Dawn broke beneath a single formation of lenticular clouds, linking Pueblo Peak and Spoon Mountain in bands of crimson and smoke. Since then, the sky has cleared, a brilliant sun dispensing with most of what was left of the snow . . . but now, at midday, high thin cloud cover veils most of the blue, and the wind is cold and fierce.
It’s a beautiful day, perfect for November, but not one in which to be outside overmuch. Indside, we have allowed the fire in the small woodstove to burn down to embers, but have kept the larger one fully ablaze; smoke rises from the southwest chimney to drift and dance in the icy air. The house is warm and cozy, and there is plenty of work to be done indoors now.
At this season, it’s easy to get consumed with practical work: This is the holiday creative season, and Wings needs to build inventory and fulfill commissions while I chase sales. It’s also the season of ever-shorter light, and there’s ressure to get both indoor chores and outdoor tasks done within those increasingly limited hours now. But there is other work that must be done, as well, the work of prayer and ceremony and medicine, and what must also rise from this space is the smoke of a spiritual fire.
Today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest — and the newest of his necklaces — embodies this sort of work. It’s built around a simple but extraordinary focal cabochon, and hangs suspended from a strand manifest as smoke and light itself. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Smoke and Light Necklace
Our prayers spiral heavenward on tendrils of smoke and light. With this necklace, Wings honors prayer’s practice and process, and the tools that make the hearing of them possible. The piece is built around an extraordinary cabochon of silver-sheen obsidian in a gorgeous trillion cut, three equidistant sides arranged point down, its domed and beveled surface rising from a simple scalloped bezel edged in twisted silver. The center back of the bezel is saw-cut, excising the silver in a pattern that follows the stone’s trillion shape, to allow the light to filter through from front and back alike and highlight the frosty appearance of the silver sheen that gives the stone its name. The bail is similarly spare, a wide loop of sterling silver edged on both sides with lodge motifs. It hangs from a strand of modestly-sized beads in a selection of stones and shell, white-lip mother-of-parl shell at center and and scattered in pairs throughout both sides; small round spheres of smoky quartz that capture the same smoky shade of the obsidian focal; and high-grade moonstone beads in two shapes: slender tubes of perfect chatoyant gray and faceted cubes in a shimmery mix of gray and peach, looking like tendrils of smoke rising in the light. The bead strand is 26″ long, excluding findings; the pendant with bail is 1-3/4″ long in total by 1-1/4″ across at the widest point; the pendant alone is 1-1/4″ long and the bail alone is 5/8″ long by 7/16″ across; the visible portion of the obsidian cabochon is 1″ long by 1″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Pendant: Sterling silver; silver-sheen obsidian;
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: White-lip mother-of-pearl shell; smoky quartz; gray moonstone; faceted gray/peach moonstone;
$925 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this focal stone. It’s a trillion cut, an equilateral trangle with gently rounded corners and a beautifully beveled surface, so that it rises highest at its smooth center and tapers gracefully at each point. And the silver sheen is positively ethereal, as though the cabochon has been infused with a bit of stardust. Its capacity for channeling the light induced Wings to excise a smaller triangle from the back of the bezel, to allow it to filter all the way through the stone — a little secret, a bit of magic, between pendant and wearer.
Obsidian is an unusual material. It’s actually classified as volcanic glass. Its perfect clarity comes from the fact that it is born of actual lava flows, and cools so rapidly in the air that nothing has time to form in its translucence . . . save, occasionally, microscopic air bubbles, which are what provide the “sheen” in silver- or gold-sheen obsidian. Both can be chatoyant, or not; the latter tends to turn the black shade slightly olive in color, while the former ranges from near-silvery blue to, less commonly, coffee-colored hues that resemble smoky quartz, as here. If you scroll up and look at the top photo, you’ll see the air bubbles gathered on the lower right of the cabochon, as well as what really can only properly be called, aptly enough, a silver sheen in the upper left.
And the beads were hand-selected to reflect and refract the beauty of the focal cabochon.
There is pure light, represented by the white-lip mother-of-pearl shell beads that hold the bail and punctuate the strand at various points. There is smoke, manifest in the smoky quarts rounds and the gray moonstone tubes and faceted cubes. But together, they function much like the smoke and prayers that they represent: something collective bigger, more powerful, less easily compartmentalized by material or purpose.
And that should be our approach to this work, as well. It’s easy for outsiders to regard talk of a “spiritual fire” as something magical and mystical, something that feeds into fantastical stereotypes, but that’s not what it is or what it means. Of course, there are occasionally mystical elements to our spiritual work, depending on context (that’s the nature of “spiritual”), but our spiritual obligations demand a more practical sort of fire: one that works on behalf of community and culture and the Earth herself; one that builds a better world, this world, for future generations; one that works to ensure that children and elders have food and warmth and shelter and care; one that practices the generosity and bravery and humility and love that (among others) our essential teachings demand.
That is at once prayer and product, a tangible result, truly the smoke of a spiritual fire. The cold is here. We have work to do.
~ 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.
