Hazy today, a mix of the smoke of various wildfires and prescribed burns coupled with misty bands of altocumulus clouds fanning out behind the peaks. What began as an unseasonably cool morning is now hot and dry, but the air feels heavy, as though the distant rains have sent their weight but not their water.
We are full up on weight; on dryness, too. What we need now are the rains themselves, the weather patterns that belong to this season. In this place, summer is water for a warming earth, but it has received precious little lately.
The small spirits miss it, too. I’ve been sighting dragonflies, one at a time, buzzing confusedly over the empty pond; ancestral memory tells them there should be water there now, at least a bit, but its reservoir remains bone-dry, the marsh grasses already yellowing within it. The soil is already turning pale; what was a rich, earthy red-brown only a couple of weeks ago now more closely resembles ash. This is supposed to be the time of the greening of the earth, but we are already seeing the slow encroaching brown of residual drought.
The calendar tells us that this summer, but its children are late in arriving. The earth needs the rains, and she needs them now.
Today’s featured work is one that invokes the best of the monsoon season: green earth, blue waters, flowers adance in the summer light. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
The Greening of the Earth Cuff Bracelet
The greening of the Earth finds full expression in summer, a manifestation of fertility and gift of renewal. Wings honors season and spirit with this bold new cuff of solid sterling silver, hand-milled in a flowering pattern and set with five spectacular green turquoise stones. The high-grade freeform center cabochon, likely from Colorado’s Evans Mining District, manifests in a rich green the color of a great deep lake studded with small coppery islands of red-gold earth; it rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver. The center cabochon is flanked by a matched pair of deep teal-green rectangular cabochons, lightly domed, beveled at the corners, intensely-hued and traced with faint white webbing and traces of inky purple matrix, both also resting in scalloped bezels and trimmed with twisted silver. At either end sits a single small round cabochon of turquoise, each in mixed teal blues and greens with matrices of moss green and violet and ivory, each set into a simple low-profile bezel. All stand boldly above the band, brightly polished silver with the floral millwork thrown into sharp relief and highly textured to the touch. The band is 6″ long by 1″ across; the center cabochon is 7/8″ high at the highest point by 5/8″ across at the widest point; the rectangular cabochons are 9/16″ long by 3/8″ across; and the round cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Side views, showing the detail of the smaller cabochons, appear above and below. Coordinates with Water Lilies ring.
Sterling silver; natural teal-green American turquoise (likely from the
Colorado Evans Mine and Nevada’s Pilot Mountain and Royston Mines)
$1,995 + shipping, handling, and insurance
There is no magic to it, and precious little mystery, either: Humanity — colonial, capitalistic humanity — has damaged our world beyond ur ability to restore it. Worse, the damage continues apace, no sense of urgency among those who could stop it to call any sort of halt. And while the dominant culture complains of heat waves and cold snaps, flooding rains and bitter snows, we live it: We live this altered earth every moment of our lives; we see the changes, the damage unfolding in real time.
And we know there are no answers, none that are easy, certainly none that will restore what was, only — if we are both lucky and quick — mitigate what is to come.
The long-range forecast predicts rain beginning Saturday and continuing for the length of the forecast, another ten days or so. If so, it will be the practical start to a monsoon season whose cloud and wind patterns now follow us year-round, but whose rains stubbornly refuse to fall. We are going to need new names for the seasonal habits of the elemental powers.
We are going to need some help, too: a lot of work on our part, a little intercession from the spirits. Because we have the warming earth now with us all the time. It’s the water we need, still and always.
~ 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.
