This question has caused some struggle for me. I have always loved jewelry. But I am also awake to the needs and suffering around me, and making jewelry doesn’t seem like an obvious way of responding to them.
What good is jewelry? Is it about vanity and ego? Just one more thing, another piece of clutter, a waste of time — ? Or can it have roots in something deeper, perhaps even sacred and healing? Can it, like some Native American dances, honor a living creature and thank it for its being in the world?
Perhaps some would answer that beauty doesn’t need an excuse. That answer doesn’t do much for me. What’s beauty anyway? Beauty and truth may be one to Emily Dickenson, but I don’t buy it. And even if I did, what kind of truth is found or expressed in a material object? How do you name the truth held by something as wordless as a design (a design that comes toward you in unpredictable ways as you, a pilgrim, come toward it, that takes shape as you turn and explore something intangible with your hands, trying to see its shape in poor light, working from the Given to the whole, by insight and by blind guess….)
This Navajo dragonfly holds memories of when I bought it and the place where I bought it and what I know of its cultural meaning. I gave it to my friend Jonathan, who loved dragonflies. He died and it came back to me, charged with new meaning.
What am I doing when I choose jewelry, and what does it offer me when I wear it? That’s an easier question, perhaps. I heard someone in a workshop say that when she chooses a certain piece of jewelry, it may bring out a certain quality in her. That makes sense to me. I may choose something that makes me feel solid, rooted, playful, or more alive. It might be a piece that connects me to another place where I met certain people, maybe the maker of the jewelry, and where I felt the touch of another culture and its wisdom. It might express something of Spirit that otherwise would have no way to speak at all.
When I hold a gemstone and look at it, I see a whole history I know nothing about. I haven’t studied rocks much, and maybe if I had, it would be of limited use. I can see there was an intrusion here, a different kind of substance; perhaps a sprinkling of something that shines. Perhaps the lines were layers of sediment in an ancient sea. Perhaps this rock knew the violent heat of a volcanic eruption. Its history is written on its face; it is ancient and alive with color.
Some say certain kinds of rocks have healing properties, but I don’t find that these are constant. I just find certain rocks at certain times must be worn, just because – because that particular kind of rock, or maybe that specific stone, is exactly what I need at this moment. It becomes a companion in its own way, a part of who I am or who I mean to be. I welcome it, and as I welcome this bit of stone, I welcome something less tangible that will walk with me all day as I wear it. And I honor the mystery of its becoming, its thousands of years of continuous creation, moving through a time before life began and after.