White Copper Golden Light Seal Pattern Tube Pendant

A sheet of copper rolled into a tube, open at both ends, with the cord running through the middle: that is the cylinder pendant. The hollow is the whole point of it. The advantage is that the piece never turns its back, since a cylinder has no front and no back, and whichever way it rotates you are looking at a band of pattern. The disadvantage is the work. Rolling, closing the seam and polishing all have to line up step by step. A hollow piece is harder to make than a solid one: a solid piece has one surface, a hollow piece has surfaces inside and out. The seam runs along the side and only shows when the piece turns, while the front is one continuous ring. The bore goes right through, so the cord passes once and needs no knots at either end.

Golden Light seal script refers to the seal-script form of the Golden Light Spell. The spell is one of the eight great spells in common Daoist use, and it opens with the line that heaven and earth are the mysterious origin and the ten thousand qi are the root. It is recited in the morning and evening offices and calls for no ritual implement, only the voice, which is why it turns up more often than other spells. Seal script stretches the characters out and winds the strokes, one character to a column, and a single pass around the cylinder carries them all. The characters are cut in relief, so the finger finds them ridge after ridge.

The space between the characters is filled with auspicious cloud pattern. The cloud heads curl one into the next and fill the empty ground. Cloud pattern is an old motif, already present in the Han and in use ever since, changed into countless versions without the meaning ever shifting: clouds follow the dragon, and when the cloud qi arrives the rain arrives with it. The curl is laid out by fixing the center first and then setting rings outward, with the distance between rings kept even, since only even spacing keeps the pattern from scattering. Fill the clouds densely enough and the characters stop hanging there alone.

The inside wall is invisible and the easiest thing to forget. Sweat enters at both ends and stays inside, and after a while it takes on a smell. Every so often pull the cord out, run a cotton swab around the inside and let some air through. If water gets in, shake it out and dry it in the shade rather than reaching for a hair dryer, since hot air turns copper dull. Do not press a copper tube. A hollow thing flattens, and once flattened it does not go back.

White copper and brass, each offered as a pendant or with a chain. The bore is small, so the cord has to be fine: too thick and it will not pass, too thin and the tube hangs crooked. Hung, the tube stands vertical with the cord leaving at the top and the body swinging gently as you walk. It suits a man, and the form itself carries no gender. On the chain version the chain runs through the tube and the join is hidden at the top, where no one can see it.