We awakened this morning to perfectly clear skies, not a single cloud to break up the blue expanse. The mountains were white — a speckled, mottled white, to be sure, not enough accumulation to blanket them entirely, but we at last have some desperately-needed snow.
Now, the sun rides high in the sky and most of the ground cover has already melted, and it feels as though the earth has begun to breathe once more.
It’s easy, in these times of so very many dangers from without, to forget the ones that are with us every moment now. It’s not merely the drought, although that has been with us now a quarter century and more, one that scientists long ago labeled a “five-hundred-year drought” because its like has not occurred in half a millennium and more.
It’s no coincidence that that timetable coincides directly with the advent of colonialism to this land; the latter has unequivocally been both the cause and the primary driver of the former, and it has long since pushed us past any kind of tipping point for recovery. There will be no reversal; the best we can hope for now is to arrest it, to rehabilitate what we can and reclaim what remains.
That will not, of course, happen under colonial rule.
But these are days of prophecy, and our ancestors left us a blueprint for what was to come: instructions for resistance, yes, but also for repairing and rebuilding, for healing our world as much as humanly possible and midwifing a better existence in being for future generations. To that end, every word, every thought, every song and dance, every act and all of the work becomes medicine now: a prayer for the Earth, for her healing and for ours.
Today’s featured work is the physical embodiment of such medicine, a prayer formed of precious stones and silver, always at hand as a reminder of our obligations, and of the power that is within reach. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
A Prayer For the Earth Feather Cuff Bracelet
In these times of prophecy and existential danger, we must make our lives and our work a prayer for the Earth. With this cuff in the form and shape of Eagle’s twinned feathers, Wings calls together an earth in miniature and the tools of ceremony: a constant reminder of our obligations always to channel our thoughts and words acts in the way they should go. The band, nearly an inch wide, is wrought entirely freehand, cut into the shape of a pair of eagle feathers conjoined at the center, all the cutwork performed by hand with the delicate blade of a jeweler’s saw. The individual barbs of each feather are scored similarly freehand using a plain chisel-edged stamp, wrought through scores, perhaps hundreds of strikes of the hammer, then hand-stamped in an orb-like mottled motif for realistic effect. The shaft is formed of a slender strand of sterling silver bead wire, each “bead” conjoined to the next and fully rounded for depth, the wire overlaid down the full length of the feathers’ very center. At either end sits a tiny round bezel-set cabochon of rich black onyx, a bit of earth and smoke to keep the wearer grounded even as its sends one’s prayers skyward. At the very center of the band, set into a low-profile scalloped bezel, rests a simulacrum of a rich green earth: an extraordinary oval of natural American turquoise, most likely from Colorado’s old King’s Manassa Mine, in a rich and glossy emerald green marbled with a flowing matrix of ivory host rock limned with golden-colored edges, the stone in its entirety producing an effect like that of Mother Earth, seen from above. Cuff is 6″ long by 1″ wide; bead wire shaft is 1/8″ across; focal cabochon is 7/8″ wide by 5/8″ high at the highest point; accent cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; natural green American turquoise, probably King’s Manassa (Colorado); onyx
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is, by any measure, an extraordinary work, one in a longstanding signature series by Wings that turns the image of Bald Eagle’s feather, a gift to us for use in prayer, into its own permanent prayer formed of gifts of the earth itself, precious metal and equally precious stones.
This one is a little larger than most such cuffs that he’s created in the past, this band nearly an inch wide but wrought in the same signature style, cut freehand with each barb individual scored along either side of the twinned shaft. The shaft itself is formed of an overlay of sterling silver bead wire, its shimmering strand rounded and fully three-dimensional.
Each feather is tipped with onyx, a tiny, glossy round cabochon of rich earthy black, like the tendrils of smoke on which the feather sends our prayers to the spirits. It’s an extra touch, one not found in most of his eagle-feather cuffs, but on this larger, more solid band, it’s the perfect accent to draw the symbolism together.
And while it’s richly textured outer surface is oxidized and buffed to a glowing finish, the inner band is a soft, velvety Florentine, impossibly smooth and comfortable.
The stone is one that was labeled, if memory serves, as Damele turquoise, a type of turquoise (and, perhaps more frequently, variscite from Nevada). It’s not. But the misidentification points up one of the dangers of the current crop of inexperienced and unknowledgeable sellers that have flooded the turquoise market: There are certain types of turquoise that are especially rare, high grade, and/or valuable, and the temptation is great to want to believe they’ve found a particular type (and then to resell it priced accordingly). Most often, I suspect, they look at color in the shallowest sense, but that’s a woefully insufficient metric. “Color” comprises not only the mot obvious shade the meets the eye, but the translucence or lack thereof, the appearance or lack of floating layers, the colors and textures and patterning of the matrix, to name only a few factors, and this possesses none that are characteristic of Damele. There is the faintest of possibilities that it could be Carico Lake, another type of turquoise found in the same region . . . but we are convinced that it is not that, either. Carico Lake is known for manifesting in brilliant greens known as faustite, but the greens tend to be opaque, nearly neon lime shades.
This stone is different.
It’s very nearly the shade of an emerald, and almost as glossy, despite turquoise’s inherent opacity, because of the lapidary work. It’s a soft, rich, velvet-like green, warm and brilliant with a faint duskiness to it. The matrix seems very nearly alive, like a flowing river, its edges sharp like dendrites, cutting through the green earth in shades of ivory edged with a rich golden shade. In short, it bears all the classic hallmarks of King’s Manassa turquoise, from an old mining district in southern Colorado. We are both as sure as it is possible to be under such circumstances that this cabochon was ultimately sourced from that mine.
And it is a beautiful stone — in some respects, frankly more beautiful than if it had come from either of the other two mines, despite their market value generally being deemed more costly by those who are permitted to set such values, colonial persons and interests all. It evokes the Earth herself: not a map, precisely, but more an aerial view of her body, blood, and breath, evergreen lands marbled by white waters.
Much, in fact, like this very land, one whose evergreens this day are newly alive, whose soil breathes once more from the sheer relief of receiving the First Medicine, the water. It’s as though her prayers have been answered, and ours, too. Perhaps it’s why Eagle has reappeared here recently, so unusually close: to hold out to us the hope, and the promise, of answered prayers . . . and perhaps also to remind us of our own obligations: to make medicine of our work, to say a prayer for the Earth each day.
~ Aji
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