We at last awakened to a dawn sunny and perfectly clear, sky entirely free of clouds. It’s not my preference; I will always prize the power and beauty of the storm over the sunniest of skies. But I realize that I am distinctly in the minority on such issues.
Still, I think perhaps it’s healthy for the rest of the world to have a day of such clarity. For those who prefer it, I imagine that it instills hope in a way that our recent mix of clouds does not. For such folks, I suspect that it holds out to their spirits the promise of spring.
I have to admit that the promise of spring, to me, is an unwelcome one: Here, in a good year, spring means rivers of mud; in other years, such as this one, it will means walls of dust; in every year, it means constant gale-force winds that rattle one’s teeth and bones with the same force it applies to the glass windows.
But more to the point, I am an autumn baby, a child of winter, one born of and for the storm. Summer is a thing to be tolerated. Spring? Merely endured.
But we all take our solace where we can find it now, especially in a time when the world around has grown not merely dangerous but positively deadly. We all seek shelter and safety and comfort now, warmth against the winter chill and illumination as proof against the dark. The weather is often uncooperative on all fronts, which makes love all the more important now, and so our spirits naturally seek the glow of the most eternal fire.
It’s a glow, and a fire, too, manifest in today’s featured masterwork, one that draws on multiple gifts and traditions to meld elemental forces into something far more powerful than the mere sum of their parts. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
A Love Ancient and Eternal Necklace
The gifts of this indigenous earth are jewels beyond price, symbols of a love ancient and eternal. Wings honors the love, the gifts, and the example set for us with this necklace, wrought in the oldest of gems wrapped in the embrace of precious metal in the shade of the light. The work is built around a pendant of extraordinary proportions, an outsized heart cut freehand and set at the center with a total of sixteen gems. The focal point is a giant heart-shaped cabochon of Turkish colla wood, a rare and ancient fossilized wood spangled over time on a geologic scale with inclusions of its namesake, opalized chrysocolla, along with azurite and malachite, set here into a scalloped bezel. This luminous center is embraced by a ring of round bezel-set cabochons separated by tiny hand-stamped hoops, seven each of alternating blood-red carnelian and fiery amber with a single ethereal aquamarine, like tiny dawn sky, at the very tip. The pendant hangs from a flared slider-style bezel chased down its center in a repeating pattern of stylized hearts. It hangs from a chunky strand of textured beads strung on three-ply silver-plated foxtail: at the center, hand-carved oval ebony wood separated first by carnelian rondels, then slender amber chips; moving upward, Labradorite rondels alternating with pairs of spiky hand-textured ebony cylinders separated by oval ebony spacers; at the upper half, jet barrel beads alternating with segments of very old green turquoise doughnut rondels, followed by sterling silver-plated round spacers flowing into lengths of round chatoyant kyanite and smaller, intensely-hued indigo apatite. The strand is anchored by oversized sterling silver hook-and-eye findings. Including the bail, the pendant is 2-11/16″ long; the pendant alone is 2″ long from highest to lowest points by 1-7/8″ across at the widest point; the bail is 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; the colla wood heart cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-7/16″ across at the widest point; the smaller cabochons are each 3/16″ across; the bead strand, excluding findings, is 20″ long (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Pendant: Sterling silver; Turkish colla wood; aquamarine; amber; carnelian
Bead Strand: Hand-carved African ebony; carnelian; amber; Labradorite; jet;
old green turquoise; silverplate; kyanite; apatite; all over tri-ply silver-plated foxtail.
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This has been one of my favorite pieces from the moment of its creation: the mix of materials and media, the kaleidoscope of colors and textures and shapes, the ancient nature of the heart at the heart of it, the spirit that infuses the whole.
The bead strand, besides providing a stunning array of textures and materials, is a mix of earth and sky, fire and ice. The same is true of the pendant, but to my mind, it is the collection of small jewels that ring the center cabochon that lifts it to the next level: the rich flames of sunrise and sunset, ending at the tip in the cold shimmering light of a single icy star. It is indeed a work symbolizing love — not merely of the romantic sort, but love of and for Mother Earth and Father Sky, of the medicines of water and fire and light, of all of the spirits, ancient and eternal, that hold our world safe on its axis and in its proper orbit.
And it reminds us that, as important as basic shelter and safety are, they are not enough — indeed, they are not even possible without a world that believes in and works to create the glow of the most eternal fire of all.
Our work must be rooted in love . . . and the work is calling us now.
~ 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.
