Lessons from a Spider

This morning I was reading Grace Forrest’s blog–Windthread.  The conversation focused on the power of Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”  Passages were cited.  Moving, powerful, instructive quotes.  I was reading carefully when out of the blue a tiny spider crawled up the monitor and plopped itself down.  Right there.  Part of the conversation.

I’m watching her now– crawling up the wall in front of me.  She started at table top level and has managed to climb up a few inches.  It hasn’t been an easy trip.  And just now, she lost all ground, fell/floated down on her invisible string and landed where she began.  But this time, without hesitation, she took off–shooting straight up , with speed and deliberation.  Undeterred.  Reaching heights unsurpassed in her previous efforts. Now she’s resting. Legs pulled in as though consolidating strength and will.  Still resting.   And now movement, again. Up.  Across.  Going.  Simply going.

And this too is amazing–the joy generated by simple virtue of a spider’s journey. And the joy too of flipping open my own copy of WWRWW and reading, “It’s not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild natures fades.” For truly, I’ve not been tending to this inner nature quite with the care it deserves. And the result has been a sense of separation. Not true separation, but a sense of. And today this spider has reconnected me. Pulled me back into the web. How can I not but honor her for this?

Then there are the starfish. The sense of holding. Of wanting to protect, to shield.  And now the awareness that it’s not only for starfish, these feelings.  But for all of life.  And the hope that perhaps we can slip through the eye of the needle. To another side–the other side.