More haze today — a constant, apparently, for the foreseeable future; the sheer volume and number of wildfires to points west all but ensures it. For now, the problem is not merely on of lack of rain, but one of simple breathing. Air quality alerts are issued daily now, and in this small space at the foot of the peaks, the pall hovers low and close. The nightly winds from the east are insufficient to the task of pushing it back.
We need rain, and plenty of it.
The forecast holds out hope, tantalizingly, for the new week, but we have been here before. Such was the case last week, as well, and instead of deliverance, we found ourselves in the death grip of unseasonal heat and high winds and this endless toxic haze. The first and the last are already here today; it remains to be seen whether the winds will follow, but if current patterns hold, they will arrive this evening at the very latest.
Meanwhile, the world burns; our skies are testament to that.
The land here has burned figuratively already; the soil has the consistency of ash now. With a lot of help from the hose, the corn and squash are still striving; so, too, are some of the smaller fruits and vegetables and herbs. The flowers have mostly abandoned their efforts now, save for the wild sunflowers that at long last line some of the roads once again. But this should be the season of firewheels and blanketflowers and Mexican hats, but the first two never blossomed, and the last consists of one small, sad twinned stand, gold and rusty petals drooping in the heat.
We need a new flowering that transcends that of the current fire: in purely tangible terms, one of rain, and in the spiritual sense, one of truth.
Today’s featured work is one that Wings created some time ago, one that we haven’t featured in this space in what is frankly far too long a time. It’s a stunning specimen of eminently traditional design and execution, placed squarely in the spirit of this 21st Century and the challenges that face us now. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Red Flower Rain Cuff Bracelet
A monumental cabochon of red flower jasper serves as the focal point of this magnificent unisex cuff. The stone, a warm, earthy rose shade with a mulberry and charcoal matrix of dendritic wildflower blossoms, is set into an elevated scalloped bezel, trimmed with twisted silver, and accented with a tiny chatoyant tiger’s eye cabochon at one side. The cuff, wide and weighty, features a hand-stamped row of matched thunderhead symbols chased along the center of the band, flanked at either edge by a single row of thunderheads. The band itself tapers slightly at either end for a comfortable fit. In the inner band, morning stars and other celestial symbols are scattered like constellations tossed across the pre-dawn sky. Band is 1-11/16″ across, narrowing to 1-3/8″ at either end; the bezel is slightly wider, 1-7/8″ long by 1.25″ wide; the visible portion of the stone is 1.5″ long by 1-1/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; red flower jasper
$1,550 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Red flower jasper is an extraordinary gem, one that seems alive with animating spirits of branch and petal and, yes, the rain too. Its background shades resemble that of the dusky reds of the mookaite that appeared in Wednesday’s featured masterwork, but without the limning bands of gold. Its appearance often carries with it, from an artistic and cultural standpoint, a vaguely Asian sensibility, reminding me of Japanese cherry blossoms . . . and of this colonial nation’s troubled history with regard to the people of that country and its cultures, one that, as performed on this land, replicates its treatment of our own ancestors in dangerous and deadly ways. Fire, indeed: When I look at this stone, I see not merely the flowers and the rain, but a firebird, too, a phoenix rising from the ash in the full wingéd flower of truth.
And if the focal cabochon holds the flowering, the bezel holds the fires of the sun as surely as the band carries the medicine of the rain. At on side of the bezel rests a tiny tiger’s eye cabochon — not, perhaps, with the flowering petal-like effect of the one around which yesterday’s featured work was built, but one with the quieter, steadier, deeper glow of the sun all the same. The band is pure water and light, a broad expanse of silver carrying four rows of thunderhead symbols down its lightly-tapered length, the two center rows turned to meet each other and form a representation of the Sacred Directions, of the sacred space of Mother Earth herself.
She is an Earth, a body, that the world has not much treated as sacred, though, and we are paying the price for that now. This cuff seems to me to hold all the blossoming weight of history, but all the hopes and dreams of the future, too. We cannot build the latter until we face the former, squarely and unflinching. There is truth in the flowers of fire and rain, and we must acknowledge the one to grow beneath the other.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
