IMPORTANT: This jewel is limited and we are unsure if they'll be available again in the future. We recommend Express Shipping with signature required upon delivery to best ensure it arrives safely in your hands. 

PLEASE NOTE : This necklace will be created with an 18" bar link chain. If you desire a different chain length, it's important that you email us immediately after placing your order. 

Because these stones are limited, we are not able to accommodate any requests for specific stone preferences.

At the time of my writing this to you, there are still remnants of winter storm Fern crowding the streets outside of my building in the form of mounds of dirty snow and plates of ice. Before it became a weird burden to navigate, watching the storm descend held a special kind of awe, as it tends to do when snow heavily falls where I live in the Northeast. It snows here less and less, but when it does, the world feels enchanted, less a chaotic city; time slows. We have just passed the midway point of winter, halfway to Spring ~ and in honor of this we offer Midwinter dreams, a collection of winged winter night creatures, the Moth & Owl, as well as Mother of Pearl as a visual stand in for snow.

The Owl, mysterious and silent, sees all in the near darkness with their slowly blinking eyes. Due to these attributes, early humans attributed owls with being ill-owned, often associating them with death and the supernatural, specifically the Spirit world. However, they were also highly regarded as symbols of wisdom and intuition, especially due to their connection to the Greek Goddess Athena. So closely were they tied to her that they often appeared together on pottery, statues, buildings and coins.

Here, the Winter Owl, is also the Night Owl. Its talons, life cast from a barred owl, were used to form the shape of a star around a Mother of Pearl cabochon, representing a full moon. The term ‘Night Owl’, used to describe a person who stays awake past midnight or later, is a newer term, first ascribed to Shakespeare. It became popular as cultural activities shifted due to the prevalence of coffee, artificial lighting and as night time social habits began to be more accepted. Now, being a Night owl seems to be linked to those with more creative minds or those who have night jobs. Interestingly, there is also the “sentinel hypothesis” that outlines how early humans who lived in groups would have to stagger their sleeping due to protecting the community from wild animals and other threats to the community. Those who guarded the community at night may have passed this “sentinel” gene down through their ancestors, suggesting that your current sleeping habits may be due to whether or not you guarded your community at night. While there may not be much behind this, I like to think on it and the implications of evolutionary legacy.

This amulet is for the Night Owls, those who stay up late, burning the midnight oil, peering into the darkness and retrieving insights of all kinds.

*Details* :

- 50 mm from top to bottom

- 44 mm wide

- Solid sterling silver: oxidized to achieve a stormy gray. Hand polished to reveal the luminous silver tones beneath.   

- Set with one 20 mm round mother of pearl cabochon

Pearls :

Have an ancient history of reverence as well as a long legacy of beauty. Pearls are formed when an external irritant, like a grain of sand, breaches the shell of an oyster or shelled mollusk. Once this irritant has gained entrance within the dark fleshy confines of the oyster, it goes to work protecting itself. If this irritant can’t be expelled, it begins to ‘bandage’ the grain, coating it with concentric rings of calcium carbonate, named ‘narce.’ Each layer that is built up forms the shape of the pearl, awash in a brilliant iridescence, a beauty born of a tiny trespass. Thusly, a pearl has at its center, the object of its creation, a foreign intruder.

I associate the pearl and its strange construction to so many things: the jellied caterpillar struggling within a chrysalis, its liquefied body forms a new winged shape. An embedded star smoldering within the shell of our hearts. An ink dot, a pin prick, a moon in miniature. History, who has always loved and revered the pearl, writes that we once believed pearls were the result of lightning striking the shell and penetrating the inner skins of the oyster. A small beauty made in duress, a ‘stone’ of initiation. To possess a pearl means to own something that is hidden, sacred.

Lore has it that Cleopatra, to win a wager with Antony, dissolved a large, exquisite pearl in her drinking glass. She swallowed it in one sip. I wonder about her dreams that night.

These jewels are hand cut and therefore may have very slight differences in size and may have small signs of the carver's hands along the edges. These are not fabricated by a machine, they are made by hand and therefore aren't uniformly perfect. The photographs accurately portray the quality of the stones and the cuts. 

***IMPORTANT***

This jewel is handmade to order, just for you, with care and focus. Please allow approximately 6-8 weeks for creation before shipping.                   

Visit the Policy Page to make an educated and informed purchase HERE.

If you have further questions, we are always here to serve you in a kind and timely manner: via info@bloodmilkjewels.com