After more than twenty-four hours of falling snow, we are now digging out from under it.
We received just shy of a foot here; less in town, more on the peaks. As is our norm here [one of several “norms” we have not seen in too many years now], the temperatures have dropped drastically, but remnant clouds still hug the peaks. As a result, our deepest cold will come overnight this night, when the mercury plunges to twenty below zero or more, with wind chills more bitter still.
The hard part of winter weather isn’t the storm itself; it’s what comes after.
Still. The gift of the snow is one of incalculable value now, and it’s a reminder not to fear the storm too much. Our ancestors knew well the need to respect its power, but also to recognize the blessing that occurs only inside of its fierce spiral: within the vortex, medicine.
It’s a lesson that reminded me of another gift, one that Wings created for someone very important to us, two years ago to the month and very nearly to the day.
We had learned from someone we love dearly that her husband, also dear to us, was undergoing a health crisis. It was the sort of occurrence with the potential to be catastrophic, and while he recovered, that recovery is an ongoing process now, one with life-altering effects. When we heard, Wings immediately decided that gifts were in order; a pair of earrings for her in materials important to her spiritual tradition, and something entirely different for her husband, made of a material significant to him personally in his own.
At the time, Wings had found some old lengths of deer antler that had been in his personal collection for more years than anyone remembers now. He had created a pendant out of one of the tips, here; it had already sold. But he had another segment that included the tip, and because Deer is significant in our friend’s tradition and identity, he set that one aside for him and then set to work.
First, he cut the tip off the longer segment and filed the wider end smooth. Then he set about carving it gently, choosing a spiral motif again. Many Indigenous cultures the world over find specific powers and/or medicine in the vortex, and it seemed a good choice for medicine now.
As you can see in this close-up, he carved two deep parallel grooves all the way around its upper end, creating a border of sorts. He carved the spiral in equidistant bands that curved from the lower groove all the way down to the tip. This kind of freehand carving is slow, meticulous, laborious work, and he didn’t want to rush it; it’s too easy for the blade to slip and place a cut where you don’t want it, whether in the antler itself or on one’s hand.
Once the spiral was sufficiently deep and wrapped itself around the entire tip, he filed it smooth, then set it aside. he wanted our friend to be able to wear it around his neck, over his heart, and so he needed to create a way to hang it. Yes, it’s possible just to drill a hole through the upper end, and that’s frankly not uncommon. But for this piece, Wings wanted something more, and so he created the cap you see in the image immediately above.
There are multiple ways to create such caps, from using hollow cylindrical silver tubing to crafting one, as here, from sheet silver hammered around a mandrel and soldered together, then soldered to a flat round “cap” at one end, with a jump ring attached. Before shaping the cap, though, he added stamp- and stonework to it in a subtle but powerful pattern.
He used a single stamp, one in a triangular shape formed of three poles, like a tipi, creating a lodge motif. This he chased around the upper end of the cap, with the open side downward, then turned it over and repeated the process on the cap’s lower end, so that both rows of lodge symbols met at their open bases.
Creating, in fact, Eyes of Spirit.
Our friends both have Indigenous ancestry from multiple cultures, and both the lodge and Eye of Spirit motifs would be symbolism they would understand well. The color blue also figured in some of their respective traditions, so Wings chose a tiny round lapis lazuli cabochon of perfect cobalt blue and set it front and center in the cap.
He next set the antler in the cap, clamping it gently but tightly enough t hold it securely without fear of loss. Then he oxidized all the stampwork and buffed the cap to a high polish, taking care to avoid the antler itself.
Lastly, he retrieved one of his most valued hides, deerhide brain-tanned to softest, silkiest, most velvety white, and cut a slender strip from it. He threaded this thong through the jump ring at the top of the cap so that our friend could wear it around his neck.
All that remained was to bless everything traditionally, then pack and ship the pieces to their new home across the country, with hopes and prayers and tobacco offerings for healing accompanying them.
Remembering this reminds me that, as difficult as times are now, there will always be opportunities along the way.
This day is hard. Tomorrow, with another twenty-degree drop in temperature on the way, will be harder still. But we have the healing of the storm to help us, a reminder of what was and what will be again: within the vortex, medicine.
~ Aji
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