Happy and Sad Little Raincloud Necklaces

Spring does not ask your permission before it rains. It also does not ask before the sun comes back out again. It does both things on its own schedule, sometimes within the same afternoon, and the whole business of seeds germinating and rivers filling and frogs waking up and flowers deciding it is finally time depends on exactly this combination. You cannot have the good parts without the grey parts. The grey parts are doing essential work. This is what these two little clouds are trying to tell you.

The Happy Cloud and the Sad Cloud

These two necklaces were made as a pair and as a philosophy. The happy cloud carries a moonstone, pale and luminous and catching a blue flash of light when the angle is exactly right, the way sunlight catches on water after rain. The sad cloud carries a labradorite, dark and moody and hiding inside it a spectral flash of blue and green and gold that only appears when the light finds it from the right direction. Both of them are clouds. Both of them are raining. One of them is just having a better day about it.

Moonstone is a feldspar mineral that catches its blue flash through a phenomenon called adularescence, light scattering between the microscopic layers of the stone the way light moves through thin clouds. It has been associated with the moon and with cycles and with the particular quality of light on the morning after a storm when everything is clean and bright and the whole world seems to have started over.

Labradorite carries its own extraordinary phenomenon called labradorescence, named for the Labrador peninsula in Canada where it was first documented in 1770. Inside what appears to be a dark, almost unremarkable grey stone, microscopic layers of feldspar scatter light into spectral flashes of blue and green and sometimes gold, appearing and disappearing as the stone moves. The Inuit people believed labradorite contained the frozen fire of the Aurora Borealis, trapped inside the stone when the Northern Lights came down to earth. Looking at a labradorite in good light it is extremely difficult to argue with this interpretation.

Both stones hold their light inside them. Both reveal it only under the right conditions. This feels true of most things worth knowing.

The Piece

A small cloud shape in sterling silver, its edges softly scalloped and rounded the way real clouds round at their borders, holding either a pale moonstone or a dark labradorite in a simple prong setting at its center. From the bottom edge five strands of fine sterling chain fall in different lengths, each ending in a small hand formed silver raindrop. The whole pendant is about three quarters of an inch across and hangs on an 18 inch sterling silver chain, ready to wear the moment it arrives.

Each necklace is made to order just for you. Choose your cloud from the options above.

The Craftsmanship

• Pendant: approximately 0.75 inches across
• Stones: moonstone cabochon or labradorite cabochon, your choice
• Material: sterling silver throughout
• Chain: 18 inch sterling silver chain
• Edition: limited, only a small number made each year

A Note from Tamara

Spring has both kinds of days and so does every life worth living. I made these because I wanted a piece of jewelry that acknowledged that honestly, that did not pretend the grey days are not part of the deal. They are part of the deal. They are filling the aquifer and watering the seeds and doing the quiet necessary work that makes the bright days possible. You can choose which cloud feels most like you right now. You can also choose both. Some days you are the moonstone. Some days you are very much the labradorite. Both of them are beautiful. Both of them are raining. That is the whole point.

Shipping

Your cloud will be made to order just for you in my little studio in the New Hampshire woods. Please allow one to two weeks for it to be created. You will receive a tracking number by email so you can follow it on its journey to its new home.