The air is hard this morning, sharp as a scalpel’s blade. The clarity of the eastern sky, patched here and there with magenta, is already fast giving way to the bank of clouds that stretches already from northwest to southwest, concealing stars and set of moon alike. More snow is predicted for tomorrow, but for now, we have only the cold.
It’s ironic that the dominant culture should have settled on this period it calls “the new year” as the one in which resolutions must be made, patterns altered and behavior changed. It’s probably harder now than at any point in the year: daylight hours still short and packed to overflowing with tasks; time randomly telescoped by the need to beat the weather; bitter winds and weather driving humankind indoors. People are distracted by sweeping pronouncements and grand gestures in a society in which nothing short of them is ever enough. The earth, however, knows better: knows that dramatic statements rarely include commensurate action, or, indeed, any action at all; knows that pretensions to profundity are only artifice, and that the real work occurs beneath the surface, most often not merely out of floodlight and camera sights, but out of most people’s limited range of perception, so bound are they to their own small and selfish interests.
It doesn’t mean that the work should not go on.
It doesn’t mean that the work does not go on.
It does, and very often by the people least likely to be noticed or given credit.
Our ancestors understood this. It’s why the elders were rarely eager to sacrifice youth on the altar of war, when less drastic options remained available. It’s why, too, in so many of our cultures, public honors were if not forbidden, at least regarded as so outside the bounds of community that no one would accept them (at least no one who wished to be worthy of honor in the first place). It’s why, in many traditions, to seek status was to be denied it; they understood how damaging ego and the pursuit of public attention, acclaim, or material gain was to a healthy society. Stories abound of those who would seek visions, only to be denied them, while those who wanted nothing more than to live in the relative comfort and safety of obscurity were called, against all odds and against their individual will, by the spirits to do great things.
Talent and skill are important, of course. More important is the work.
Today’s featured work is a reminder of this fundamental lesson. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Leaf Medicine Cuff Bracelet
Leaf medicine is one of the most powerful healers, one our peoples have used in hundreds of forms over thousands of years. With this pattern-rolled cuff, hand-milled in a repeating geometric design of feathery fronds and leaves, Wings honors the medicines that have ensured our survival since the dawn of time, gifts of the earth used in ceremony and spirit. The leaves rise, three-dimensional, from the band’s surface, creating a flowing, elegant texture; the band is lightly oxidized and buffed to a soft, bright polish. The focal point is a free-form stone (not a cabochon) of lightly polished, slightly translucent pounamu, known in English as New Zealand greenstone, a form of fine nephrite jade sacred to that land’s indigenous Māori peoples. This specimen (part of a lot Wings acquired ethically through legal channels) curves in a gentle, asymmetrical arc that follows the lines of the leaves on the cuff. It sits in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, the bezel raised slightly above the cuff on a columnar sterling silver pedestal. The band is 7″ long by 1″ across; the stone is 1.25″ long by 5/8″ across at the highest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; pounamu (New Zealand greenstone)
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work embodies those processes that keep our earth alive, in motion, in harmony, most of which occur entirely outside our notice — outside it, at least, until they stop. Drought is a great attention-getter, a powerful tool for focusing the mind. It reminds us of the natural order of things, of how far we may stray outside that arc, of the deadly repercussions that can ensue.
And it reminds us, too, of the overarching importance of those beings that do the work, unnoticed and unpraised, unheralded by public acclaim: not the storm, but the melt, soaking deep into a thirsty ground; not the sweet and soon-gone fruits but the green leaves, giving us the very air to breathe; not even the easy bounty of summer but the spare cold labor of the cold season, when the world’s spirits labor to heal a winter’s earth and ready it for a spring’s rebirth.
It’s a lesson we all would do well to remember now . . . and to put into practice, too.
~ 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.
