IMPORTANT:  This necklace is a special offering. We do not know if more will be created and for that reason, recommend Express Shipping with Signature required upon delivery to ensure it arrives safely in your hands.

This necklace is Ready To Ship and will leave the studio in 3 - 5 business days. 

Please Note: This necklace will be created with an 30" bar link chain. If you desire a different chain length you must reach out to us immediately after placing your order for a custom quote on the additional length.

The kerykeion or caduceus ( not to be confused with the rod of Asclepius which features a single snake & would have been more fitting as a symbol of medicine ) is a herald / staff  that was given to Hermes/Mercury by Apollo as a trade for his turtle Lyre. Golden & powerful, it has the ability to both awaken and drowse humans, transform & heal, assist in negotiations & commerce, & turn things into gold ( thus  Hermes’ symbolic association with Alchemy ). 

The twin snakes of the staff represented opposites in harmony, such as the poison and the drug, life and death, the masculine and feminine archetypes within the binary, chaos and order and so on. In art, such as statues, tiled mosaics and paintings they are depicted as writhing & alive rather than appearing as fixed parts of the staff. Here, his staff has been reimagined with life cast snake rib bones braided together & holding a solar disc in honor of Apollo, a dark Sun or eclipsed Sun, in the form of a black mother of pearl cabochon. 

Designed with writers in mind, as Hermes / Mercury is a deity was know for his aspect of communication & language as well as his links to memory & learning/knowledge which gesture towards writing even though he is not specifically a God of it. As a traveler & as someone in a long distance relationship, I also appreciate his attribute as a protector of travelers. 

He is also one of the psychopomps~ guiding souls to the Underworld, marking him as a chthonic deity. Despite this, I always viewed him as being as part of the sky as a child, always flitting about with his winged feet, a humanoid hummingbird. Betwixt & both. 

Known best for being the messenger between Gods & humans, I’ve always loved Hermes most for his mercurial ways & have always hoped for his help in guiding my pen.

 *Details* :

-  64 mm , or approximately 2 1/2 inches from top to bottom, including jump ring

-  17 mm wide

- Solid Sterling Silver  

- Both pendant and chain are hand oxidized to achieve our favorite shade of stormy gray and then highlighted to reveal the bright luminous silver beneath.

- Set with one 12 mm round black 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 form 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.

This jewel is hand cut and therefore may have small signs of the carver's hands. As this has not been fabricated by a machine, it has been made by hand and therefore isn't uniformly perfect. The photographs accurately portray the quality of the stone. 

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