On this day the rest of the country calls Thanksgiving, a day popular culture dedicates to turkey and football and early-bird holiday sales, we are called to something deeper. Something older. Something that spans the reach of time itself, back from an era when only the ancient spirits themselves inhabited our world, forward into a world that even our children’s children will never see.
I’ve had cause, in recent days, to be reminded anew of the circular nature of existence, of the ways in which we link up with past and present and a future not even imagined yet as we journey around the hoop. It’s a bittersweet contemplation, grounded as it is in both joy and sorrow, grief and hope.
Last night, such ruminations led me inexorably to one one piece, one place, one moment in time almost six and a half years ago, when Wings created the work shown above.
It was part of a broader series of pieces: each an oval pendant with an overlay in the shape of an ajouré hand, the underlay texturized and oxidized to varying degrees and set with a focal accent, whether a bezel-set gem or another overlay in the shape of a coiled spiral, the overlay then ringed with a hand-stamped traditional design. Some were sold simply as pendants; others, added to a chain or thong as a necklace; the stampwork varied among a small selection of generally-similar motifs; and the focal points consisted of copper or silver spirals or any of a range of round gemstone cabochons.
Only one was red.
It’s not an ordinary red: It’s the red of our blood, of our facepaint and fire, of our metaphorical skin. The red of our people.
Placed at the center of such an ancient and powerful traditional symbol, it seemed to me to be nothing less than our collective heart.
The stone was carnelian, one that is supposed, in various non-Native traditions, to instill strength, courage, even hope. It’s not a stone that Wings uses frequently, but in this instance, it produced something unusually powerful. Seated in the embrace of a textured hand, one that had the appearance of being darkened, roughened, callused by work and age and time, it seemed to invoke the wisdom of the elders, of the ancient ones themselves.
The stampwork, however, brought the whole piece together. It ringed both hand and stone in a hoop — not a circle, true, but then again, neither our world nor life itself is a perfect sphere. Both are lopsided here, misshapen there, slightly off-kilter and rife with obstacles to navigation. In this instance, it was it formed in an oval embrasure, the better to accommodate the size and shape of the hand and flow with the medallion’s own oval shape. The symbol he used to create it was inspired: a sunrise symbol.
Taken together, the elements of the piece seemed to create a whole that spanned generations, millennia, the entire span of human existence. It was as though the ancestors spoke through it, reaching forward to touch the spirits of future generations, linking a long-ancient past to the warm and fiery dawn of a new day . . . and in so doing, finding, and holding, the very heart of our collective people.
On a day when the rest of the country celebrates a history whitewashed in more ways than one, a history built upon those very ancestors’ blood and bones and then sanitized beyond all recognition in the service of a present more devoted to consumption than to community, it’s a reminder to me of what this day really means.
Yes, it celebrates a massacre, the wanton and wholesale slaughter of indigenous people and the abuse and enslavement of their survivors, even if most people don’t realize it. But for us, it celebrates something else entirely.
It marks another year in our survival.
And it reminds us that, if we mind the hoop, it will hold the fire of our own strong hearts in its embrace.
That’s something for which we should give thanks every day.
To all of our friends: Whatever you celebrate today, even it’s only to rejoice in the gift of a new day, Wings and I wish you joy and blessings.
~ 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.
