Monarch Journey Belt

For the journey.

For fragile strength: is there any other kind?

For the totality of our steps and the interconnectedness of everything.

A belt with prayers in every hammer stroke

and love so deeply embedded from start to finish.

Adjustable for waists 29 inches and above. String anything supple you like through the gorgeous cast brass rings:

deer hide strings, as I did (I'll even send you some!)

vintage scarf

velvet ribbon

etc.

Dense texture

Powerful intention

mixed metals

tawny tooled leather

and 

love 

sweet 

love.

In the 

Leather Shop

tonight.

xoxo,

Sunny

Backup Parachute

For the moments when 'Plan A' becomes 'Plan B'

for the new roles we never expected to find ourselves in.

For the breaks and the mending and the aches and the victories unscripted and uncharted.

For life.

A backup parachute, a second wind for flying onward toward whatever needs you most

be it a child or a dream of your own sweet self.

I made this with motherhood in mind.

I made this because I cannot seem to manage my energy the last year or so,

my body gets these bursts that feel like a force of nature

like I'm going to bake the world's biggest cake or solder with a jet-sized torch for hours on Mt. Everest and be fine.

These supernovas are spent quickly with nothing left but a beautiful child and art.

That's enough but it's not enough.

That's service.

These are worthy and spectacular things to dedicate one's life to

but it can be an isolating feeling, the rollercoaster-ness of it all.

Sometimes on a walk with my dearest girlfriend and our sons who are best friends

we just howl and hurt our cheeks from laughing at this season in life, how hard it is but also how genuine and funny and full of wonder it is.

You cannot excise one part and have the others.

I'd like to tell you that I've tried everything, but mostly I've been like Wile E. Coyote just doing the same damn thing over and over again and then scraping myself off the pavement when the scene ends.

But I can say happily that slowly, verrrry slowly I am calling in the troops and asking for assistance when I need it,

taking up more space and meaning it.

I am learning how to manage when the first parachute fails.

 I think this is called parenting.

I keep getting the loveliest notes from mamas who say that there will come a time when there's more time for other things.

I dread my Orion not being this small. I would ride this ride forever to watch him discover the world

filtered as it is through my safe warm watch.

And yet... their words are a beacon, showing me the seasons come and go until we do the same.

A dragonfly wing

and a feather:

two ways in which to ride the wind 

home.

This necklace is a testament to strength and bedrock and energetic intelligence,

knowing when to call for backup

and when to just utterly surrender and fall. 

I am tucking it into 

The Metal Shop

tonight along with a few other really lovely goodies.

Here's to all of us in this together

free-falling and groundless

but never alone.

xoxo,

Sunny

Golden

Dear reader, my goodness how time is flying wildly these days.

It's so cliche and so ultimately true that mothering a toddler means long days and short years.

Orion is hovering near two whole trips around the sun

and I can scarcely believe it at all

and yet I totally feel every second of those two years in my bones

and in my heart

.

He is the sum of all the daily push and pull

and no matter how desperately tired I am at nine pm or how much like 

Sisyphus I feel when the kitchen floor needs cleaning again (who puts in a fucking white tile floor? A chef, that's who. Grumble grumble.)

there is a marker for all the hard work put in:

every night I tuck in a boy who is a bit taller, a bit more filled with wonder (and yams)

and a bit more of the man he will become.

That feels more beautiful than any other thing I could do with my body

but -let me tell you-

when the babysitter comes?

I am ready like wildfire to hug my whole studio with gratitude: I have a career

that affords me a refill of all the parts that mothering empties.

Thank you.

Orion is such a verbal acrobat, coming up with ideas and word combinations that leave me floored

and laughing. He's totally in the 'terrible' section people use to refer to this time, but he's easily distracted from his angst. May it ALWAYS be so.

While most kidlets I know are requesting videos of SpongeBob or Sesame Street his first wish is for videos of 'snowblowders' blowing snow. Or tractors in fields. Or steam engines approaching stations.

He is a lover of all things with engines, both scared and excited.

When something scares him he talks it through until it feels good again, like Emily the goose at Veggielution who hisses at my heels while I'm carrying him.

We walk through this idyllic urban farm until we hear her honking at something and he scrambles into my arms just in case she decides to single us out that day. I would make Christmas dinner out of her if she ever came after my child.

Ahem. Please excuse my inner tiger. 

