We have snow.
We have had sun, too, intermittently, but the snowstorm that stalled around the peaks has moved back our way, and fine flakes are falling steadily as I write. We already have about six inches worth on the ground, accumulated between yesterday evening and this morning, but with the mercury falling once more, these tiny flakes will add to the accumulation.
It’s beautiful, peaceful, still: the kind of Little Winter medicine we have not had much for years now. In the face of so much that is terrible around the world, our gratitude for this one gift is boundless.
Stripped to its barest levels, a storm requires two elements to be present simultaneously: a change in atmospheric conditions; and moisture, or, to put it in more basic terms yet, water. Water is present at the birth of us all, and as much a part of our bodies as the stardust that makes up the atoms that in turn make up us. And it’s a truth that holds across the deepest reaches of the cosmos, for stars, too, are born of water, and so it is entirely appropriate that we regard water as the First Medicine.
The storm in the stars is a phenomenon that gives birth to the lights in the sky, and to the name of today’s featured work. It’s a pair of earrings wrought in an old traditional style, this time with jewels paired in shades that evoke the beauty of both storm and night. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
The Storm In the Stars Earrings
The storm in the stars is what births their light, the icy winds of deepest space sending them spiraling into our view even at an impossible distance. With these earrings, Wings summons the deep blues of night, the silvery shimmer of shooting stars, and the watchful movements of repoussé pendants wrought in the traditional diamond shape of Eyes of Spirit. The body of each drop is formed of rich cobalt blue royal lapis lazuli, square cabochons beveled at each corner and dusted with the starlight shimmer of calcite and pyrite clouds. Above them, a pair of new-forming stars in the electric blue of deep space, iolite infused with the light of their birth, float above a pair of silvery shooting stars, overlays formed of hand-made sterling silver ingot beads stamped with starburst rays. Stones and ingot alike share a single organic backing, saw-cut freehand to follow the flowing lines and sharp arcs of their edges, and organic hand-drilled loops extend from top and bottom: at top, to hold the sterling silver French earring wires; at bottom, to catch the sterling silver jump rings that connect them to their dancing pendants. Each pendant is saw-cut freehand and stamped in traditional repoussé fashion, vintage-style diamond shapes that evoke that ancient symbol watchfulness, wisdom, and guidance, the Eye of Spirit. The iolite cabochons look identical in the same light or shadow; their color shifts with the angle and wavelength of the light, which is why they appear different here. Earrings hang 1-1/2″ long, excluding wires; royal lapis lazuli cabochons are 7/16″ across; iolite cabochons are 3/16″ across; ingot starbursts are each 1/8″ across; diamond-shaped pendants are 3/8″ long by 3/8″ across at the widest point (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; royal lapis lazuli; iolite
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I’ve repeated the image here because I want people to be able to see its beauty immediately, without scrolling . . . but also for a second reason, too. The photo seems to show iolite cabochons that manifest in entirely different colors, but it is, in fact, a trick of the light. The spot in the studio where most of these photos are taken is beneath a small window, and depending on time of day and weather conditions, the light that filters through it shifts its angles and exposure rather dramatically. At the time I took these photos, it caught the two iolite cabochons in very different ways, rendering the right one a periwinkle blue, while the left shows that shade only around the right edge, the remainder of the cabochon caught in shadow and appearing royal blue. In truth, they’re virtually identical in color, at least to the naked eye. But this goes to show how they will shift in the light as they’re worn, more blue here, more purple there, always as magical and mysterious as the stormy starlight they seem to channel.
And that, too, is a gift, this shifting not of shapes but of shades, of catching the light and refracting it back out into the world in kaleidoscopic ways. In that regard, it’s a bit like the winter aurora, or the arrival of the sun dogs: transcendent in the storm, these transformational lights of cold winter skies.
It’s a reminder that storms are neither eternal nor without tangible effects: They change the world, the very cosmos, and us with them; the question becomes at once how we view such transformative processes, and how we allow them to reshape our very selves. We have less control over much of it than the colonial world would have one believe, and yet so much more, too, than it would also have us think.
The world around us is caught in the throes of heavy weather now, virtually all of human-caused in one way or another. But we can be transcendent in the storm, and from it. All it requires is our commitment, and our work.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
