Ashes and Rust

Today I have a Temperance story for the week of the Full Moon and the Vernal Equinox.  In the Ironwing Tarot, the Temperance card is titled “Quench” and shows a newly-forged iron bowl being cooled in water, creating steam that melts the overhanging melting icicles.  It is an image of completion, consecration, and all the contrasting elements that create a mysterious organic union of iron and oil.

The day after last month’s lunar eclipse, I got an e-mail from a customer who had bought one of my triple cone bell pendants and a custom-order bell a few years ago.  The bell is pictured on my website – it has a very large clapper that is a substantial bell in itself, and I have not made another one like it.  My customer used and enjoyed the bells for several years.  Then her house burned to the ground.  She was able to find the bells but was afraid they were permanently damaged, and was writing to ask if I could do anything with them.  Of course I told her to send them back – I was very honored that she had salvaged them and still liked them enough to want them fixed!  I had expected the iron to be weakened, deformed, or even partly burned, but when the package arrived, I saw that the big bell was merely coated with rust and ashes.  It was easily cleaned up with a wire brush.  The small bells were clogged with ashes and bits of melted plastic that quickly vanished when I put them in the forge.  After polishing, everything was returned to the forge, quenched in oil, and good as new!  I added a new copper spiral to the pendant, and added a chain and miniature bell to replace the heavy coiled hook (which I’d never liked much) on the bell.  Here are the burned, rusty bells before rehabilitation:

Here are the refinished bells, ready to go home (they’ll have a nice bag, too):

I thought of the Temperance card on Sunday while I quenched and blackened the bells in oil as sleet rattled on the roof – a late winter storm brought snow to the mountains and a bit of rain to encourage the desert wildflowers.