This is the first day this week that we have had both clear skies and still air. Without the wind, the world feels suddenly warm again, far warmer than the mercury would suggest.
As we come to the end of this week of All Souls’, it feels, finally, as though the world is really down to the business of autumn, the nuts and bolts of the season that prepare us for the deep cold dark to come. Most of the exterior fire is gone; the trees range mostly from the dirty orange brown to the gray of bare and leafless branches. The land, too, is newly dull, as though trying to make itself unobtrusive while it waits for the cover of its snowy blanket.
And still the world turns on its axis; every day, the light appears in a slightly different spot, angle of sun and moon and earth all continually changing. It’s a reminder that our world moves in an ancient spiral, one that still resists humanity’s best efforts to disrupt its rhythms.
It is a spiral that rules our own days in ways we take so for granted as never to consider them at all: gravity, tides, the endless revolving of day and night.
From its description in the Pendants Gallery here on the site:
An Ancient Spiral Pendant
An ancient spiral draws earth and sky, the four winds and the sacred directions, at once into its embrace. Wings summons the spirits of the vortex and their cosmic, timeless power into the spiral of this vintage-style pendant wrought of deer antler. The point is polished lightly, the spiral scorework carved entirely freehand in the old way. Near the top, he reserved a space to honor the Four Sacred Directions, brought together in a flowing diagonal formed of tiny round lapis lazuli cabochons inlaid into the antler. A hand-wrought cap of sterling silver holds the pendant firmly in its grasp. Ships suspended from a white deerhide thong. Pendant hangs 2-5/8″ long; thong is some 26″ long (dimensions approximate). Close-up views shown below.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli; deer antler; deerhide
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
We envision ourselves at the center of a world of four directions, but while there is some truth to that way of understanding our world, it’s far from the whole story. We are affected by elemental forces and in turn we affect them by our own actions — the latter a truth now being brought home to us with a disturbing intensity and the full force of reality.
But the functions of the universe, those that have kept the whole worlds alive for an eternity and more, are steadier forces than we can comprehend. We live by the grace of time and the turnings of the cosmos, and that is cause for giving thanks.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
