After yesterday’s brutal weather, today seems mild by comparison, even despite the wind. It’s not blowing at constant gale-force today, although it’s still far too strong for the time of year. But if it brings the nine inches of snow currently in the forecast for the next two days, we can treat it, for now, as a temporary irritant.

Yesterday was a whole other thing, weather as feral beast in its own right. I did not realize until yesterday afternoon just how vulnerable my autoimmune disease has made me to such conditions; it took me until well into the evening to feel warm again, even with two fires blazing in the woodstoves and having changed into fleece and moccasins. But while I may feel much warmer today, the pain in my joints from being out in it for so long has yet to recede in any appreciable way.

Even now, I can hear the wind’s eerie song through the door behind me, rising suddenly now as the trailing white clouds in the west begin to coalesce into something that appears to have more mass and weight to it. By time for evening chores, I suspect the trickster winds of yesterday will have returned in force, but fortunately for us, once the snow starts, the winds usually subside for the most part. If indeed that occurs, then the next two days will be much better than the previous two, with the added benefit of much-needed precipitation for a land still riddled with drought.

In this week ostensibly dedicated to love, it’s worth remembering that one sign of Mother Earth’s love for her children is demonstrated through her collaboration with Father Sky, together bringing land and watersheds the First Medicine that they need so desperately now . . . and thereby ensuring our own survival, as well. Popular culture has grasped the words, if not the meaning, of the phrase “water is life,” but here we know that water is life, and breath, and love itself.

In this place, the symbolism inherent in its arts, its cultural referents, its languages and ways of being all embody this essential truth. This week’s #ThrowbackThursday featured work is a perfect example of how such signifiers come together to create a layered and illustrative whole.

This particular #TBT work dates back to mid-2008, if memory serves. It could have been a few years later, but I’m pretty sure it was that particular year, albeit not created for Valentine’s Day. It’s a necklace of the simplest sort, a plain, low-profile bezel edged in twisted silver, no other adornment save the sterling silver rope chain that held it, built around an extraordinary Skystone heart cabochon.

I’ve recounted here before how turquoise came to be called the Skystone. The short version is that, in places in this region where it manifests in brilliant sky-blue shades, it was said to be a little piece of the desert sky, fallen to earth as rain and then hardened by the heat of the ground, turning it into a beautiful jewel. It’s been used for millennia by cultures in many parts of the world where it can be found in the earth, as adornment, in art, for protection and aid in other ways. This particular specimen was a somewhat lighter blue with hints of green [it renders more green in the photo than it actually was], and with fine delicate spiderwebbed matrix in inky blue and gray and black, little hints of golden brown visible between the darker lines. It was cut into the shape of a classic heart, highly domed on the surface and with a beautiful glossy finish.

It was such gorgeous material that it’s no wonder that Wings kept the design simple and spare. It has been in his inventory of stones for some time even then, and I suspect that whenever he first acquired it [probably from the popular supplier in Santa Fe], it was likely labeled with nothing more specific than “natural American turquoise.” The stone color and matrix pattern bear the hallmarks of Montezuma turquoise, found in the Pilot Mountain Range of western Nevada. It’s gorgeous material, a hard clear light blue, a few shades lighter than typical sky blue . . . but it’s usually webbed with fine red siltstone matrix. This cabochon, on the other hand, is just as finely webbed, but in shades of blue-black and gray with a little golden color punctuating it here and there. It could have been webbed Kingman, but the patterns and shades don’t quite align; this seems to me to hail from Nevada. If I had to guess, it’s just possible that it’s some of the darker material from the Dry Creek region, or, perhaps more likely, an incredible specimen of Nevada Blue . . . in either instance, one that somehow slipped through at an unusually affordable cost.

Regardless, as noted above, Wings elected to keep it as simple as possible. He set the stone into a plain, very low-profile bezel that showed off as much of the edge matrix as possible. The backing he extended just enough to hold a slender strand of twisted silver. And the only stampwork on it, save his hallmark on the reverse of the bezel, were the paired directional arrows stamped vertically onto the bail, facing each other. The bail itself was a slender saw-cut length of sterling silver of a fairly heavy gauge, filed smooth, stamped, and formed gently by hand into a narrow loop. This he soldered securely to the back at the top of the bezel, just beneath the edge of the throat of the heart. He oxidized the stampwork and the joins, including the twisted silver edging the bezel, buffed the whole to a medium polish, then set the stone. Back then, he used a variety of types of sterling silver chain, from the [relatively] inexpensive lightweight open-link chain to heavier twisted roe chains to the snake chain that he has since settled on as the best in terms of both value and sturdiness. This one he strung on a rope chain of a decently heavy gauge, thin enough to seem delicate, but solid enough to hold the weight of the silver and stone.

I no longer recall who purchased this piece, but I suspect that it was someone seeking the symbolism of love [probably of the romantic variety], either for themselves or as a gift for a loved one. But the stone that forms its focal point reminds us that there are many more kinds of love than the quick and relatively superficial rush of romance. And perhaps the most important one now is the reciprocal one between us and our world and all our relatives upon it, earth, air , waters, plants, animals, and humans, too. Skystone as heart, this little sherd of hardened rain in beautiful form, reminds us that the First Medicine may be life, and breath, and love itself . . . but we are obligated to reciprocity, to protect and defend, to restore and to heal.

It’s how we all survive, and thrive as well.

~ Aji

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