While the middle of the country shivers in the depths of an Arctic freeze, we bundle ourselves against more ordinary cold. Here, overnight lows hover near zero, with wind chills several degrees below zero until well after the sun crests the ridgeline. This is winter here, and as our norms go, it’s still rather a mild one, despite the unseasonably high temperatures of the last few drought-ridden years.
“Rather a mild one,” of courses, doesn’t translate to “easy.”
As in the lake- and woodlands of my own home, winter is harsh here: fierce bitter cold, heavy snows frozen hard and deep in place for weeks. Winter circumscribes our world, limiting our steps to that which is absolutely necessary, as we hurry to complete our tasks within the shorter daylight hours. The telescoping of the workload often makes us feel that we are walking in circles: no time for a detour, and the roads are too treacherous anyway.
It’s a solid metaphor for life itself, these days. Those of us who walk in two worlds (or more) have always known this, of course, but winter brings it sharply into focus with the crystal clarity of the bitter cold borne on a northeast wind. We have the ways that were given to us, millennia ago, to live well — in a good way, in harmony with the world around us. And then there is the world outside: colonial, rapacious, predatory, a world that not only refuses harmony but scorns it in favor of authority and profit.
For us, the eternal question now is how to navigate the way of the hoop when the dominant culture forces us instead onto the hamster wheel.
It can be done, of course, at least to a significant extent; our peoples have been walking this same fine line for half a millennium and more now. But in such a cold, unfriendly world, it helps to have guidance to get back on the road when circumstances force us from it: paths broken and trails blazed; road signs and the counsel of the stars; finding the lines in the snow and avoiding the shadows of the darker world. Today’s featured work is reminder perhaps less of where to look than of what to look for, a reinforcement of the pattern of the path given to us to walk. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Way of the Hoop Necklace
Our peoples call it by various names: the path, going well through life, the Good Red Road — different means of describing the way of the hoop. It’s the way of our ancestors, given to us by the spirits, a sacred path that, if walked carefully, with a good heart and a strong spirit, will grant us a life of harmony and balance. Wings gives form and shape to the journey, and to our own very personal stake in traveling it, with this necklace, a pendant wrought in the shape of a hand, overlaid front and back with hand-made coils of fiery copper. The pendant is cut freehand of solid sterling silver, thumb and fingers articulated clearly and expressively. On the front, a dual coil formed of a slender length of warm glowing copper is soldered securely into place, the large coil over the palm and the smaller one extending atop the fingers. On the reverse is a second, smaller pair of coils both wound and aimed in the opposite direction, the larger one over the back of the hand and the smaller one extending upward toward the wrist. The hand itself hangs from a hand-made sterling silver bail, lightly flared and hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of conjoined thunderhead motifs, creating a symbol that points to the Sacred Directions. The pendant is suspended from a shimmering chain of solid sterling silver. The pendant, including the bail, is 1-1/8″ long by 1-1/16″ across at the widest point; the bail itself is 1/2″ long by a 1/2″ across at the widest point; the chain is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; copper
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Today, the air is cold and impossibly clear, not a cloud in the sky since well before the first rays of light began to show. Here, despite the dawn, we are still fully in the shadow of the mountain, and will be for some time yet, leaving our immediate environs fiercely cold and dim even in the light of day. Another hour, and the sun will have gained the peaks, and our world will begin at last to warm a bit.
Most of the ground is still covered with snow — several inches deep and hard-frozen now, a slick and dangerous obstacle course. Even so, the way of the hoop and the lines of the path still make themselves known, if we put in the work of finding them.
~ Aji
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