Today, the skies are blue again — not quite cloudless, but close enough to call them clear. The earth is white, some seven or eight inches of new snow atop what remained of the old, piling it to a foot and more in places.
Our small world feels clean and new again.
We were blessed to witness moonrise in the earliest hours of this day: Awakened by the dogs around two A.M., we saw its waning crescent, a true horned moon, just clear the southern slope of the mountain, hovering large and amber above the clouds trailing along the ridgeline. Its light spilled across the snowy fields, otherwise lit only by the beadwork of the stars on the blanket of the night.
It was one of those moments of pure magic, a gift of the spirits granted at random.
It was also a reminder of the inherent power of this so-called “lesser” light. The outside world tells us that moonlight is nothing more than the reflected glow of the sun, an inferior orb most often granted feminine attributes to contrast and compare unfavorably with the sun’s perceived masculine powers.
The outside world spends too much time in comparison, and not enough in appreciation.
For the moon, feminine or no, is the perfect light of the winter dark, rising above the clouds to illuminate a snow-covered sleeping land.
It is, in fact, a spirit, and a set of powers, that animates today’s featured work. From its description in the Pins Gallery here on the site:
Above the Clouds Warrior Woman Pin
Eagle soars above the clouds, carrying prayers past a flowering moon. Wings brings together messenger and moon in this powerfully feminine entry in his signature Warrior Woman series, created in memory of his mother and to honor the courage, strength, and power of women. The eagle soars across her heart, far above bands of clouds made radiant by the sun, as though determined to reach the upper atmosphere. Flowering plants in full leaf trace the back of the serpent over her right shoulder, a symbol of prosperity, while new blooms dance around the crescent moon in her left hand. A rainbow moonstone, full face to the world, rotates in her right, refracting a spectrum of color from its cool, icy light. The pin stands 2.75″ high by 2 inches across at the widest point; the cabochon is 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; rainbow moonstone
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I’ve written many time over about the genesis of Wings’s signature Warrior Woman series, about her own conception and birth. As I said last year, she both offers and embodies and specific powers and teachings:
It is a kind of bravery, a kind of power, that women know well. It is especially true of our women, thanks to the externalities foisted on us for half a millennium and more; even in cultures dedicated to peace, we have been forced to become warriors. But in our way, irrespective of gender, to be a warrior has always meant far more than taking up the fight. To be a warrior requires a willingness to sacrifice oneself in defense of others, in defense of the ancestors and elders, the children and spirits, our ways of life and our moral base. It means standing up when no one else will do so, stepping forward when there is no one else to do so.
It is what our women have always done, and it has informed and shaped the path of our survival.
Wings has always known this; indeed, he has always said that women are far stronger warriors than any man. It’s what informs his path, too, what inspires his work, what inspirits the signature series closest to his heart: the Warrior Woman series.
Wings has been creating the pieces in this collection for twenty years and more — by now, scores, perhaps hundreds of them, each unique, each possessed of its own individual animating spirit. I’ve written here before on a number of occasions about this series and how it came to be: the first, designed for his mother and he watched her own valiant battle to survive; the rest, in her memory and in honor of women generally, of their courage and strength and essential power.
But the Warrior Woman is like the moon: Her power is not confined to abstractions, and her value is not measurable against any other.
Imagine, for a moment, a world without the moon, especially in the long dark of the cold season: bright sunlight during the day; near full dark by night, lit only by the microscopic points of ancient stars too distant to illuminate our steps before us in the snow. We are granted a hint of what it might be like once every four weeks or so, on the night of each new moon . . . but we have the advantage of knowing that it is only temporary, that in a matter of a day or two, the night’s light will return.
So it is with women’s power, too: It exists in its own right, fully actualized to its purpose, without comparison to any other.
Health and harmony are rooted in recognizing these simple truths. We, too, rise above the clouds to do our work, just like the moon, that perfect light of the winter dark.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
