One of the confounding effects of climate change is that what would, only a few years ago, have been hailed as a miracle, a blessing, a gift out of season is now clear evidence of impending disaster.
Yesterday, the forecast called for snow, and we were by necessity on the road for a five-hour round trip. We considered ourselves lucky that, by the time we left town, we had only small amounts of fog and slush and sleet and snow, and only a few patches of black ice on the winding canyon road along the way. Lucky, too, that, emerging from our appointment, we found the clouds had part to admit the sun. Luckier still to see, as we crested the hill heading for home, that the clouds moving fast across the peaks had turned this place where we are so fortunate to live into a place of pure magic, all indigo and crystal. And lucky beyond measure that there is more snow on the way, if the forecast is right: several inches tonight and tomorrow, the kind of snows that, for some half a decade now, we feared had vanished.
And yet . . . .
It is, at this moment, forty-seven degrees. Far warmer than yesterday; far too warm for January. It makes for a lovely, comfortable day to be out of doors (save, of course, for the mud), but it is not by any means a good thing, either for our small patch of earth here or for our climate as a whole. In the places where Wings has plowed the existing snow to create paths, fresh green shoots are rising defiantly, small blades the color of jade, of emerald, of malachite, all delivered of the earth too soon.
The good news, of course, is that the grass here is resilient; it will freeze, but it will not die. That is, of course, because “grass” is mostly a collective: One blade does not “grass” make, generally speaking. It depends upon its root system and the nurturing of earth, water, warmth, and light to grow and spread and survive at a communal level. A given blade may not return after the next thaw, but the larger patch will continue to grow and thrive.
It reminded me, too, of the sweetgrass braids we keep in our home, in Wings’s studio, in the vehicles: a plant classified as a fragrant herb, sacred to our peoples, harvested, dried, and braided together, used for smudging, for prayer and purification, ceremony and medicine.
It is, in its way, very much the embodiment of our peoples: roots in earth, the braid of community, extending upward and outward to grow in the embrace of culture and clan.
And that, in turn, reminded me of a work from last year, commissioned by a dear friend. When we first really got to know each other, she mentioned that she wasn’t much of one for jewelry, although she did have some affinity for earrings. A few years later, and she jokes that Wings’s work has turned her into “a jewelry person” in spite of herself. She’s commissioned a few pieces over that time, and this one stood out as special for a number of reasons.
When she contacted me about the possibility of this particular work, she was seeking something that would embody very specific symbolism, although not in a gaudy or overly emphatic way. In her tradition, there is a hymn that refers to “the tie that binds,” and certain phrasing in the latter verses speak to her deeply of the links of family, whether born or chosen: of sharing fears and hopes, of a mutuality of bearing burdens, of being “joined in heart” in a way that transcends the physical bonds of life and death. She asked whether there was an analogue in our symbologies that could illustrate such concepts in a cuff bracelet.
My thoughts flew instantly to braids: the braiding of our hair, the braiding of our hoop, the braiding of willow and, of course, sweetgrass. Knowing that our friend was fond of greens, I asked whether something alluding to a braid in the form of sweetgrass might be appropriate. She liked the idea, and we discussed some possibilities for a center stone, settling initial on peridot as her first choice.
Peridot is a beautiful stone, much the color of jade, but translucent. A good specimen will glow in the light. Unfortunately, no one had any in the proper size and shape; we could find tiny cabochons or large nuggets, but nothing suitable for the kind of simple, elegant cuff our friend would want. Her second choice was malachite, a stone that manifests in emerald green with agatized banding.
And for that Wings had the perfect cabochon in his inventory of stones.
Creating the piece began, however, with the band — and thus with the silver.
The malachite cabochon Wings intended to use was a little bit larger than the peridot oval he had originally envisioned, and so the band would need to be adapted for proportion’s sake. He cut it about 50% wider than he had first planned, filing the edges smooth and rounding the ends for comfort, which produced a simple, spare, bold silver band. He then marked off the space in the center of the band that would hold the focal stone, taking care to leave just enough room to accommodate the bezel. Then he turned his attention to the “sweetgrass braid.”
The braid itself it would not be the green of actual sweetgrass; that role would be fulfilled by the stone. Instead, he cut six equidistant lengths of fine sterling silver wire and separated them into two groups of three strands. Then he summoned me.
My fine motor skills are no longer especially good, a legacy of early-onset arthritis and autoimmune disease, but my fingers are long and slender, and my nails are usually quite long, too. It’s not useful for much, but occasionally, a task presents itself for which my hands are unusually well-suited, and this was one of the few.
Wings took the first three strands of silver wire and clamped them into his jeweler’s vise, taking care to ensure that their ends matched. I then braided them into one long thin strand, weaving each over and under to produce a fine, tight silver braid. When the first was complete, we repeated the process with the second set of strands. He then pulled the braids tight at either end, knotted them, cut the excess off, and soldered each meticulously into place, keeping the strand as straight as possible given the small bulges and bends natural to an actual three-dimensional braid. Each braid extended from the end of the cuff up to near-center, leaving just enough space between them to create a bezel for the malachite cabochon.
Once the braid was soldered securely into place, Wings fashioned the bezel: scalloped and relatively low-profile, the better to show off the high dome of the malachite cab. He then oxidized the join of the bezel to the band and the braid itself, and polished it all to a new mirror finish.
Lastly, it was time to set the stone. This particular cab was an instant choice for this piece on both our parts: It was the perfect size and shape, a flawless emerald-green color, and possessed of uniquely beautiful banding. Most malachite appears with clearly visible bands of varying sizes, either straight or slightly curved. A minority of specimens are banded in an oval or circular formation that gives the cabochon the appearance of an “eye.” And then there was this one.
I’ve seen a great many malachite specimens over the years, many of them spectacularly beautiful, but I’ve never seen one like this. The banding on this one was not merely curved, but arched: beginning at one “corner,” so to speak, the edge of one quadrant of the oval, and fanning out on concentric rings across the domed body of the stone. Within each band were short sharp vertical bands connecting them, top to bottom. It created an effect much like that of an ammonite, or a nautilus shell, as though a living body were unfurling in layers from a single core. It added to the braid motif in a significant way, seeming to have formed, over millennia, its own braid of minerals and heat fracture and the inclusions of water. It gave it, in effect, a sense of housing a living being, an animating spirit.
Back to sweetgrass. Sweetgrass is indigenous to nearly all of what is now called North America, as well as what has, in recent decades, been known as Eurasia. It’s known to scientists by a Latin name: Hierochloe odorata — in English, literally, “sweet odor.” On this land, it’s called sweetgrass, although we all have our own names for the plant in our indigenous languages. It grows tall and lush, and is slightly fragrant even when fresh, but harvested (always leaving the root for regrowth) and dried and then burned, it emits one of the simultaneously strongest and gentlest, most comforting scents I’ve ever known.
What better symbol for the embrace of community and clan — rooted in the earth, grown lush and green with life, braided into a hoop of prayer and healing?
~ Aji
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