It appears that the changed forecast was accurate: There is snow on the way.
In point of fact, it’s already here, if the measurement is simply that it be within sight; small storms have been visible on the peaks on all sides for an hour or two already. But most of the blue has been chased even from the sky overhead now, and clouds the color of pewter have descended, along with a damp new chill in the air.
It will, of course, be only flurries; conditions are not right for anything more than that. But it will be welcome anyway, on this last day of what the outside world calls “February,” and what my childhood self always thought of as the last day of winter.
Chastisement by parents and teachers notwithstanding, there was some truth to the way my young mind divided up my world. There’s even a term for it now: “meteorological winter” (os spring, or summer, or fall). It refers to the way in which seasonal weather divides up the year into categories that bear those seasons’ names, and by that measure, tomorrow is in fact the first day of spring.
Here in our small corner of the world, by a very different measure, that day is today.
Says who? Says one of our chickens, who has, if memory serves, set an all-new record for our various flocks: One of the Americaunas laid the first egg of the year this morning. That in itself is unusual; the first egg of the year is almost invariably brown, laid by one of the reds or silvers or ‘lorps. But this year is different in so very many ways, and this apparently is no exception, and so it is that the first egg of 2021 has been laid on February 28th, and that egg is turquoise.
Spring spirits, indeed.
And we need a little of those spirits’ presence now, the better to counteract the worst of the winter winds and spring’s trickster tendencies that have kept us bowed and bent by them these last two bitterly cold days. It will be some weeks yet — months, actually — before we see the first wildflower petals, the first wild bees, the first dragonfly hovering over the pond or the first butterfly in fragile flight. But Mother Earth is making herself ready for their return and rebirth now.
Nearly one month on, almost to the day, from this day four years ago, the post for the day was entitled The Veins of Mother Earth Carry Water to Her Heart. It was a reference both to the nurturing thaw that accompanies new spring and to the velvety spring-green shade of the turquoise cabochon in that day’s featured work. It’s one that has long since sold; it resides now with a friend. But the cabochon that served as its focal point was as green as the high-flowing waters of the Río Grande, and as veined by dark earthy matrix as any map, any aerial view of this earth in full thaw. It, too, hinted at the spirits of the spring season, one manifest as medicine itself.
Today’s featured work is a bit different, and yet there are similarities of spirit and of elemental, essential powers present, too. It’s a work manifest in the shape and shades of one of the spirits of much warmer winds, a being tasked with much of the work of summer. But she puts in her first appearance here during the time known as spring by any measure, and she reminds us now that not all winds are cold, and not all water is frozen. Her very being reads like a map, too, or perhaps more accurately, a calendar — of Mother Earth herself, of her transformations and her transcendent gifts, a creature of the earth granted wings to fly. Butterfly connects earth and sky in a very real way, and her wings are mapped with the arteries of the land itself: veins that carry wind and water, the lifeblood of the earth, medicine given the capacity for flight.
Today’s featured masterwork is Butterfly herself, given form and shape and identity like the kachina who bears her name. 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
She wears the robes of the monarch butterfly, endangered now. Most years, a few find refuge here along their migratory path. But the colors are well suited to this season, too, when the nights are still long and precious little color lights up the land. Her onyx body, a perfect oval in the same shape as this morning’s prize egg, is as black as the late-winter night sky; her face is banded with the midnight blues and amber glow of the sunrise. But it is her wings that feed the spirit with color as surely as her real-life counterparts wings help her to feed the land: banded Russian simbircite, a rare stone, the shade of the sun iced and veined by ancient waters, the First Medicine in old and nearly magical form.
It’s a bit like flying with the light of the sun in your wings.
Now, outside the window, the sky grows grayer, the air more chill and damp. Snow is visible now, a sheer curtain veiling the craggy face of El Salto and the peaks beyond. There is, at this moment, just enough wind to make the ends of the juniper branches dance.
It’s a wind that will bring us bitter lows tonight.
But it’s also the leading edge of a longer wind, one whose arc carries upon it the warmth of the summer to come, and that season’s spirits, too: like the Butterfly Maiden, those whose selves hold veins that carry wind and water, the lifeblood of the earth . . . spirits of medicine given the power of flight.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
