It’s been a hard few weeks, these days that braid winter and spring. Spring is always frankly terrible here, battered by the wind and air choked with brown dust, pollen, and regularly, smoke. We have both felt just as frankly terrible all week, and I awakened this day to my worst morning yet: sinus congested, throat scratchy and sore, an airway that wouldn’t clear.
All I needed to do was glance out the window to know why.
It was — and is — a clear day, nominally, anyway. It’s “clear” in the sense that there isn’t a cloud in the sky. But I’d never call what passes for atmosphere today anything like clarity: from the western horizon and spreading out on both sides, the lower half of the sky is a dirty, rusty gray-brown, hazy with the particulate matter of blowing dirt and smoke, the winds driving them still sufficiently distant that the haze seems motionless here.
It’s an ugly phenomenon, but not an uncommon one, and I know from long experience that there is no choice but to get on with the day. The trick is to take advantage of the current lack of wind, to stand outside and avail ourselves of the healing of the light.
I won’t pretend it’s easy; it’s not, especially for those of us with chronic conditions. Aging amplifies its effects, too, and every year is a little harder than the last. But we have learned to minimize our hours outside in either wind or toxic air, and to work efficiently in the bright sunlight when they are absent.
It’s a season that requires us to keep the long view in perspective . . . and to be strong even when we feel breakable.
Such thoughts always call to mind the signature series that is perhaps closest to Wings’s heart, his Warrior Woman series of pins (and occasionally pendants, too). The first was made for his mother, to honor her courage and strength; he continued to make them, even after she walked on more than two decades ago, in her memory and to honor the inherent strength and power of women generally. He has now created scores, probably hundreds, perhaps more, each one unique, and each holds its own powers within its individual body and spirit.
But today’s ruminations reminded me specifically of some of the older examples for which we still have photos, all dating back at least to 2008 or 2009, and perhaps more like 2006. Today’s featured work is a throwback to that general timeframe, and was one of a trio he produced together, each featuring different imagery, symbolism, and stones: one opal, one coral, and one amber.
The one accented with amber has always seemed to me to be an image of a woman of strength and power holding the very sun in her grasp, and it’s an image the whole world could use right now.
This one was created, as are all of her sisters, in Wings’s classic traditional design, wearing traditional dress with the heart customarily prominent, a serpent over her shoulder for prosperity, a jewel in her right hand and a crescent moon in her left. Those are standard, baseline features for virtually any iteration of her kind. It’s in the details within those characteristics that her own unique identity, spirit, and immanent powers become clear.
And this one seemed exceptionally powerful.
As I noted above, this was one of three that Wings created simultaneously. That’s typical for him; he will usually create three or four at once, occasionally more, depending on the size of the sheet silver he’s using at the time. Because of this, the cutwork comes at a later stage; he begins with the initial design and the stampwork. Usually, he’s already selected the various stones that he wants to use for a given set, but unless it’s a special commission being designed to custom specifications, he rarely assigns the stone to each one until the rest of the work is complete. As the stampwork design takes shape, the overall pattern guides him in choosing which gem should be paired with which piece.
As is also typical, all three of these were very different in stampwork and symbolism. Unusually, all three were also a bit more complex than most, particularly in terms of the design of each figure’s regalia. Head, hands, and cuffs were all part of the customary design, but this one seemed to me to be especially powerful, the design featuring, as it did, thunderhead symbols conjoined at their open bases to evoke an image of the Sacred Directions, and with it, sacred space. On either side, where each pair connects to the next via its narrow ends, he placed a tiny hoop, another motif of the sacred. Her heart was formed from the silver itself — not an overlay, but summoned directly from the silver of the silver, repoussé-fashion, with deep delineating borders. The serpent over her right shoulder was formed of sterling silver half-round wire, nearly filament-thin, stamped in a four-pronged radiant pattern that evoked both the rays of the sun and a flowering medicine, repeated down the entire length of the hand-wrapped wire.
It was a pattern that would suit the rest of the design especially well. The crescent moon in her left hand was traced with bear-paw prints, an exceptionally powerful medicine motif. In her right, she held a perfect simulacrum of the sun, a tiny round cabochon, highly domed, of intensely-hued, beautifully included amber.
Of course, the stone would not be set until the very end of the creative process; first would come the stampwork, then the cut-work, all similarly freehand, each of the three cut entirely in one go, one after the other, excised from the surrounding silver and then filed smooth along the edges. Next, Wings would have turned the piece over to add his hallmark and the pin assembly, then returned it to its right-side-up position to fashion a tiny round bezel in her right hand, and to wrap the wire “serpent” around her wrist and solder it securely into place. Finally, he would have oxidized all of the stampwork thoroughly, then buffed the piece (and her two sisters) to a medium-high polish. Only then would he set the stones.
Our traditions do not feature “goddesses,” regardless of what New Age appropriations and distortions might attempt to make you believe. But many of our peoples’ cosmologies include feminine spirits that are, in their own thoroughly Indigenous ways, as powerful as any goddess of colonial stories. This one has always seemed to me to embody one such spirit: a warrior, yes, but one of life and light and healing, one thoroughly at home in the ordinary world and sacred pace alike, one capable of holding the medicine of earth and sun simultaneously, and of knowing how best to wield them both.
She seems a bit of an inspirational figure, too, standing tall and straight and strong, fully aware of and ready to put to work the healing of the light.
The sun is shining, and the wind is low. It’s time for us to do the same.
~ Aji
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