My eyes following

     until the bird was lost at sea

     found a small island

Haiku by Matsuo Basho, b.1644

Master poet Matsuo Basho wrote this Haiku almost 400 years ago.  He writes of watching a bird at sea,  and the appearance of an island.

Feather is a meditation necklace for the birds of Midway Island.  Just a tiny island in the Pacific...halfway between Japan and Canada’s West Coast. Midway is one of the most remote locations on the planet. On this small island a symbolic environmental tragedy is occurring. Tens of thousands of birds are dying because they mistake the tons of colourful plastic washing ashore as food. The sheer quantities of plastic washing up on Midway has become a travesty. Chris Jordan photographer for the Midway project has said ‘the life and death of these birds has become a metaphor for our times’.

This particular necklace is dedicated to the very short life of one baby bird. A little albatross was found on Midway with over 200 pieces of plastic lodged in its small skeleton. On the black, beaded strand there are exactly 200 old, black, plastic beads...one for each piece of plastic found inside the skeleton of that baby bird. I offer these beads not for mourning, but for meditation, solution and action. At midway point is an old red plastic button, worn smooth with use. Consider it a meditation on a halfway place. The second necklace holds a copper medal on a constructed gold chain.  An altered vintage brass feather hangs over the medal, honouring our baby bird.

These black beads were scavenged from an ornate piece of costume jewelry.  Discarded and scattered, these beads might eventually have made their way to the enormous Pacific garbage patch and then on to Midway.  Now with the wearer’s help, they have become memory beads, helping to communicate a solution...one bead at a time.

Vintage copper spoon, vintage brass feather, 10K gold chain, gold filled chains, vintage red & black plastic buttons, vintage bookbinder cord, industrial brass ring