Today is the best of summer here: warm, sunny, not too humid, but with new green courtesy of last night’s rain and the possibility of more precipitation looming low and close now.
The two most extreme seasons here are the ones that save our world each year — a summer rainy season that historically follows a monsoonal track, and a winter where the snows are consistent, and consistently measured not in inches but in feet. Together they provide the breath and lifeblood of the land, summer with immediacy and winter storing it up to release across the land and into the surface waters with the thaw. Spring and fall have their own discretely powerful identities, but this is always and ever a land of extremes, and it is those seasons that keep our small world alive.
Or so it used to be. We now know that our old patterns are lost to us, probably for the remainder of our lifetimes at least. But the last couple of weeks have blessed the land and us with it, turning an earth choked by impossibly deep drought and aridification into something green and alive once more.
It’s proof, were any needed, that recovery and reclamation are possible, even restoration and rebirth. Of course, our peoples are not the ones who need to internalize this truth; we have always known it, and have conducted ourselves accordingly. If this is what two weeks of still-not-quite “normal” seasonal weather can accomplish? Imagine what an all-out land-back effort to save the earth could do. Of course, the colonial world isn’t interested, not in the means, and not even in the goal. But we have seen what’s possible once more, brought to our attention in real time to unfold before our very eyes, and our commitment is renewed with the re-greening land.
Today’s forecast insists that our chance of rain is only five percent, although the clouds on all sides say otherwise. As was the case yesterday, it’s unlikely we’ll get more than a few drops during the daylight hours today. But the post-sunset sky gathered its strength and delivered a short but powerful storm to us late, and the land this day is better for it.
But the best of summer combines the storm with the sun, and at this moment, we have the latter shining brightly, clouds still puffy gray-white against a cornflower sky and drifting softly in a gentle breeze. This is a day made for the season, a day to celebrate the gifts of the ground, now dancing in the light.
Despite the deadly effects of the drought, those gifts are still many and varied: trees finally in fuller leaf, newly lush stands of red willow, the rise of grass and herbs and medicines, and at long last, petals in full flower. A couple of days ago, the prairie coneflowers opened their golden petals to the sun, and the honeysuckle has revived itself entirely. There will be more, both planted and growing wild, and it is also medicine to see the shades of the summer earth returned to us.
Today’s featured masterwork is manifest in the form and shape and shades of this very medicine, of the greens of earth and blues of sky and the lacy petals that adorn alpine meadow and prairie alike. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Summer: Wildflower Meadow Under a Midday Sky Necklace
The most vibrant spirits of the warm winds dance all season long. This is the best of the high-country Summer: wildflower meadow under a midday sky, an emerald earth and a turquoise expanse alive in the silver light. With this necklace, Wings calls the flowers to dance once more, from the earliest days of spring to the very end of Indian summer, robed and shawled in their finest dress. The oversized pendant is cut entirely freehand of solid sterling silver, shaped into the graceful looping arcs of a giant prairie blossom. Each of its eight outstanding “petal” cabochons, each an oval of high-grade malachite spectacularly agatized and scalloped in extraordinary patterns, is ringed with a flowering, radiant sun motif. Single wildflowers swaying atop graceful stalks are stamped freehand in a random pattern all across the pendant’s face, twining around the square center cabochon of intensely-hued chrysocolla in malachite and fluttering between the petals. Each cabochon is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver; the pendant backing is buffed to a rich, velvety Florentine finish, as soft as the summer breeze. Small matched blossoms trace the simple, lightly-flared bail, through which are strung a phenomenal mix of graduated beads: ultra-high-grade chrysocolla, solid and heavy, alternating with malachite cube beads and silver-plated large rounds, extending upward on either side into more malachite cubes interspersed with deep blue turquoise orbs and small but solid sterling silver rounds and tiny indigo apatite spheres. Beads are strung over extra-sturdy tri-ply foxtail made of heavy nylon specially treated and encased in metal, then silver-plated for color matching; findings are sturdy sterling silver assemblies. Pendant including bail hangs 5″, 4.25″ excluding bail, and is 4.25″ across at the widest point; the bail is 3/4″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; center cabochon is 11/16″ square; cardinal cabochons are 1″ long by 1/2″ across; ordinal cabochons are 3/4″-7/8″ long by 7/16″ across; bead strand is 22″ long, excluding findings. [All dimensions approximate.] Designed jointly by Wings and Aji; third in The Four Seasons Series. Additional close-up views of pendant and strand shown below.
Sterling silver (setting and findings);
malachite; chrysocolla in malachite (pendant cabochons); tri-ply silver-plated foxtail (to hold beads);
chrysocolla; silver-plate; malachite; sterling silver; turquoise; apatite (beads)
$2,000 plus shipping, handling, and insurance
This work was, of course, created explicitly in honor of this season, bearing its identity and name. But its composition reminds me that, while so many see only high desert here, this is a land varied and rich with indigenous species and spirits, a place that has sustained itself since the time before time with the medicines of Mother Earth and her children.
It feels as though they are relearning the process again.
Now, as I write, a Western tiger swallowtail has just floated past the window. Beyond, I see the eastern field — only a week ago still mostly brown — now not merely carpeted in green but beae here and there with white and pink and purple clover. The coneflowers have risen around the blue flax, sharing their penchant for following the early sun, and above the puffy white bands that line the horizon glows a hot turquoise sky.
The work never ends; there is always more to do. But for this day, we will take a few moments just to acknowledge the near-perfection of this day, and of a wildflower world robed in the shades of the summer earth.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
