest.
There’s nothing indulgent about it, of course; it’s simple self-preservation, health, harmony. Summer is Mother Earth’s gift to her children, and it is meant to be appreciated, enjoyed, not merely filled to overflowing with the deadlines and stresses of added work to fill the hours of extended daylight.
Today’s featured work embodies both gift and giver in appropriately earthy form. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Earth Mother/Mother Earth Necklace
Earth Mother/Mother Earth, two spirits in one: The latter births the former, the former emerges from the very being of the latter. Wings summons this most elemental spirit of the Sacred Feminine into being in this necklace, one to hang beneath the throat and over the heart. She is wrought, freehand, out of sterling silver, arms stretched high above her head to embrace the universe, separated from head and body by delicate ajouré cutwork. She dances, swaying gently, as she emerges from the womb of the earth itself, all red canyons and warm rocky soil beneath a gray and stormy sky; her face is pure golden light, the radiance of sun and moon reflected off the surface of the world. Her body, and that of the earth, is formed from a bold oval cabochon of exquisite picture jasper set into a hand-made, hand-scalloped bezel; her face appears in the form of a spectacularly chatoyant golden-brown tiger’s eye, highly domed and radiating out of a saw-toothed bezel. She hangs suspended from a bail fashioned of wide sterling silver pattern wire molded in a fertile and flowering pattern, through which cascades a strand of hand-made African barrel beads of varnished bone strung on a sterling silver snake chain. Pendant, including bail, hangs 3″ long; pendant only is 2.5″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; bail is 5/8″ long by 5/16″ across; picture jasper cabochon is 1-3/16″ long by 13/16″ across at the widest point; tiger’s eye cabochon is 1/2″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; bead strand is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Full view shown at top. Jointly designed by Aji and Wings.
Sterling silver; picture jasper; tiger’s eye; varnished African bone beads
$1,275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece summons Earth into being in her most archetypal feminine form, body veined with red, face luminous with the light of the sun. But her affect is not one indulgence; there’s nothing idle about her appearance or demeanor. Her arms, raised over her head to clasp her hands together, are not stretching at all. Rather, they are reaching for the light, grasping this greatest of gifts, ready to bring it down to where her children live.
It’s a task she performs every day, our mother the Earth: capturing the rays of sun and moon, holding them just close enough to warm our world and illuminate it, too. In a matter now of hours, the days will begin to grow shorter; the darkness will begin its slow ascent again. But forr now, the earth turns and dances with the sun, and delivers to us the gift of a lengthening light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
