By the calendar’s reckoning, we are only one short week into Autumn, yet in this place, the season has been mostly settled in for a month and a half now. Today will be the final day of the annual feast, a time when the Pueblo opens itself to visitors from outside to participate in celebration.
It is not only human visitors who put in an appearance at this time of year, however. This is a season of migration, of pilgrimage for many creatures of the land, and we are given the gift of their presence, even if sometimes only momentarily.
In recent weeks, we have seen evidence of a bear’s visit, and of Coyote daring to come much closer than the dogs usually allow. Both seem signs of an impending early winter, and a hard one, in keeping with the early arrival of this threshold season.
The birds are visiting in unusual diversity and number, too. Some, like the pair of glossy ibises, detoured far outside their normal migratory path to spend a day at our pond. Others have arrived early: Chickadee has been coming regularly for weeks now, in defiance of his usual schedule that would put his arrival solidly into winter’s coldest depths. Some of the autumn birds, like Flicker, elected to live here with us year-round this time, and so need no “arrival”; our pair of meadowlarks have likewise returned early to winter with us. From the greatest of the giant raptors to the tiniest wingéd ones, Golden Eagle to Goldfinch, they have been coming in recent weeks, again and again and again.
We have been visited, too, by yet smaller creatures of the air, and by their cousins who yet move upon the earth. Despite the cold nights, Butterfly and Dragonfly still dance upon the currents of the day, while an array of multi-legged beings have arrived to prepare for the coming cold as best they can: grasshoppers of many varieties, a large gray and white borer beetle, a praying mantis,, the tiny blue beings whose furiously-beating wings give them the appearance of chatoyant blue-agate spheres floating upon the air.
And, of course, Spider.
In this place, Spider Woman is welcome.
She appears in all shapes and sizes, sometimes spinning the beautiful webs that she gave us in the ancient times to protect our dreams, sometimes simply traveling industriously to and fro about her own business. She is a keeper of thresholds, one who creates her own way of walking in two worlds.
We are a people much given to nicknames, and it is not unusual for people to accrue many such names over the course of a lifetime. Some change with context and circumstances; others refer to less mutable traits. One of the many nicknames Wings has given me over the years is “Spider Woman,” a reference to my long legs. It’s one name I wear proudly, for she is a spirit of great power.
That power is evident in Wings’s own evocation of this being, a spirit that he has summoned from silver and stone on a few occasions over the years. One remains in our current inventory. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Spider Woman Cuff Bracelet
Our dreams are the threshold between our contemporary existence and ways much older than memory. In many traditions, Spider Woman is the gatekeeper of such thresholds, and today, we still use the gift of her web to protect our dreams. Here, her ancient power is embodied in this spectacular cuff, hand-formed from a single piece of sterling silver and adorned with stones of protection and power. Her eight legs, texturized by hand-stamping extend from the dazzling oval lapis cabochon that forms her body. Hand-cut, hand-stamped pincers and silver spacer beads accent the protective Skystone of Sleeping Beauty turquoise that forms her head.
Sterling silver, lapis lazuli, and Sleeping Beauty turquoise
$1,200 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a work that navigates elemental thresholds of its own: a Skystone, gift of air and water, melded with a royal gift of the earth in the color of the people’s sacred lake, all held together with silver tempered by fire. Embodied in Spider Woman, it takes the ability to walk in two worlds to a whole other level.
It makes it especially apt fro this season, and this day: a day that, by the calendar, marks the end of a month, and by tradition, the end of the warm summer season; a day that reminds us to celebrate what we have, and cautions us that we still must work to prepare for the long cold winter months drawing ever nearer.
And maybe, just maybe, it delivers a bit of Spider Woman’s own power: the ability to traverse thresholds, to live our dreams awake.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
