“Found” spider on an altered book in progress. ~MDH
While spiders are commonly found in houses, there are some rare sightings . . . like flipping through your altered book after it was weighted down overnight and discovering a living spider along the spine of its last page. Such a sight gives one pause, especially after having encountered Spider in a dream that morning and during a meditation the previous day!
Such encounters count for me as life convergences, as described in the post “falling apart”: “oh-so interesting sequences of events and relationships that oh-just keep appearing, so-called coincidences that may be more aptly called synchronicity.” In my spiritual practice, noticing how animals like Spider keep showing up — and in such a tight time frame — merits taking stock . . .
. . . Dog sitting in a big, old house about an hour from home, you are engaging old traumas (“The Poseidon Adventure”) in order to transform patterns of traumatic response (“falling apart”). It’s a supremely special occasion, because you are flying solo in a house! You who once kept the light on all night when alone, sometimes a kitchen knife by the bedside, checking behind all doors “just to be safe” . . .
. . . One afternoon during a meditation of sorts — called journeying in shamanic circles — you find yourself in a spider’s cocoon. Not keen on becoming a meal, you break free and join Spider on the web. Your journey’s intention is to make sense of current patterns by traversing memory, past to present. Strands lead the way to understand what has been woven . . .
. . . and lead the way back to Spider. She drops from the treetop, heading down the trunk, and you follow her along roots into the heart of the Earth. Spider stops very close to the magma — molten matter — and you sit beside her. Despite Spider’s presence, the perceived heat and color evoke sensations of danger, flashes of angry people and violence. Unable to stay present, you return to the waking world . . .
. . . In the week that follows, this children’s rhyme imparts insight:
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away . . .
. . . It simply was Miss Muffet’s perception that frightened her. She had the wrong idea about spiders and/or associated them with a bad experience from the past. In either case, being lost in panic up-ends one’s nourishment. The trick is to find one’s a way through the panic and sustain one’s peace. And what might that look like? A good question for a future blog post!
I remember a beautiful web just outside a kitchen door. I stood behind the glass, entranced at a beauty I refused to disturb. For three days I left the house only through the front door, going up the driveway to sit in the yard nearby the creation of Charlotte´s distant relative.
One morning, I awoke to discover a subcutaneous patch of pus on my left thigh. A week wore on as concentric redness radiated from the growing center of hardness. Declared a bite from a brown recluse by my allopathic physician, it continued its necrotic destruction of a growing portion of my leg.
A poultice of raw garlic placed over the bite mark eventually drew out the poison that western medicine could not stop, resulting only in a tiny white scar. Long after the creator of that homeopathic remedy swept away Spider´s beautiful home, I considered a tattoo to mark the spot where Spider had tried to become one with a woman who so admired her work. Now I can barely see where she touched me, but the imprint of her power remains in my spirit.
Sandra, thanks for sharing this powerful story. Spider’s web connects us all.