Filed under: Art, Jewelry, Music | Tags: Arizona State University, Art, Eye of Horus, Illuminati, Jewelry, Lauryn Hill, Music
Do you ever watch the PBS show, History Detectives? I love it! So here is my little mystery, one of them anyway. I bought this bracelet in 1972 or 1973 in an import shop in West Lafayette, IN (home of my first alma mater, Purdue University). Later, I ran into the owner in a restaurant while I was wearing it. He told me he had purchased it himself in Afghanistan and that it was an Afghan tribal bracelet. He said it was 75 years old which makes it well over 100 now.
I have always loved it and wear it often but I’ve always wondered if that’s what it really is. It’s very heavy and even has holes in some places in the silver that go all the way through. It has no maker marks or hallmarks. It was also cracked so after I moved to Arizona I took it to a Native American jeweler who reinforced it with a large piece of silver that you can see here (below).
So fast forward to a day in early 1999 when I got my weekly Time magazine in the mail. I remember staring at the cover for a few seconds; I wasn’t that interested in Hip Hop or Lauryn Hill, really, and then it dawned on me.
She was wearing a bracelet identical to mine! You have to look at it from the right angle to recognize it and the prong things are not visible in the shot of her (above).
Here’s another shot of her wearing it, although blurred…you can see the prongs here.
Over the years, I’ve tried to contact her a few times, through her website and Twitter, to see what she knows about her bracelet, where she got it, but I’ve never heard back. I’ve also tried, for years, to find another one online to see if it’s really Afghan but I have never found it and the Afghan tribal bracelets I have found don’t really look like it.
But…get this, I have searched for info about her bracelet and have found numerous references to it, most recently in a June 2012 article here. “Before she retired, she was photographed on the cover of Time magazine wearing a bracelet with the Illuminati pyramid with the Eye of Horus on it.” I never perceived my bracelet that way and just don’t believe it and would it be an Afghan tribal bracelet if that were true? I can see the pyramids, obviously, and I can see the 4 eyes on each end of the bracelet, although I never recognized them as eyes until I began reading about it. So…do you think my bracelet symbolizes the Illuminati???? Does the Illuminati even exist? Or is it a conspiracy theory? And since when is the Eye of Horus evil? The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power and good health (Wikipedia).
A lot of mysteries and histories, huh? I was thinking of submitting it to History Detectives but their emphasis seems to be on things relevant to American history. Of course, I can try. And one of the History Detectives, Dr. Eduardo Pagán, is a history professor at Arizona State University, my real alma mater, right here in town, so I could email him also. Since I now wrote it up here, with pictures, I guess I will just send it off to them. What do you think?
I was going to show a couple of other pieces of jewelry today but this got too long so, if you’re into jewelry, stay tuned. Some of them have stories, too…
The Turquoise Trail is really in New Mexico, not Arizona, but I thought it sounded cool for a title. This is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry although you will notice as I continue to show you my collection that I have many faves.
If you’ve been around Phoenix long, you’ll have heard of Gilbert Ortega and that is where I bought this necklace in 2006. I wanted something to go with these beautiful Navajo earrings Tony had given me a couple of years prior.
It can be hard to distinguish Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni silver, but if feathers are represented, it is usually Navajo. The necklace is also Navajo and one of the reasons I like it so much is that it has so many different stones.
In addition to turquoise, it has malachite, pin shell, rose quartz, carnelian, sponge coral, spiny oyster shell, jet, quartz, charotite, and a bunch of other things I’m not sure about…possibly jasper, amethyst…As I mentioned in my last jewelry post, I always figure that the more stones you have on, the more benefits you’re deriving from all their healing energies.
Turquoise tones, strengthens entire body. Tissue regeneration. Aids circulation, lungs, respiratory system. Vitalizes blood, nervous system. Aligns chakras. Enhances meditation. Creative expression, peace of mind, emotional balance, communication, friendship, loyalty. Chakra: throat.
Add in all those other stones and I would think just about everything would be covered. Tony also gave me these pretty Native American dreamcatcher earrings~turquoise and coral:
When I first moved to Arizona, back in 1974, I bought this ring even though I had very little money (that seldom stops me where jewelry is concerned, though). It’s malachite but I don’t remember which tribe. I think it’s Navajo because I read that the Navajos most often leave stones in their natural shape rather than cutting them.
I got this bracelet (also Navajo, I think) at an art show at the Phoenix Zoo a few years before I got the necklace. I think many of the same stones are in it but not as good quality.
