It’s New Year’s Eve, the last day of 2014 — an arbitrary and artificial marker, to be sure, but one the whole earth recognizes.
I rather suspect that, for many of our peoples in ancient times, the Solstice marked the dividing line between old year and new. It’s a natural, indeed, an organic line of demarcation, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. With this year’s Solstice, we were granted, as one friend put it, a new sun and a new moon on the same day.
We will not have a full moon for some days yet; the next new moon is still farther in the distance. But in the traditional way of marking time, the moons tell us where we are — in time and task alike. Where I come from, half the year is lived under winter moons, beginning with the Freezing Moon the rest of the world calls November. As winter, like that night orb, peaks and then begins to wane, we still live through the cold snows of the Bear and Snowcrust Moons (February and March), and on into the Broken Snowshoe Moon (April), the point at which all of our careful preparations for the season are beginning to break down, along with our patience with the cold, and we begin the search for catkins budding out beneath snow-laden branches.
But December and January are winter, and their moons are the archetypal winter moons.
There is a song about them, a song I love, contemporary, but sung in our ancient tongue — a song of the same name. It’s a celebration of the season in a way that the crass commercialism of the dominant culture can never hope to approach.It’s impossible for me to hear it without it lifting my spirits and my steps.
And so today, as we close out this year that has been named “2014,” I thought it would be fitting to close out this holiday-season Wednesday feature series, itself built around winter themes, with the imagery of that night orb that lights our way across snowy paths.
The photo above is one Wings took of a recent full moon as it ascended the night sky above El Salto Peak, evergreen sentinels standing strong and straight and watchful beneath its cold light. It’s a color photo, but the only hues in his field of vision were black and white, stark, ancient, powerfully pristine.
It reminds me of his work in his other chosen medium, moonlight manifest in silver.
There’s one piece in particular that it brings to mind and always has, a negative image of the photo’s colors. It’s one of those rare instances where he makes a piece that I freely admit to coveting for myself, a piece perfect in its simplicity. When I first saw it, it evoked images of the moon casting her light upon the waters of a lake like those in the lands of my own home. But in this season, I’ve come to realize that it works at least as well as an image of night winter light upon the snow. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Moonlight
The moon symbolizes the Sacred Feminine in cultural traditions the world over. Among our peoples, she plays her own role, as counterpart to the sun, in sustaining the people through each night. Even when she is new and dark, like a sacred hoop of mysterious jet, still she gives off ripples and waves of shimmering light in which the night flowers bloom. Here, she appears in her new dress, as a sphere of glistening onyx, casting hundreds of tiny and shining reflections of her essential light. The cuff’s gentle anticlastic shaping and hammered effect created by hundreds of tiny individual strikes magnify the shimmering effect; the onyx stone rests in a layered bezel with scalloped edged, trimmed with delicate twisted silver.
Sterling silver; onyx
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s full moon and new moon simultaneously, a positive/negative evocation and invocation of the light that guides the night.
It’s also not the first time Wings has created a piece that evokes such contrasts. Like the one above, the next piece was included in his one-man show this spring, part of a collection in miniature highlighting the beauty of onyx and its counterintuitive role in the nurturing, nourishing, sustaining symbolism of The Feminine. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery:
Female spirits are often associated with sustenance — with bringing gifts of rain, and with it, fertility and abundance. The moon, the archetypal feminine symbol, likewise connects them to the powers and blessings of night. Here, a large liquid pool of onyx, a stone of earth and evening, rests atop a hand-scored silver cuff. Smaller pools of silver, hand-texturized with hundreds of tiny “ripples,” flank either side of the center cabochon.
Sterling silver; onyx
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a moon in transition, waxing or waning, neither quite full nor quite new, but lighting our path all the same.
Some pieces, of course, embody other imagery besides: the spirits of the animals that walk beneath the moon’s light; the color of the sphere itself, matching that of the snow off which it reflects; the mysterious clouds that occasionally veil her face. And so it is with this piece, one that combines the monochromatic palette into a single stone. From its description:
Finding Buffalo
A large oval cabochon of White Buffalo magnesite, bezel-set and trimmed in twisted silver, rests at the center of this dual-strand sterling silver cuff. Hand-stamped directional arrows lead two and from the stone; while tiny round hoops accent the band’s underside. (Side view shown below.)
Sterling silver; White Buffalo magnesite
$385 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Like the preceding piece, it’s a moon on wax or wane, one that carries with it other markers of the night sky and the earth beneath it.
We think of the moon as feminine, and tell her stories accordingly, but she is the counterpart Father Sun, this wife of his who guides the night. Her glow lights the paths of all, male and female, mortal and spirit alike. And while her face will no doubt be obscured here tonight by falling snow, the spirits will dance in her presence as we cross that line in time that separates the old year from the new:
Kachina
He’s an elder among elders, a dancer, a long-haired spirit being. This figurative piece combines multiple natural elements with an inspiriting sense of motion to create a single dynamic, unifying form. Head and upper body are hand-crafted of sterling silver bearing images of power: His head bears the forces of the sacred directions; his body, elemental forces meeting in the sacred space. His lower body is a single very old piece of deer antler that diverges naturally into the two prongs that form his dancing legs. His traditional long hair is made of genuine horse hair, light in color as befits his elder status. Like his namesakes in the spirit world, he wears an “eagle” feather at the back of his head (in this case, produced by one of our Barred Rock chickens and carried by the winds directly into Wings’s hands). He stands atop a cedar wood base. Entire piece stands 9.5″ high; figure alone, 5″ high excluding feather and base; feather adds another 3.5″ in height; base stands 2″ high by 3-3/8″ wide by 2-1/8″ deep (all dimensions approximate). Close-up and back view shown at link.
Sterling silver; horse hair; deer antler; cedar
$2,200 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Fragility requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
Tonight is that magical boundary between December and January, old year and new. Like the spirits, we, too, will dance tonight beneath her light — from the waning reflective glow of the Little Spirit Moon into the bold waxing light of the Great Spirit Moon. We will dance the new year in, and dance into its space and time ourselves, anticipating a season of new hope and joy beneath her light and Spirit’s protection.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
