On the weather map, snow is represented by blue and rain by green. On it at the moment, the world just west of us is a mass of turquoise.
The promised storm is, it seems, on the way, even if the earth here remains mostly wrapped in a still gray blanket of fog. The high winds forecast for yesterday, expected to bring the storm home hours earlier, never materialized, although the temperatures remain warm enough for thunder to accompany the snow when it does arrive.
For now, the birds are congregating at the feeder, as though stocking up for the storm.
It all conspires to make today’s featured work especially apt, a piece that I had already planned to highlight today after making a brief reference to it in Tuesday’s post. Among Wings’s current inventory of bracelets, it’s one of my favorites, meticulously fine detailing embracing a stunning stone, the whole coming together in symbolically spectacular fashion. It has always looked, to me, like a topographical rendering of some part of Turtle Island, perhaps the islands of my own beloved Great Lakes, arising out of the winds’ silvery mists to show its colors to the sun’s gaze. It is land and water and air and light, all brought together in the vortex of the storm. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Blue Whirlwind Cuff Bracelet
A blue whirlwind links earth and water to sky, a vortex of power and a portal between worlds, a spiraling path of the spirits. The breathtaking cuff harnesses and holds a bit of its elemental force. Wings began with five solid strands of half-round wire, soldering them together into one substantial band. He stamped each individual strand entirely by hand, hundreds of individual strikes with a tiny jeweler’s hammer, to create twinned outer rows that evoke the directions and power of the winds, all aimed inward at the center strand where they whirl and wed into a line of sacred hoops. Centered at the top of the band, set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, rests an oval Skystone from Turquoise Mountain, new stone that manifests in a near-indigo blue, warm patches of golden-brown earth arising from its surface. The winds meet again in alternating symbols at either end of the inner band. Cuff is 5/8″ wide; the setting, 1-1/8″ high by 5/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; high-grade Turquoise Mountain turquoise
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a design that embodies the cyclical nature of the storm, clear blue whirling into darkened clouds, then spiraling out into blue skies once again. It also holds fast a bit of its elemental power: approached respectfully, harnessed carefully, deployed sparingly — just enough of Nature’s nurturing fury to cleanse the landscape and renew it for the planting season, enough to lay the groundwork for growth and eventual abundance.
It’s the sort of symbolism that speaks to me on multiple levels. On this day, it reminds me that the coming whirlwind, the snowstorm drawing ever closer now, is a gift — one that will continue to bless our lives throughout the remainder of the whole long year.
~ Aji
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