Three days remaining in Mother Earth’s year, and we have been granted a small warm-up, one that will actually pass the freezing mark. It began with the dawn, when clear silver skies to the east met a haze of violet and rose and amber in the west, the lightest and thinnest of clouds wrapping the western horizon in a soft and colorful blanket.
Those clouds, now vanished into the clear blue of day, are just enough to help with the cold, holding a little of the earth’s heat in where we can feel it. We’ll take what we can get and be grateful for it, for this is the hard season already, no matter what the calendar says. We can expect much more in the way of bitter winds before the winter is out.
For now, though, these few hours between each dark are a time to welcome the gifts of the light.
And the light here is its own spirit, at any season: not merely a force of Nature, but a bit of magic and medicine too. In these final darkening days before the Earth makes her final turn to face the sun again, the light is a spirit like a winter’s butterfly, unfolding its wings across a shivering land, raining sun instead of snow across its surface.
Today’s featured works embody the best of the light at every season, and although this informal set manifests as forces more often associated with warmer winds, they deliver a warming glow to us in winter, too. We begin with the smaller of the two works, the earrings. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Raining Sun Earrings
We live in the land of raining sun, where the thunderheads of monsoonal storms play hide-and-seek with the brightest orb in the sky. Wings gives form and flow to rays and drops alike with these earrings, hand-wrought of sterling silver and fiery banded simbircite in the brightest shades of the dawn. Each dangling, dancing drop is formed of a large hand-cut triangle like a silver-edged butterfly’s wing, interior excised to create a space for the falling drops of a radiant sun robed in a monarch’s royal hues. Each teardrop-shaped cabochon of simbircite is set into a scalloped bezel soldered securely to the angled sides. The stones are whorled in shades of flame orange, banded near the bottom by a gracefully scalloped line of ivory-colored matrix. At the apex of each triangle, beneath sterling silver wires, sits a hand-made ingot sunburst, the central orb from which all light flows, while the sides of the triangle are hand-stamped in an alternating flowing-water pattern on the front and repeating directional arrows on the reverse. Earrings hang 3″ long (excluding findings) by 1.75″ across at the base; visible area of cabochons is 1-1/8″ long by 3/4″ across at the widest point; ingot conchas are 1/4″ across (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji.
Sterling silver; simbircite
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The cabochons in this pair, a matched set clearly from the same deposit of simbircite were cut by the lapidarist into a true teardrop shape. That’s not so common anymore; what’s most often presented for sale as “teardrop” cabochons anymore are more likely to look like triangles with rounded corners — or they are exceptionally wide at the base, inverted for presentation, and mislabeled as “hearts.” These are the real thing, rounded, circular bases that extend upward from half-orbs into gracefully tapered points, and they really do like liquid drops . . .. not of water, but of sun, a brilliant amber light banded with white and limned in silver.
The second piece in today’s informal collection in miniature is the necklace. It’s one close to my own heart, also a gift of the light, in more ways than just the obvious one. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Butterfly Maiden Necklace
The Butterfly Maiden holds the light in her wings. In these ever-shorter days and lengthening dark, Wings summons her shape and gifts into being with this powerfully inspirited necklace. The pendant is cut freehand of solid sterling silver, forming the outline of her body wrought in stones arrayed to the Four Sacred Directions. Her body is an oval of glossy, liquid onyx; her wings, a pair of matched and angled cabochons of richly banded simbircite, glowing with the orange fire of the sun; her face is hawk’s eye, bold midnight blue banded with brilliantly chatoyant gold. Each cabochon is set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver; a tiny stamped butterfly flutters over her own heart. Atop the Maiden is a broad, bold bail of sterling silver hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of thunderhead symbols laid base to base to point to the Sacred Directions. The pendant hangs from a cascade of highly polished sardonyx barrel beads, speckled and banded in shades of black and white, amber and copper, interspersed with pairs of small round sterling silver beads, all strung over sturdy and shimmering sterling silver chain. The center bead is flanked by a pair of larger, hand-made and hand-stamped silver beads, and four small round beads lead toward the findings at either end of the strand. The pendant is 3-7/8″ long, including the bail, by 2-1/16″ across at the widest point; the bail itself is 11/16″ long by 5/8″ across; onyx cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; simbircite cabochons are 1-1/4″ across by 1-1/16″ high at the ends; hawk’s eye cabochon is 1-1/16″ across; bead strand is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Close-up of pendant shown below. Designed by Aji; created by Wings.
Sterling silver; onyx; simbircite; hawk’s eye; sardonyx
$3,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Butterfly Maiden holds special significance for me personally; to me, she and the delicate being she represents are the very embodiment of my late sister’s gentle spirit. But this Maiden holds a more universal gift on her wings, one valued the world over: of warmth and light, of water from the sky, of the abundance that together they bring.
In a place where the vast majority of our useable water is delivered at this time of year, by means of winter snows far more than summer rains, she seems a perfect spirit of the season, too.
Today, there will be neither rain nor snow; the latter is currently slated for the weekend, or perhaps into next week. There will, however, be an even shorter span of sunlight than yesterday, with tomorrow’s shorter still. I noticed at dawn that it was possible to watch our earth’s morning movements around the sun, tracking our progress by means of the latillas whose turning filtered its glow across the land. We have very little time today in which to take advantage of it.
It’s time to welcome the gifts of the light, however short . . . and time to get to work.
~ 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.
