I lDear you, I am writing to you on the cusp of a new year, on the liminal bridge between years. I am offering a signet ring of the sea - a signing of your name that is soaked in the brine of the deeps, the barnacles evidence of ancient time, sparkling with a ‘sea-change’ in the form of the earth’s gem stones. 

One summer day long ago, Percy Shelley took his boat, “Ariel” out on to sea off the Gulf of Larici in Italy where he was staying with his wife, Mary Shelley, infamously know to have written “Frankenstein”. A violent storm, his and his crewmen’s inexperience and perhaps the boat’s poor construction caused him and the others to drown. Their bodies were cremated days later on the shore. While witnessing the funeral pyre of their friend, John Edward Trelawny retrieved the unburned and whole heart of Shelley from the flames, severely burning his hand in the process. The heart eventually made it to Mary Shelley, who wrapped it in poetry and kept it with her safely. 

Something about this story, this unburned heart within a pyre near the sea - the way death and life, sorrow and the eternal endurance of Frankenstein and all who surrounded its fateful creation and around Mary Shelley, has always lit up my imagination. The gravestone of Percy Shelley features a part of Ariel’s song in Shakespeare’s The Tempest , which has also followed me around all these years, and 10 years of Sea Witch jewels:

    Nothing of him that doth fade, 

    But doth suffer a sea-change 

    Into something rich and strange. 

I think of Sea-change - the promise of transformation, of a huge shift - seismic and beautiful - but also the pain of it, how we must drown parts of ourselves or how others or circumstances out of our control, or the world drowns our hearts, how our hearts can be placed on funeral pyres - but also, how our hearts can still be ‘alive’ even if put to the flame - our poet’s hearts - rich with experience - with melancholy with strangeness … can still be whole. We may grow barnacles from our time in the deep, from being still in our solitude, but we can still find the stars ….we can still find each other to wrap our hearts in the poetry of kinship, to keep our hearts close to one another. 

This ring is cast in sterling silver, hand oxidized to achieve our favorite shade of stormy gray, and then finished to highlight the bright luminous silver beneath.

Details:

-Sits almost 9mm off of the finger

-20 x 23mm 

-Solid sterling silver

-6mm fine cut round Onyx 

Onyx:

Onyx is best known for being a natural stone that acts as a kind of 'psychic armor' against the negativity of others. It is also used to soothe grief and heartbreak. It is a wonderful grounding stone and a stone of self mastery, enabling its wearers to have mental and spiritual focus.

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 bloodmilkjewels@gmail.com