IMPORTANT: This strand is limited and we do not know if it will be available again in the future. We recommend Express Shipping with signature required upon delivery to make sure it arrives safely into your hands. 

The Hermit is usually depicted as a cloaked elder, white bearded and guided by lantern light. This image reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of art, Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés’, in which one must enter a darkened room and press their eyes to the two holes cut into an antique wooden door that nearly fills the wall space to view it. Once your eyes and mind focus to this interesting way of viewing, a macabre yet intriguing tableaux materializes: a kind of life-size diorama: a nude figure in tall grass, their face obscured from view holds a shining lantern up. A waterfall spills in perpetuity
in the distance. This is one of the strangest pieces of art I’ve ever encountered; I used to live and sleep less than a mile away from where it’s installed, a piece out of time. It feels like a tarot card to me. It feels like The Hermit, like the Hanged Man.

The Hermit is the bear that fills itself and retreats into hibernation at the onset of the cold months. Like the bear, we fill ourselves with the world: with experiences, with people, and media, and this river of flux spills over within us. To process, to produce a wholly personal and intimate identity within and of the world, we are called to retreat inward and assess. We must face our shadow, accept and integrate our messy bits. This seems to me to be a lifelong task, one especially important to begin or give attention to on this timeline. We are in the eye of the storm, sheltered in our caves, studying ourselves and the entirety of the external world around us from a still place.

Silver Sheen Obsidian: is a natural stone made of polished volcanic glass from Mexico. These beads are dark in color but have beautiful flashes of silver when turned, that resemble the moon going through her many phases, or tiny galaxies teeming with space dust. 

Please keep in mind that these beads are ‘earth made’ and then each one is hand cut and hand formed. You will see the earth’s inclusions inside and outside each sphere. Nothing is imperfect to me. I see evidence of a jeweler’s or a stone cutter’s hand and I think of Rodin, and how his sculptures included the evidence of his hands - from a hundred plus years ago - and how that connects me and my team, to this lineage of hand-making, in a time when machinated ‘perfect’ work is becoming more and more normalized. I am trying to resist this idea of ‘perfection’, and I implore the same of you. These are all hand made, and earth made beautiful objects, so inherently, by today’s standards, they are ‘imperfect’ - because humans had their hands, and more importantly, their hearts on them.

The photographs accurately portray the quality of the stones and the cuts. 

This strand measures approximately 42.5 inches long from end to end. At its closure is our is our largest protective Eye clasp, cast in sterling silver, oxidized to our favorite gloomy grey and finished to highlight the shining silver beneath.  

This clasp is tactile in nature making it easily held between the tips of your fingers and rubbed for comfort in times of grief, anxiety, dissociation, as well as during moments of joy and wonder.  

IMPORTANT:

Please visit our POLICY PAGE to make an educated and informed purchase HERE

Some of the beads used in this strand are limited. We can not anticipate whether or not this particular style will be available again after this release. 

*Length note: Because individual bead measurements vary slightly, total strand lengths are approximate within a few millimeters in either direction. Please reach out via email if you have any questions about this. 

This strand is handmade to order, just for you. Please allow approximately 6 - 8 weeks for creation before shipping.

Please email: bloodmilkjewels@gmail.com with any questions and we will get back to you in a kind and timely manner.