Brazilian Rainforest
on the Amazon River
Necklace with Blue Sapphire, Green Garnet, and Diamonds
Early morning rain. Mid-morning rain. Noon rain. Then at 3 in the afternoon, the rain stops and the clouds part. The sun shines down. Raindrops still on leaves, sun sparkling through. Diamonds flash, catching the light through green and blue. You and your river companions are mesmerized by the mystical magic of rainforest and river light.
I am imagining standing at the side of the river. This piece, as it captures the shadows and light, is dazzling blue and green spangled with splashes of white diamonds. It stops me every time I look. It looks summer humid, torrential rains in North America, and even the heavier rains on the Amazon. I can see the splashing of raindrops, the blue and green coloring of plants, and rain and river. If you’ve ever been in a real rainforest, you know what this looks like. This is pure, pelting, tropical rain. Worn as a necklace, it’s refreshing.
My Daughter Went to the Amazon
I talked with my daughter last night who studied in Ecuador for 6 months. She told me that while there she took a trip over the mountains into the Brazilian rainforest. She said it rained the entire time she was there. She said the rainforest was everything one believes a rainforest should be. It was dark, and mysterious, with trees and vines dripping with water, water splashing in puddles. As she described what she saw and felt, I thought of this piece and its deep blue sapphires, bright green garnets, and the splashes of diamond light. I was surprised, I knew when she was in Ecuador that she had visited the Galapagos islands, but I was unaware of her trip to the rainforest.
My First Rainforest Disappointed Me
I visited a rainforest in Puerto Rico and was disappointed. It was near a beach. We climbed a wooden platform, and we looked out onto banana trees and vines. It was dry, hot, and seemed sad.
Then I Saw a Real Rainforest
Twenty years later, I spent a week in Costa Rica up in the mountains, we stayed in grass-thatched-roof cabins. It rained every hour – torrential, fire hose rainstorms. We were next to a river that pulsed with the rain. Three hundred feet above our cabin, the rainforest officially began. One day a group of us walked up the rock-strewn field with a guide to a wire fence and the edge of the rainforest. I was prepared to be disappointed. As we stepped through, the light immediately changed. It was a cathedral of trees five stories high. Our guide said to touch nothing, the more colorful, the prettier it is, the greater the likelihood that it’s poisonous, might bite, and could be interested in tasting you. He told us to stay on the circle log slices, to stay close together. We could hear howler monkeys echoing among the trees. The sun was out, it was dark and echoey within…hauntingly beautiful. I will never get over it. We stayed less than an hour, I would go back again because there were hundreds more things to see in that magical world.
The necklace evokes a sense of otherworldly magic. It’s deep, dark, and twinkly. In some ways, our Brazilian Rainforest necklace looks like the world of the movie “Avatar”. And then again, perhaps it’s Avatar that looks like the Brazilian rainforest and like our necklace.
