Halloween; All Hallows Eve; All Souls’ Eve. Yes, I know that the church has shifted the dates so that the first two now apply to today, the third only to tomorrow, with further shifts in the terminology used for tomorrow and Tuesday, as well. Once again, it’s an example of coloniochristianist meddling with Indigenous cultures and calendars the world over, in an attempt not only to force them to adhere to their own invasive and punitive new traditions but also to draw sharp lines of demarcation between “good” and “evil,” with only their own in the former category. Consider, just for a moment, that in addition to the names of All Hallows Eve and Day, there is the version known as All Souls’ Eve and Day, and, to bring it squarely within the control of invading colonial religion, All Saints’ Eve and Day.
The colonial population that considers itself enlightened and divorced from such structures, particularly self-described “allies,” miss this foundation underneath it all. Oh, they talk a good game about “pagan roots” and all that, but they miss utterly the real reasons for the shift in labels for the red (and black) letter days of this season. To them, the Day of the Dead is mostly about brightly-colored sugar skulls and appropriating altars and spirits that do not belong to them, while perceptions of Devil’s Night have been relegated to worst gutters of colonial racism now. They see the superficial overlays of colonialism upon far more ancient ways, and never investigate the violent dynamics that seek still to suppress and erase the latter.
It never occurs to them that these colonial labels are in fact proud and triumphant displays of genocide.
Our own ways are less dependent on specific dates, or on the requirement that people cast all spirits into boxes labeled “good” or “evil,” as though a white man from half a world away, an adherent to a tradition young and new compared to our own, somehow has been granted by all the universe with the wisdom to know which is which and who belongs where.
The web of the world is far more complex than that.
And on days like this, the world itself reminds us that it is a web, a complex weaving of forces and powers and spirits ancient and otherwise, of memory and prophecy, of history and hope. It is, in some respects, what I regard as the perfect weather for the final day of October: a sweetgrass sky braided with a veil of gray-blue clouds and smoke fragrant with piñon and cedar, air still and solemn, as though in recognition of the coming season when the spirits may choose to walk.
Yes, I said season, not night. Colonial ways love neat binary boxes, the better to force anything potentially objectionable or even uncomfortable into an only momentary recognition, then tucked safely out of sight and memory for another year. But our cosmologies function on other first principles, and so our worlds turn, an endless braided hoop that connects past, present, and future in one, connects those states of being we call life and death, too, connects the tangible world beneath our feet with those of the ancestors and the spirits, of prophecy and dreams.
And we are neither so venal nor so callous as to shut the spirits of our ancestors into the confining boxes of “good” and “evil.”
Today is one of those days here when the world feels at once close, cozy and embracing, and impossibly vast, full of all the potential of the universe beyond what our eyes can see. It’s a feeling helped, no doubt, by the bare and skeletal branches, only a stray aspen leaf here and there still quaking in the faintest of breezes. It’s helped, too, by the way the webwork of clouds and smoke seem, rather than darkening the world, to have leached the color from the sky — a change, affecting, unusual in the literal sense of that word, but in no way wrong.
It reminds us instead that it is possible to feel the presence of the spirits without that fact being in any way frightening or dangerous — that our acknowledgment of their existence is simply one more braid in the process of weaving history and hope.
Today’s featured work, a personal favorite, embodies the fact and feel of this day, of the gifts it offers and the lessons it has to teach us. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Sweetgrass Sky Cuff Bracelet
We live beneath the braided hoop of a sweetgrass sky, flowering blue and scented with the smoke from our prayers. Wings summons the symbolism of them all into a hoop of Skystone and silver with this cuff, an extraordinary arc of paired and braided sterling pattern wire set with an outsized cabochon of finely webbed turquoise in the embrace of ingot blossoms created by hand. The band is formed by two separate strands of heavy-gauge pattern wire in a scored design with a geometric Art Deco feel, the lines criss-crossed with ribbons that create a braided effect. The strands are soldered together at either end, then gently spread apart by hand to create the separation at center that holds the focal setting in perfect balance. The cabochon is a specimen of ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise of incredible size, the inky matrix underlit with faints hints of red webbing throughout. It rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, flowering at top and bottom like the buds of the fresh sweetgrass plant — four hand-made sterling silver ingot blossoms, for a total of eight blooms altogether. Band is 6″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest (center) point; each strand of the band is 5/16″ across; focal setting is 1-7/8″ long by 1-1/16″ across; cabochon is 1-1/8″ long by 7/8″ across; ingot stars are each 1/4″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise
$1,675 + shipping, handling and insurance
As I said, this one is a personal favorite, both for the ways stone and silver manifest and for the creative work by Wings that brought it into being. The name is born of a mix of the stone’s color and webbing and the braided effect of the dual-strand band — “braided” in its own molded surface, but also woven together, stronger than the sum of its parts, through the strands’ seamless fusing at either end.
And then there are the ingot blossoms that edge the setting’s upper and lower borders, each made by hand, each given its own place, designated and waiting for it, on the one-piece backing of the bezel itself.
It’s a simple design, and a classic one. It’s an old traditional one, too. Today, there are far more options by way of design and details, but the structure retains its ancient integrity: two strands, separated far enough apart to hold the living sky, braided and woven together to create a strength impossible merely by adding the sum of its parts.
And these are the lessons these days teach us, despite our focus on the fun of child-like frights. There are always cautionary tales in any tradition, warnings designed to keep us from harming ourselves. As adults, we dress such warnings up and down in ways that scare children not too much but just enough to keep them safe while allowing them some enjoyment from the faint thrill of fear. Such stories serve the greater purpose of survival.
But survival consists of more than mere existence, and our ways are rooted in knowledges that recognize our inherent ability to engage with complexity. For adults, the purpose of such teachings transcends immediate physical safety or survival; it’s a way of braiding our existence into the hoop of being, with those of our ancestors and those of our children yet unborn.
Many of those spirits the colonial world wants us to fear are simply those of our own ancestors. If they walk in the days and weeks and cold winter months to come, perhaps it’s because there is something we need to know. The hoop, after all, is also a braid of history and prophecy.
We have our own work to add to it now, weaving history and hope. Yes, even on these days.
~ 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.
