It’s a brilliant day: hot, hazy, humid. Approaching noon, and the sky is palest turquoise. The first traces of cumulus clouds newly birthed drift in search of aggregation; to the west, a few cirrus remain. mare’s tails feathered across the sky.
That will change, and likely soon.
The forecast predicts only a 20% chance of precipitation, but that was true yesterday, and at points the day before, and the day before that, too. At this season, the weather can change in the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, and usually does. The larger question now seems to be whether the rain will fall directly overhead or merely around the visible edges, and if so, when; our afternoon monsoonal patterns have ceded the territory of the storm mostly to the dark hours now.
We will take it, whenever it comes, and be glad of it.
At this time of year, we tend to speak of sky in terms of its relationship to water, and the common metaphors reflect that: rivers, streams, cascades, waterfalls. But there are other spirits of the storm, too, those who inhabit air and wind and yes, sky, the storm-carriers and water-bearers of stories as old as time, those like Thunderbird, who plays stickball with the clouds to make the thunder roll, who carries arrows of lightning and who lets the rain fall from the feathers on his wings.
At this time of year, the rain flies on feathered skies, not gentle cirrus fans but the full elemental power of the storm spirits.
Today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest, embodies both the softer touch of mare’s tails and the wild soaring force of the storm. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Feathered Skies Cuff Bracelet
Feathered skies are a bit of heavenly magic: a turquoise expanse aflutter with mares-tail clouds like the down of the feathers that send our own prayers skyward. Wings catches the blue and the clouds and the feathers, too, and braids them together in this cuff bracelet in electric blues and greens and shimmering silver. The band is hand-milled in a random, repeating feather pattern, down plumes racing across the arc of the light. Across the top stretch five square Skystone cabochons, bezel-set and arranged in a graduated pattern: one large brilliant blue-green square at the center, high-set and aswirl in shades of golden and coppery matrix; on either side, a somewhat smaller pair of squares of rich teal with a mysterious black chert matrix, and all three flanked at either end with small squares of what are likely Bisbee green turquoise, a rich seafoam shade with hints of blue speckled with a tiny coppery siltstone matrix. The inner band features gracefully scalloped stampwork in a repeating flowing-water design along either edge. Band is 6″ long by 1″ across; large focal cabochon is 5/8″ across; medium cabs are 1/2″ across; and small end cabs 38″ across (dimensions approximate). Top view shown above.
Sterling silver; indigo and teal-green turquoise (probably Turquoise Mountain, Cloud Mountain, and Bisbee, respectively)
$1,100 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a work that holds, at its very heart, the magic and mystery of place: of sacred mountains and earthen jewels, of the very track of the storm in this space and season. And the feathers that hold the Skystones in their embrace are those of the heart, too, the silken down found next to the body and beneath the wings of the raptor spirits, as though the water they symbolize is too valuable to risk losing.
It is. The first medicine, the breath of life, the river of birth . . . water has always held the highest, most sacred value. Now, in a colonized world, its increasing scarcity renders it priceless in other ways, too.
The water flows now into the pond, molecules of life left over from the winter melt. But the earth still thirsts. If our prayers our answered, the storm will soar our skies again today, feathers full and and flowing with rain.
~ 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.
