It is, at the moment, brilliantly sunny, scattered white clouds across a cornflower sky, only a slight breeze to move the air.
That will change by midday.
Our forecast for the day predicts high winds, and it is next to the surest of sure things that we will get them. That is the hallmark of this time of year, after all: trickster winds driven across the land at gale force, skies browned not with clouds or smoke but with walls and spirals of dust. Then, too, rain is expected tomorrow and the two days to follow, and it’s rare that a storm arrives here unheralded by the wind.
For this moment, though, we are grateful for the warmth and the relative calm, for a sunny morning whose most powerful sound is the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, whose most immediate feeling is the soft and gentle winds of the butterfly spirits.
One of those spirits is embodied in today’s featured work, a piece close to my own heart. She haunted me for two or three years before Wings actually set to work on summoning her into existence out of silver and stone. She is very much a spirit of this season and the one to come, one clad in the colorful dress of her clan’s royalty. From her description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Butterfly Maiden Necklace
The Butterfly Maiden holds the light in her wings. In these ever-shorter days and lengthening dark, Wings summons her shape and gifts into being with this powerfully inspirited necklace. The pendant is cut freehand of solid sterling silver, forming the outline of her body wrought in stones arrayed to the Four Sacred Directions. Her body is an oval of glossy, liquid onyx; her wings, a pair of matched and angled cabochons of richly banded simbircite, glowing with the orange fire of the sun; her face is hawk’s eye, bold midnight blue banded with brilliantly chatoyant gold. Each cabochon is set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver; a tiny stamped butterfly flutters over her own heart. Atop the Maiden is a broad, bold bail of sterling silver hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of thunderhead symbols laid base to base to point to the Sacred Directions. The pendant hangs from a cascade of highly polished sardonyx barrel beads, speckled and banded in shades of black and white, amber and copper, interspersed with pairs of small round sterling silver beads, all strung over sturdy and shimmering sterling silver chain. The center bead is flanked by a pair of larger, hand-made and hand-stamped silver beads, and four small round beads lead toward the findings at either end of the strand. The pendant is 3-7/8″ long, including the bail, by 2-1/16″ across at the widest point; the bail itself is 11/16″ long by 5/8″ across; onyx cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; simbircite cabochons are 1-1/4″ across by 1-1/16″ high at the ends; hawk’s eye cabochon is 1-1/16″ across; bead strand is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Close-up of pendant shown at top. Designed by Aji; created by Wings.
Sterling silver; onyx; simbircite; hawk’s eye; sardonyx
$3,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Even as I write, the wind rises; the clouds move inexorably together overhead. Should the real weather arrive early, the small spirits of the air will seek shelter, returning only in the spaces between storms. Still, for the moment, they are visible outside the window, all bright flowering colors and fast-beating wings, small messengers who bring gifts of pollination and fertility and eventual abundance.
We may not have many moments left to us today for the soft and gentle winds of the butterfly spirits, but we are grateful for them as long as they last.
~ 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.
