After an afternoon and evening of steady rain, dawn broke this morning shrouded in soft gentle gray. Now the clouds are breaking, ceding the western skies to the blue even as the sun still filters silver light through their banks over the peaks to the east.
Half a day of rain, and our small world here is already revived, at least a little: the grass is greener, its blades stand taller, the leaves unfurl and reach outward from the trees. This morning, the world’s green robes are still spangled with beads, raindrops like diamonds on a velvet shawl. In this place, a little rain is all it takes to uncover the glow of the earth’s heart.
Today’s featured work captures this phenomenon perfectly, an earth that glows, and grows, from its very heart. 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
Even now, new thunderheads are amassing to the west, ready to overtake the spreading blue overhead by afternoon. There may be more rain to come, even if only briefly. It will not, of course, mitigate the drought, but for this day, it will be enough.
It’s beautiful, this mix of storm and sun and what it means for the healing of our world. No wonder our earth’s heart glows.
~ 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.