And here’s a little teaser for a future post. This is not Native American but, rather, Mexican, from Taxco, the silver capital of Mexico and it’s from the 1940s or so. It’s silver, bronze (or brass), copper, and inlaid turquoise (or possibly malachite and/or chrysoprase). It can be hard to tell the difference between Native American and Mexican jewelry but Mexican jewelry usually has defining hallmarks on it.
I have some vintage Mexican silver, jewelry as well as a few other items, so as soon as I can photograph silver without it glaring and reflecting, I’ll show you some of that.
Filed under: Arizona, Art, Home, Jewelry | Tags: Arizona, Art, Flora, Home, Jewelry
Let’s pretend for a minute that this is resin from a coniferous tree, not sap from a coniferous tree…although maybe some of it is resin, I’m not sure. This is our Goldwater Pine (thank you, Montucky, for the ID). Well, if it is resin, then maybe in a few tens of millions of years it will become amber, which is fossilized resin from prehistoric pine trees.
I only recently got “into” amber and gave it much thought. I love jewelry in general so I thought that, over these hot summer months in Phoenix, when it can be hard to get motivated to go out and shoot, I might show you some of my jewelry collection. I’m not going to show you my sparkly kitty necklaces, which I do have (and wear and love), or those sorts of things but, rather, jewelry that is interesting in some way…antique, vintage, rough-stoned, ethnic, with a story, that sort of stuff…and that should cover a lot of posts.
I bought this lovely necklace and earrings at the Musical Instrument Museum, a gorgeous place with awesome acoustics, where we recently attended a concert (museum gift shops have the best stuff!). It’s Baltic amber and turquoise. Almost 98% of the amber on the market is from the Baltic region; I’m not sure of the origin of this turquoise but amber and turquoise seem to be often paired in jewelry.
Amber comes in many colors, translucent and opaque, often with plant or insect parts embedded in it. It glows, as you can see. Because it is such an ancient material, it holds properties, if you believe in that, and I do. How can it not, with the earth being a living thing?
Amber exerts positive influence on the endocrine system, spleen, heart. Healing, soothing, harmonizing. Electrically active with solidified golden light. Stabilizes kundalini awakening. Activates altruistic nature. Spiritualizes the intellect. Chakras: navel, solar plexus, crown.
That sounds good to me. A few days ago, I purchased another chunk of amber on etsy, from Palimpsest Blue. This piece of more opaque, honey-colored amber is also from the Baltic.
I always like wearing jewelry with several stones because I figure I will have a pretty good day with all those properties covered. This is a bracelet of the world, as the maker described it, because it also has turquoise, smoky quartz, jasper, copper and silver heishi from Ethiopia, and silver from the Karen Hill Tribe of Thailand. The 6 pieces of turquoise are from the Castle Dome mine, depleted since the 1970s, in Globe, Arizona, so these pieces made it back home again.
I would mention the many healing properties of turquoise here but my next jewelry post, in a few days, will be about some pretty Native American jewelry made with turquoise and other stones.
Did you have an amber teething ring or necklace when you were a baby? Apparently they used to be quite popular to relieve the pain of teething and are now becoming so again.
Maybe in a few million years, some strange earth beings will wear amber from my pine tree’s resin.
Filed under: Arizona, Jewelry, Phoenix | Tags: Arizona, Downtown Phoenix, Jewelry, Phoenix, Religion, Tony
Hint 1
Hint 2
Hint 3
After 17 years of unwedded bliss, Tony and I are making it official on April 1st. No joke…really.
The previous sunflowers I’ve photographed this spring have been from the alley behind my house and down a little ways. They seem to be there by accident and don’t belong to anyone in particular. But the other day, while sitting out front, I noticed a house down the street that had a yard full of sunflowers. The wind was blowing and they were bobbing their yellow heads furiously.
I went down there and they had several rows of sunflower plants. Not knowing them at all and hearing dogs barking from their backyard, I didn’t do what I would have liked to have done…laid under them and shot upwards. I didn’t even trespass on their property, being a chicken. They must be nice people, though, to love sunflowers so much, right?
These are a different variety of sunflowers than the ones in the alley as these have huge blooms, maybe 6 inches in diameter. The alley ones, below, are about 3 inches across.
I like sunflowers so much that I added a new piece to my vintage Mexican silver collection. Now I can wear a little bit of summer to work everyday.
