Unexpected gifts.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Coming to the end of another hard month. October is always fraught, because it's the start of our holiday creative season, when we're both putting in ungodly hours. But it's also a month full of markers, some good, some very, very bad, and everything in between. It's the month of my birth, and I share a birthday with a few other friends, but one walked on suddenly last year; several other friends have birthdays elsewhere in the month, but one who is very dear to me suddenly ghosted me in the first year of the pandemic, no explanation. And yes, I miss them. This month is also the anniversary of the first night we slept in our home [the 6th]; the day two of our dogs were stolen from us six years ago [the 24th]; Indigenous Peoples' Day, which is mixed, especially given what it supplants; and, of course, Halloween. And Indigenous Peoples' Day, the actual date, is the same as the anniversary of my sister's murder, and this year, the memories were for some inexplicable reason especially painful.

But sometimes, there are unexpected gifts in all of it.

An example is up there. Our friend Tony, who helped build our house? We buy firewood from him, too. He went deer hunting last week; got one. He brought the hide to Wings. As a gift. He even preserved the tail; just look at that beautiful thing. And these are the things I need to remember. There is so much good, in a world filled with so much bad.

Speaking of which, that brings me to my latest thing locally. Today's weather is welcome in the extreme, but it also means that things are going to become urgent, emergent, very fast for our local houseless folks, and for those who are at risk of losing their homes, unable to afford to the keep the heat and lights on, and so on [and on and on and on and on and . . .] . As I said yesterday, we have both given up entirely on the toxic, poisoned colonial politics of this country, and we're turning our efforts daily toward finding actual, concrete ways to help folks. Y'all can help, too:  a GFM for a local family we know [his grandmother and aunt supply the beads y'all love in Wings's work, and despite what it says about Phoenix, he's coming home now] that needs a lot of help, here; and an Amazon wishlist for a group I was invited to join yesterday that does outreach to local houseless folks with pets, gearing up for winter with survival supplies, here. No amount of election nonsense is going to help these folks, but WE CAN, so go give.

And of course, there's more than enough that I need to get done around here. It starts with sales, of course. And as I also said, I'm also redoing what I highlight here. Wings has SO MUCH NEW WORK that I can't keep up with it all, and I imagine listing it all is a bit overwhelming, so I'm just going to highlight a few items each day. Today's feature was a solid silver cuff, a slender one, so here are the other four such cuffs in current inventory [the fifth is the feature, and not included here]:

• "Angles of Illumination," with gorgeous Art Deco stampwork, here; 
• "A Cosmic Breath," freehand stampwork and incredible overlay, here; 
• "A Flowering Radiance," delicate but with amazing wraparound filework, here;
• And "Luminous Night," also delicate, but with cosmic imagery, here. 

There's more on the way very soon. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [roof, more medical, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.