Of all the places to hang a piece of jewelry, the place of the ear is, perhaps, the most intriguing.
Easily obscured by locks, tresses and curls, the ears are easily overlooked. Perhaps this is what drew Shakespeare to write about the special place of the ear in Romeo’s musings of the beauty of his Juliet:
“Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright/It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night/As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear—/Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear./So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows/As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows. /The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,/And touching hers make blessed my rude hand./Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, Sight!/For I ne’er saw true beauty till his night.”
To notice the place of the ear is to pay attention, to ruminate, to notice the details, to notice the earrings. You can imagine Shakespeare weighing the poetic heft of a necklace versus a ring versus an earring. From that, his mind made a backdrop of night all that surrounds the ear and what hangs on it, a jewel, and of that jewel, the beauty of Juliet.
The Celtic Silver Pearl Earrings wield this same enchanting glamour. Rather than a typical fixture, preceding the pearl is a Celtic Trinity Knot. In such a small space, such enormous meaning. Like a poem set in sterling silver, one of the knots elongates upward toward the lobe while the remaining loops enshrine the pearl. Rewarding the wandering eye that follows the length of the earring from beginning to end, the pearl seems birthed anew. Its iridescent shimmer, like refracted light reflecting off the water, reminds us of the ocean from which it came. But now imbued with meaning because of what precedes it – the Trinity Knot – we think of love, protection and honor amid such beauty.
Of all the senses, it is the sense of hearing that is most connected to the ambient. Even while sleeping, we’re still listening. In an interview for his newest book, One Square Inch of Silence, audio ecologist Gordon Hempton talks of this not often realized significance of hearing:
“Sound is so important that every higher invertebrate species has the ability to hear. And sight is such an affordable luxury that eyelids evolved! We can close our eyes…. But not once in the fossil record do we have any evidence that a species evolved ear lids. That would be far too dangerous. Animals must listen to survive.”
Shakespeare always meant for his words to be read aloud, to have the musicality in his prose realized. While earrings won’t improve your powers of listening, the right pair can certainly do for the ear what reading aloud does for the word.
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Photo Credit: sahli_design
