The cold is here.
Yesterday’s snow was negligible, even on the peaks, but the winds were ferocious, battering hard and biting deep. They ushered in sub-zero lows last night, pegged four -4 but more likely reaching ten below at this elevation.
Today, it’s cold, with a hard edge to the air, and yet, everything seems easier. Today, we are the beneficiaries of the light that arrives on the winds, clear and nearly cloudless and hard at work warming our world.
It’s one of the gifts of the elemental forces, winter and summer alike, that we take for granted, forgetting as we go about our days how necessary sun and sky are to our survival. Every now and then, though, circumstances conspire to remind us, and a cold this deep is but one example. It’s a reminder, too, to be grateful for these gifts, to acknowledge and honor them. After all, we are now perforce learning fast what happens when our world’s natural patterns are disrupted by colonial intervention.
Today’s featured works, two of them, share more than a passing resemblance — a pair of pairs, earrings all, wrought in an old traditional style but with Wings’s own contemporary twist. Both are found in the Earrings Gallery here on the site. We begin with my personal favorite, shown above, tiny suns with wings, spread open protectively above the earth — like Wednesday’s work in miniature, shimmering silvered butterflies capable of surviving any weather or season. From their description:
Chrysalis Sun Earrings
Dawn takes flight on silver wings, bearing the orb of a chrysalis sun. Wings summons the sun and the transformative spirit of the day with these butterfly earrings, newly emerged from the cocoon of night. Each drop drifts gently from side to side, its flared top and bottom adance in sharp relief. At the center of the wings sits a tiny amber orb, each cabochon as timeless as the light and glowing with its own cosmic fire, each set in the cool, secure embrace of a plain, low-profile bezel. Earrings hang 1-3/8″ long by 1″ across at the widest point; amber cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; amber
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair evokes the magic of that same work in its colors, too: silver set with a glowing orangey amber, dark and rich and warm as any sun. That glow is only magnified by the sharply three-dimensional relief of its settings, reflective and refractive and richly textured, dancing in the light.
Rebirth, indeed, and soaring light as well.
The second pair is wrought in the same style, but possessed of a very different shade of stone and spirit — cool, serene, but no less important to our survival. From their description:
Floating Azure Earrings
Our world soars on warm silver winds and floating azure skies. Wings gives form and life to wind and sky and the small spirits that inhabit them with these butterfly earrings, all graceful silver wings holding at their heart perfect blues of summer skies. Each dangling drop flares elegantly at top and bottom, winglines articulated, repoussé-fashion, with shimmering depth. At the center of each earring, a tiny round cabochon of bright blue lapis lazuli rests in the embrace of a plain, low-profile bezel. Earrings hang 1-3/8″ long by 1″ across at the widest point; lapis cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The skies today are very nearly this shade of blue: a deep cornflower, marbled only faintly here and there by traces of mares’ tails and a solitary bank of lenticular clouds just visible behind the peaks. Those clouds, though, resemble wings themselves, flared and feathery and full of motion and life.
Winter here is, or should be, a season of heavy storms and snows, but it is also a season of the clearest of skies, floating azure and chrysalis sun together.
This is the light that arrives on the winds, the light that keeps our world alive.
Even in the deep cold, we can be grateful for that.
~ 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.
