This is the season when the Earth rises to show herself.
Oh, there she will wrap herself in a shawl of white soon enough, but in this place, when there is no snow on the ground, this time of year is when she finally throws off extra layers of adornment to reveal herself as she truly is.
This process has been observable for some weeks now on the slopes, as the deciduous trees grow increasingly bare; evergreen robes provide a more threadbare cover, allowing large expanses of rocky brown to show through. They are not visible on this day, of course, our small world here having veiled itself in white of another sort: low-lying clouds that hold rain and sleet and perhaps the faint promise of later snow, surrounding us on all sides and concealing the peaks.
Down here, though, the green continues to recede like the waters at ebb tide. Every day, the grass is a little paler, a little more sparse. Every day, more of Mother Earth’s brown skin is visible, still warm and glowing in the autumn light.
It’s fitting now, this refocusing on first things, so to speak. For many of our peoples, the earth, both as tangible land, ground, soil and reconceived in spirit as Mother, is indeed the center of all things: the elemental womb whence we come, and for some, to which we return as much in spiritual form as the ashes and dust of our bodies will one day do. Even for those of our peoples whose cosmologies did not incorporate a springing from the soil, the earth remains a sacred center, something to which we are inextricably and reciprocally bound.
And in this season, we are reminded in more present, more obvious terms of that connection, and of our dependence on it.
On this day, the rain comes in waves, storm after storm passing over, around, and through. Some hold only water, others sleet; with some, the thunder and lightning ride too. Whether the storms yet to come bring snow with them or not, the rain ensures a freeze overnight, and by the morning, there will be less green than today. There will also be those few hardy plant spirits able to withstand at least this early freeze, ones whose green rebounds and rises with the rain, if only for a moment or a day. But the earth, and the Earth, will increasingly make themselves known, visible, not exposed but more obviously present. And as we prepare for winter, we return to the center of all things in both in earthbound practical terms and in the more ethereal planes of the spirit. It is how we survive the hard months.
And so, it’s a perfect time for today featured work, one wrought in the flowering form and shape of life itself, yet built around a stone whose green recedes, parting like the waters, to show the solidity of the earth beneath. From its description in the Buckles Gallery here on the site:
The Center of All Things Belt Buckle
In our own small plane of existence, from our own human perspective, our world is the center of all things. Indigenous cultures affirm this reality in our origin stories, in how we understand Turtle Island beneath the skies, amidst the winds, above the point of emergence. Wings pays tribute to this vision, one lived daily among his own people, in this complex concha belt buckle, a flowering shell-shaped disc of heavy sterling silver that blossoms into traditional symbols of the world as we know it. Celestial patterns, rising sun and setting moon and the light that flows between them, edge the scalloped buckle in concentric rings. Its repoussé center, lightly domed by hand, is chased in a loop of hundreds of individual arrow stamps tracking the motion of the spiraling winds. Ancient kiva steps symbols lead inward to the very center, heart and womb alike, where rests a large oval cabochon of emerald green turquoise with a golden brown matrix that looks for all the world like a map of Turtle Island. On the reverse, only Wings’s hallmark appears, in the embrace of another spiritual center: the Morning Star Lodge, a place of healing and medicine, guidance and power. The buckle stretches 3.75 inches across by 3-1/8 inches high; the stone is 1-3/16 inches across by 7/8″ high (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown at the link.
Sterling silver; Colorado Evans Mine turquoise
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The tidal analogy is, of course, inapt in a way. It’s not so much that the color recedes to show the neutral tones beneath as it is that the earth no longer has need of such elaborate robes. In a reversal of our own situation, rather than adding layers for warmth in the winter, our Mother sheds them, the better to cool her skin in preparation for the heat of the year to come. Given the rapid advance of climate change and the drought that is its offering, the cold months of surface exposure are perhaps needed more than ever.
It’s true, too, that the metaphor of the earth rising is mostly metaphorical. Weathering and erosion work their talents upon her surface, and while there are to many places where the waters have receded sufficiently, and apparently permanently, to show more of her height, it’s not that her elevation has changed, merely that we see more of her now.
But if the forecasts hold, if we are granted the genuine winter that we need so desperately, this could be an opportunity for the earth here to rise in another sense: to return, at least a bit, to the balance and harmony that once marked our seasons here, and to the prosperity and abundance that such balance has always provided, not only for us, but for the wild creatures, for the plant spirits, for the Earth herself.
It will require much of us. But when the Earth rises, so do we all.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
