Dawn broke this morning in the colors of this place: a pale orange glow radiating across a turquoise expanse, the shades of the Pueblo earth and sky. On this day, though, color and clarity didn’t last; with the sun ascendant came the descent of long low bands of clouds, falling over the peaks, then turning to fog around the slopes.
Now, the sky is a mix of clouds and sun, the air hot and muggy in defiance of a forecast that still insists on a perfect rainless aridity. The forecast was a bit off yesterday, as well, although while it poured at the edge of town, out here we got perhaps fifty drops before it moved past us to the south. It may not be much, but it appears that the rainy season is not quite through with us yet.
In a season both ceremonial and sacred, this is a time for medicine. And while the first medicine has always been water, it shares space and power with the medicine of earth and sky.
Today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest and my personal favorite among all of those in its category, embodies season, space, shade, and spirit alike. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Earth and Sky Medicine Necklace
We live in a land of earth and sky medicine, rich red-gold clay veined with the first medicine, the waters that mirror the blue of the heavens. Wings brings earth and sky, water and medicine together in the embrace of a single necklace in all the colors and magic of our high-desert world. The piece is built around a pendant formed of a truly phenomenal cabochon of azurite in matrix: spectacularly freeform, almost the shape of a drop of rain, in all the shimmering shades of a desert earth sparkling with the greens and blues of water and sky. It sits in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, and hangs suspended from a bail of sterling silver pattern water in an elegant floral design. Threaded through the bail are alternating round beads of impression jasper and glowing indigo blue apatite, a combination that repeats throughout the length of the strand, interspersed with large round beads of glowing, luminous sunstone. Near either end of the strand, segments of round green Russian amazonite beads pick up the teal shades embedded in the earth of the cabochon. The bead strand is 19″ long, excluding findings; pendant and bail together are 3″ long by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; the visible surface of the azurite-in-matrix cabochon is 2.5″ long by 1-1/8″ across; the bail is 1/4″ long by 3/8″across (dimensions approximate). Full view of necklace shown at top.
Sterling silver; sunstone; green Russian amazonite; apatite; impression jasper
$1,900 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Despite its appearance, the focal stone of this piece is not turquoise, although it shares the shades of that jewel’s striking blues and greens. It’s azurite in matrix, a truly one-of-a-kind specimen, expertly cabbed to show off the medicine hues that flow across its surface. Despite the fact that this stone came from the other side of the world, resembles nothing so much as our own beautiful lands here, heading into autumn: shimmering coppery earth webbed with the indigo and emerald of rivers now in full flow from recent rains, catching and refracting the color of the desert sky.
It’s a piece perfect for this time of year — a sacred season, a time of ceremony before the snow flies . . . a time when the clouds part and the air clears, allowing us the better to appreciate and honor the medicine of earth and sky.
~ 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.
