Another too-warm, too-clear day for the season; another nail in the coffin of the land, or so it feels from where we stand. Unlike yesterday, there are at least a few clouds today, but most of what is visible are not clouds at all: merely the air pollution of dozens of airplane contrails that have already crisscrossed the sky, some far lower than they should be.
In the earliest days of the pandemic, when the whole world locked down for a grand total of three days, it was a gloriously quiet and restful time for the earth. It should not take such deadly circumstances for humanity to allow the earth that keeps us alive a simple chance to breathe, but that is where colonialism and empire have placed us all now.
These days, the dangers come from all directions. For the survival of us all, we must find and cultivate a medicine that does the same.
Today’s featured work embodies just such a gift, albeit perhaps one less of corporeality than of simple perspective. That will no longer be enough to save us; the whole world must make drastic and concrete changes now, beginning with the colonial entities who control the vast majority of economic resources and political authority. No amount of bans on plastic straws will offset the catastrophic damage they continue to create, and it is not lost on me that the same politicians and activists who hound individuals in marginalized populations to “reduce, reuse, recycle,” who would force disabled people to do without useable straws and demand that Indigenous people “go vegan” while they kill off sentient plant life and suck up all the available water are many of the same ones contributing this past week to an extraordinary amount of carbon-based pollution to attend a conference half a world away . . . in person, in the middle of a deadly global pandemic.
We need a praxis that spurns performance entirely: one that instead centers Mother Earth herself, one that draws to her and for her the power of medicine from all directions, creating healing instead of exacerbating harm.
It’s not a coincidence that the Indigenous peoples of the world now steward more than eighty percent of the world’s endangered life. It’s also not a coincidence that the rest of the world holds less than twenty percent of it. Colonialism is a force for conquest and dominion, one that disregards the elemental forces and spirits of the natural world except to the extent that it control and exploit them.
Our way is different.
We understand our world as one braided together, every being, every spirit, every force and power essential to its proper function when in balance. And we draw medicine from all directions, literal and figurative alike, to maintain that balance as much as possible in a world overtaken by dangers now.
It is this sense of balance, and of motion, too, of complex and animating spirit that are very, very real that infuses today’s featured work. It’s a pair of earrings that in fact coordinate with (but are sold separately from) an equally powerful necklace, linked below. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
From All Directions Earrings
Sometimes we need protection from the winds that seem to buffet us from all directions. Sometimes, great gifts and blessings arrive on those same winds. Wings captures the dichotomous nature of our journey around the hoop with these earrings, jet-black onyx and silver polished so highly it’s nearly white, that embody the power of the winds and the sacred directions: gifts simultaneously of wild unharnessed power and of shelter from the storm. The settings are representations of the Sacred Directions, those reaches of our world guarded by the winds, that here encompass both cardinal and ordinal points. Each is cut freehand from sterling silver, with the spoke at each cardinal point gently curved on the end to imply the arcing shape of the hoop and impart a sense of motion around it. At the center of each, the vortex: a large round onyx cabochon, like a pool of liquid jet, resting gently in a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. Settings are 1.75″ high by 1.75″ across; cabochons are .75″ across (dimensions approximate). Earrings are a companion work to Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits, in the Necklaces Gallery.
Sterling silver; onyx
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair of earrings is a bit heavier than most, but that is perhaps fitting for a work of such power: They remind us, at all times, of their presence, of the needs of the Earth and the demands of Spirit, of our own obligations within this system that now needs us all to step up to the work.
The work is hard, no question. The dangers are real. But our survival depends upon it.
Our ancestors knew, and our ways still teach us. We draw medicine from all directions, and the world needs to help us do it now.
~ 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.