He kept bringing her up again and again and I said, "Yep, she's pretty intense!"

When we went to the farm stand the following week he announced to the clerk, "Goose Intense!" while nodding that little golden head to the side in agreement with himself.

I melted into a pile of marshmallow.

He loves hothouse cucumbers from my tomato guy at the farmer's market.

He wants raisins with every meal

and he asks after the neighbors across the street as though they were family.

When it's time to read a story, any story at any time of day we have to read it while wrapped in a blanket

and arranged just so. 

His crib went from one Elmo doll and a snowman to housing a menagerie of stuffed animals.

He's so rad. I want to go wake him up right now just to tell him so.

I won't.

As for life around here

the rest is all family and cats and friendships treasured

and would you look at the gorgeous profile in that Leela? That little runt shelter cat became the queen of Sheba.

I want to write more here, I think that every week and then in the living of this life I run out of hours in which to do so.

I miss this kind of expression

but I've got to say that if this was a postcard I was writing to you from

oh....hm... a working vacation on a farm or something a bit more brisk than beaching it

It's such an important and rich time that

I would write with great sincerity 

"Wish you were here"

.

xoxo,

Sunny

Chrysoprase, two ways.

Chrysoprase #1:

Hammer Formed thick gauge copper hydrangea

Bullet cut centerpiece of warm green heavenly chrysoprase

.

Sterling dew

Diamond Texture-top Bezel

Narrow Hammered Band

.

Size 8

.

Glossy and luscious

Tropical feel 

Healing touch

.

Chrysoprase #2:

Nasturtium Lilypad

long oval of tart apple green chrysoprase

.

tapered jacaranda band

size 6

.

catches the light just so,

texture and shine so healing

and delicious

Has a feel that is very east-coast spring

the tender green and much-missed texture of May leaves

the heart of patience and rhythm of the seasons.

In the

Metal Shop

today.

xoxoxo,

Sunny

Extraordinary Transformation

It won't look quite like you thought it would, this journey to meet that which you would like to become.

In the transition from before to after you'll learn things you never thought to ask,

weather storms you were ill prepared for

and break open in spots that will heal to form bends in the path

that once was so straightforward and predetermined.

In becoming extraordinary you will confront and conspire with dark things and light things

both

and learn their beauty is neither for you or against you, that only your perceptions make it personal.

In your path will be things as old as time

like failures

and miracles

and the hours themselves

which will carve a canyon in your impatient heart

making room for everything.

There will be grumpy moments

jubilance and despair

deep loneliness

and ever-increasing accountability

for this short important life

in this flawed and stunning body

.

Make it count.

Beat that heart

like a drum.

Call everything you need to you.

Take chances.

Make friends.

Consume sunsets and homemade pie with passion and wonder.

On an indeterminable day some amount of time from now

You'll see the shift,

you'll have shed your cocoon 

and you'll wait for the parade you expected would appear in this life-movie

but instead it will be a quiet and beautiful.

It will be solely yours, this moment

before you call your mother

or your beloved in to come see

Your wings will unfold wet and fragile

patient as they've become

moved by love and instinct

you will turn the new parts to the sun and rise

to meet what you were made for.

.

This copper chrysalis was formed in pitch employing the techniques of chasing and repousse.

The high-relief sculpture (that had once been a sheet of copper!!) was then fired with both opaque and transparent enamels.

The process took a tremendous amount of time and love

and it made me very very happy to see the results.

I knew I had to take my time and make the perfect setting for its

magnificence.

Spring branches of sterling and a helicopter seed

touched with moonstone

form the clasp and canvas upon which the chrysalis

nests.

Lovingly and carefully formed with hammer and hand,

perfectly suited for the monarch-to-be.

In the Metal Shop tonight.

xoxo,

Sunny

Sweet Littles

Hydrangea and Maidenhair Magic Spells with Chrysoprase and Rhodochrosite

Sweet Mini 'Cano Necklace in Bitter Green holding a lovely drop of Citrine

Bright Sweet Faith Jacaranda Cross necklace

Wee Hydrangea Petals

and a pair of Slightly-Less-Wee Hydrangea Petal Earrings

.

All this will be ambling into the 

Metal Shop 

today at random moments (i.e. naptime, etc.)

With love,

Sunny

A Few Spells For You

In the

Metal Shop

tonight.

Because heaven knows we could all use a bit of magic in these winter evenings.

Loving you,

Sunny