[Babe On The Rock Ring ::: sterling silver & a river rock from the South Fork of the Snake River, Idaho]
I was daydreaming about this design before Christmas and finally was able to craft this piece today. When I look at it, I’m reminded of Northern Saskatchewan where the land is carpeted in thick mosses and rooted with birch, alder and jackpine forests. Precambrian shield rises up out of the lakes and rivers there (and there are many, many lakes and rivers, chained together into a massive waterway), black in the noon day sun, blacker by night when the moon and stars numb the sharp edges of the forest and the Northern lights glitter and hum electric in the sky. It’s a beautiful, desolate, wild place. I spent much of my youth exploring the Saskatchewan North by canoe. The lakes can be fearfully wide there and on windy days the waves rise up into white capped rages. I’ve paddled through fierce weather. Vicious thunderstorms. Sleet storms. Blizzards. I have been lost. I have had to find my way.
On the lakes and in the rivers, outcroppings of domed granite, schist or gneiss lay silent beneath the waves and sometimes rise up out of the water forming tiny islands big enough for a single clump of moss or a scrawny jack pine to barely grow. I always imagined, while paddling my canoe, that if I were to capsize in the middle of one of those wild lakes, I would swim for the nearest tiny island, climb atop it, plant my feet on the black rock and get my bearings before swimming for the next piece of land.
A small island.
A resting place.
A halfway point.
A vantage.
A stronghold to keep me above the white teeth of the waters that would seek to pull me down.
Maybe this little ring is meant to remind a gal of The Rock that will get her through stormy weather, that will rest her when her arms and heart grow weary. That steady and constant foundation in a world that moves, sways and trickles in every direction. I don’t know. When I look at this ring, I feel these things: lonesomeness, strength, waiting, faith…endurance…and perhaps the knowing and trust that in the distance there is a good land where the forest unfolds endlessly and I can walk and not be afraid.
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I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!
XX
Yet another beautifully mesmerizing post! You should seriously think about writing a book. Maybe one loosely based on your childhood?? I know I would buy it!
The hope for a book is why I write every single day. Thank you for your encouragement and your pledge. 🙂
Wow! What an amazing piece of jewelry and inspiring post overall.
Thank you.
I see a wisp of a woman surveying the shadows, the ocean, the sea. Her gaze is tough and trembling at the same time. She’s a lover of life and a bit of a wanderer. And she, though sometimes tempted to be, is not afraid of what comes next.
But sometimes she is…but she’ll try not to be.
your words + photos + silver and stone creations: they fill me up and sing me home.
xx
Welcome home, little babe.
Beautiful! Strength, confidence, trust.
Well done, lady.
Thanks, B. X
You are incredibly talented. Wow.
You’re incredibly kind.
This is a most beautiful ring with an epic story behind it. What you wrote brought me to tears a bit….then I realized, I’ve had to be my own rock through my storms and I realized how true what you’ve written here is. xoxo
Being your own rock can be exhausting…I can only imagine. THank you for being here, Eileen. I always cherish your thoughts. X
The idea and creation of this piece could only come from a Canuck girl who braved the wide and cold waters, all alone in a canoe. Your girlhood must have been magical. I adore this story. x
True enough!!!
My girlhood was a good time.
Thanks for being here, ducky.
XX
I love the meaning behind this ring. You described the last 5 years of my single days perfectly: standing alone against fear, frustration, despair and lonliness. Clinging to The Rock, believing He had a plan, a future, and a hope for me.
Those were hard days, but like all hard times, they grew deep roots of faith and strength in me, and I wouldn’t go back and change them if I could.
Beautiful, Jillian. You have been incredibly gifted.
Moved to tears by your words and the emotion this ring calls forth. Yearning. That’s what I see here.
“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called — called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
— Jack London (The Call of the Wild)
someday i’ll get my hands on one of those gorgeous rings…just have to keep faith that the right one will wait for me. 🙂 keep on keepin’ on with your awesome skills, Jillian.