La Loba

She who gathers the bones and sings.

In Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run With the Wolves, La Loba roams the desert alone, collecting the scattered bones of wolves. When she has assembled a complete skeleton, she sings over it — and the wolf runs back into the river and emerges as a laughing woman. She is the archetype of creative resurrection: the knowledge that nothing is truly lost, only scattered, and that the act of gathering and singing is itself the restoration. This piece is worn at the throat, from where beautiful songs emerge.

A statement necklace in impression jasper, rough milk quartz, serpentine, moonstone, and dark wood — a graduated fan of jasper sticks in terracotta and pale blue radiating from the center. The palette is desert and river: terracotta, rust, pale blue, and the peach of a desert sunset. Calm to the eye, primitive in the hand — the colors quiet, the execution raw and tactile, the fan at the center a display of bones. Adjustable length; wears as a choker or longer. Finished in 18k gold-plated sterling silver and etched gold-tone findings.

Matching earrings available — shop the La Loba earrings here.

The Materials

Impression jasper sticks — flat, elongated points in terracotta and pale blue-grey with rust veining, suspended in a graduated fan across the front of the piece, the largest at center, narrowing outward. Impression jasper is a stone of calm and creative vision — the seeing that precedes the making.

Rough milk quartz — large, unpolished barrel beads in chalky white with an irregular, tactile surface. Quartz amplifies and clarifies; these are the bones of the strand.

Serpentine rondelles — flat disc beads in rust and pale blue-green, the colors of the desert and the sky above it. Serpentine is a stone of transformation and protection, associated across traditions with the shedding of what no longer serves.

Moonstone — in a soft desert-sunset peach, smooth and quietly luminous against the rough quartz and matte jasper. Moonstone is a stone of intuition and the feminine cycle — the inner knowing that guides the gathering.

Dark wood beads — deep brown, smooth, and substantial. They anchor the strand and add a raw, primal weight that keeps the work's palette from being too quiet.