This is the season when the spirits walk: a time when the threshold separating the worlds is at its most permeable, a time when the wind drives away the detritus of summer and the light reveals that which is otherwise shielded from sight. Our peoples have always known that it is in the colder months that such forces choose to move among us, a time when elemental powers are at their most potent. It’s no coincidence that this is also the time when we mortals are at our most vulnerable.
This is not to say that such spirits are malign. Our peoples have also always understood the neutrality of the powers of the cosmos, of the reality that power most often simply is, and that what matters is how we choose to exercise it — or, when exercised by forces outside of our control, how we choose to cope with it.
In this place, water provides perhaps the clearest example. Water is life, as we have always known, but water can also take life. In summer, monsoonal flooding is testament to this power. So, too, is the occurrence of avalanches in winter, a phenomenon that is said to be occurring with greater frequency here in recent years as climate change alters weather patterns and renders the snow and ice, and the earth upon which they sit, increasingly unstable.
At the moment, we are at the far edge of the time when the spirits move most easily between worlds . . . and this year, finally at what seems to be the far edge of Indian Summer. The high for today is expected to reach 61, but a bitter northeast wind has given the air a sharp and icy edge, and heavy rains are forecast for the end of the week. If projections hold, we will soon experience, once again, the way of the water, how it comes and goes as it will, unstopped and unstoppable by anything save other elemental forces.
With his latest work, Wings has captured this dynamic in beautifully spare and simple form. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
The Way of the Water Earrings
Spirits move and travel where they will, especially those who embody elemental forces. So its with water, which combines with gravity to flow, its progress altered and directed only by its fellow elemental spirit, earth. Wings gives form and expression to the way of the water with these earrings, simple traditional drops built around a spectacular pair of matched freeform boulder turquoise cabochons. Each stone manifests in the mottled shades of brown that evoke the rich earth of this place: warm chocolate colors marbled with taupe and ivory, accented here and there by veneers of rusty copper. Each stone is a virtual mirror image of the other, each bisected on a diagonal by a bold swath of sky-blue turquoise, wide rivers of water manifest more as sash than ribbon. The stones are set into simple scalloped bezels edged with twisted silver, the better to highlight their earthy, elegant simplicity. Each earring hangs 1-1/8 inches long by 1 inch across at the widest point, excluding wires (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; boulder turquoise
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
It’s fitting that these stones should reflect such an identity: They were, after all, created over time on a geologic scale, through the forces of earth and water, heat and pressure, and with a little help from the wind, as well. Through the grace of such elemental forces and evolutionary processes, ordinary brown rock dons the blue of water and sky, a bright sash around earthy robes. And like the turquoise that finds its way into the host rock, the stone reflects the reality of our natural world and the powers that animate it: The way of the water, and of other spirits and forces, is to go where it will.
It is our task to remember that, approached properly, water is life, and to accord it the respect it deserves.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
