Yesterday was brutal: blinding sun, bitter cold, and winds to shake the very foundations of the world.
On this, the final full day before the Solstice, the air is cold and sun bright, but for the moment, at least, the wind is quiet. Perhaps it has simply spent itself, howling in hard and loud from the north, shrieking and wailing at every crack and crevice for most of the night.
While tomorrow marks the return of the light, the magic line of demarcation manifests in mid-afternoon. That means that it is tonight that will be the longest night of the year.
Even now, sun fully risen, it sits at an impossibly low angle to the earth. It feels as though, its radiant glow notwithstanding, it could fall below the horizon at any moment, plunging our small world here into a day of full dark.
Winter is upon us, and we are reaching for the light.
Such thoughts today brought to mind a work from perhaps a little more than a decade ago — 2006 or 2007, most likely. It was a pair of earrings, wrought in the shape of human hands, each bearing traditional stampwork heavy with symbolism. The imagery did not apparently bespeak illumination on the surface, but even without obvious celestial motifs, it was a work that embodied the holding and refracting of the light.
The pair began, of course, with the shape. He sketched the hands onto the silver, in a design that provided for articulated fingers, thumb, and even flared wrist. Then he set about choosing the stamps, which necessarily involved choosing the imagery the earrings would ultimately bear.
He began with the heart motif, choosing a classic heart-shaped stamp and placing one squarely in the center of each palm (or back of the hand, depending on one’s viewpoint). These would keep the hand-heart connection central to the design, one in which spirit as we comprehend it is linked with action.
Next, he chose two long crescents and placed them end to end and back to back along each “thumb.” These brought the motion of water into play — in our cosmologies, symbolic of the breath of life and animating force of spirit. He also chose a smaller, curved symbol in the same vein to add to the “ring fingers” of each hand, incorporating similar meaning further along the hands.
He then moved to the middle and little fingers, adding a directional arrow to each. In each of the four instances of this stamp’s use, the arrows pointed not outward, but back toward the hand, and the heart stamped at its center — a reminder that our actions and our hearts should be in concert, all in accordance with the lessons of Spirit.
Finally, at the base of each index finger, he placed a small bearpaw-print. Bear represents differing qualities, gifts, and powers in different traditions, but such meaning commonly assumes a couple of forms for a great many peoples: protection, a nod to Bear’s great physical strength and aggressive protection of its own; and healing, a reference to the great animal’s natural ability to seek and find medicinal plants, digging for them with its long sharp claws. Wings often uses Bear’s imagery to represent both concepts simultaneously, and if memory serves, such was the case here, infusing the hands both with a spirit of protection and with a sense of healing — each a good guide to governing our own actions.
Once the stampwork was complete, he cut each earring out freehand, then filed the edges smooth. He then turned them over and placed them on his small anvil, where he hammered them briefly and gently, repoussé-fashion — just enough to dome the front side of earring ever so slightly. Such shaping both permits a more elegantly shaped look and ensures a better fit.
Before turning the earrings front side up again, he took two more steps. If memory serves, these were post earrings, and he would have soldered them securely onto the back in the area at the base of the “palm,” just below the “wrist.” However, he also added a second feature: a tiny sterling silver jump ring soldered just below the top of the back of each “wrist.” This would permit attachment of wires, should the wearer ultimately prefer them to posts.
Lastly, he turned them face-up again, oxidized all of the stampwork, and buffed them to a medium-high polish.
As I noted at the top, none of the symbolism refers, at least directly, to the light. Even so, they were infused with the spirit of illumination, covered in symbols that, taken together, formed powerful representations of guidance and wisdom, of the need always to be mindful of hands and heart, acts and spirit, and to approach them all in a good way to ensure a life well-lived.
In other words, they were, in effect, a prayer to Spirit, a seeking of wisdom, of guidance, of illumination of the path — reaching for the light.
~ Aji
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