At this moment, the mercury hovers near sixty.
Snow is forecast as early as tonight.
This is the winter/spring threshold here in the land of the red willows, where even we who walk at the mountains’ feet do so at an elevation of 7,500 feet above sea level.
This is the arid high desert, but it is also, more than merely occasionally, the center of the storm.
The winds have not yet risen to the usual level today; after two weeks of mostly unabated fury, they have calmed momentarily. It is the calm before the storm, lead-gray bands of clouds nonetheless moving in steadily from the west, the advance column of the phalanx that now hovers between the Pacific Ocean and Flagstaff.
If it is to arrive yet tonight, the winds will join the fray, and soon.
One feature unique to this area is the changeability of the storm, and of the winds that carry it. Further south, the winds blow from a near-steady southwesterly direction; even the great old trees are bent accordingly, as though bowing toward a rising northeast sun. Here, though, the winds are less stable, more capricious, and so are the storms they bring: The clouds may shift northward or southward or part and miss us entirely, they may break off and form their own smaller storms that head north and east and then return to deliver a flurry or a blizzard; the winds shift direction sometimes from moment to moment, unwilling to commit to a singular path.
And then, of course, there is the whirlwind. In spring, it is the dust devils that torment the land, small spiraling trickster spirits bent on mischief wherever they find it. As the summer monsoon season moves in, they will transmogrify into something far more fierce, dancing in tornadic rotation and power.
In this season and impending weather, one of Wings’s works suits the mood perfectly. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits Necklace
When the winds come from the Four Directions to meet at the center of all that is, they summon the spirit of the whirlwind to dance in the vortex of the storm. Wings summons all of the spirits in this work, a large, heavy talismanic medallion of solid sterling silver, hammered by hand and lightly domed in repoussé fashion. A symbol of the Four Sacred Direction in a flaring stylized cross shape rests atop the medallion as an overlay. Each spoke is marked with a single cabochon of cobalt-blue lapis lazuli, the color of the rain; they spin inward toward the vortex at the center, embodied in a large round onyx cabochon of mysteriously glossy depths. The hand-made bail is accented with tiny hand-stamped hoops, the shape of the spiraling wind itself. The pendant hangs from an alternating strand of round sterling silver and lapis lazuli beads, with small square lapis and round onyx beads stretching toward either end of the strand, each end terminating in two tiny Florentine-finish silver beads. Pendant is 2-1/8 inches long (including bail) by 2-1/4 inches across; beads are 19 inches long (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; onyx; lapis lazuli
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is a work of awe and wonder, much like the whirlwind it represents. It has long been one of my favorites, both for its physical form and for its symbolism, a piece that radiates power from its center like the light within the storm. For the moment, we go about our day in relative calm, only the slightest breeze granting motion to the treetops, but a darkening sky foretells the change to come.
If we are fortunate, the snow will arrive this night and continue tomorrow, and the thirst of a dry and dusty earth will be slaked for the moment. If we are fortunate, we will be afforded the chance to join the spirits of the weather, the chance to dance in the whirlwind.
~ Aji
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