This morning dawned clear and bright, only the thinnest of clouds veiling the sky’s turquoise face here and there. To the southwest, a solitary hot-air balloon rises in the sky: It is the weekend of the hot-air balloon rally here, and it is a sign of the times in this place that both this morning and yesterday, only one has been visible to us here.
It is a good day for flight, the air cold and clear and exceedingly still; for tomorrow, more precipitation is forecast. Whether the day’s rain arrives is entirely an open question, but it, along with the more protracted storm projected for the latter half of the week, remain a novel possibility for this time of year.
Our recent unseasonal weather has not been limited to short simple bursts of water from the sky, either. They have wedded the best the storm has to offer: the wild elemental forces at play in the thunder and lightning, riding the winds, yet settling down, eventually, into a soft, steady, soaking rain that lasts much of the day and night. It is a gift to the land, before the first deep freeze, one that will benefit it two and three seasons hence.
I love both sorts of storms, weather in which my spirit feels far more at home than in the harsh unrelieved glare of the sun. I am, after all, a child of the land where the great lakes govern, and the storms they spawn are legendary, the stuff of myth and song, of troubadour’s ballad and funeral dirge alike. It should be no surprise, then, that today’s featured work is one of my favorites in its category, a pair of earrings that personify the storm. From their description in the Earrings Gallery:
The Lightning Storm Earrings
Air meets earth and fire births water in these elemental earrings that bring the blessing of the rain. A pair of extraordinarily high-grade boulder turquoise cabochons reproduce in miniature the very soil from which they come, all the while reflecting the earth-toned clouds of the storm-ridden sky. Electric bolts of pale blue turquoise strike the surface in tandem with the geometric patterns of the host rock, lightning the color of a robin’s egg preceding the rain. Each rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver; the reverse of each setting bears a sacred hoop around Wings’s hallmark, from which emanate the four spokes of a guiding star. From each cabochon is suspended a single long sterling silver dangle, terminating in a single raindrop of very old Bisbee turquoise. Each earring hangs 2-3/8″ long including setting and drops (excluding wires); the setting is 5/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; high-grade Arizona boulder turquoise; old natural Bisbee turquoise
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Like the pair of earrings we featured here yesterday, these are earthy and elemental, embodying the spirit of this place. Like those stones, the ones in this pair are full of natural texture, perceptible to the touch, yet with a silken finish that gives them a slightly opalescent appearance in natural light. And although the cabochons are much smaller, these are my favorites, both for the lightning-like pattern in which the turquoise ribbons manifest, and for the old blue Bisbee drops that hang like tassels from their base.
Their design in spare and simple, almost in the extreme, yet wholly of a piece with this desert Southwest place. Wearing them is a bit like turning one’s body into a bridge between earth and sky, the chance to channel the lightning at the moment of the storm.
~ Aji
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