What Kind of Web are You Weaving?
When I was a little girl I grew up in the North end of Toronto. Our neighborhood bordered on to a farmers field that was full of all sorts of creepy crawly things that could keep me entertained for hours. I believe my mother must have thought we had moved to Mecca. No longer did she have to find ways to entertain us! We had a whole field full of fun stuff to poke at.
One of my favorite past times was to catch Grasshoppers and bring them home to the garden spiders. I’d catch the Grasshoppers in my bare hands and see if I could run home before they peed all over me! It was kind of like outdoor Olympics for kids. I didn’t always get the gold medal but I sure tried hard!
The best part of this event was throwing the gate open to our back yard and running to the garden bed that was home to Mom’s prize Dahlias and enormous Garden Spiders.
It was such a thrill to watch the sleepy spider wake up when she felt her web shaking because some philanthropic kid chose to throw an unsuspecting Grasshopper into her web! The Grasshopper never struggled for long because Charlotte (yes…Charlotte!) would have him stun gunned and wrapped before he could say “oh oh, this isn’t going to turn out well!”
Later on as a young teen it was my job to clean the cobwebs from the stalls in the stable that I worked at. I used to shutter as inevitably I’d hit one of those spider sacs full of babies! Yuck! They’d rain down on me and get down the back of my shirt! I couldn’t stomp on those critters fast enough! Who determined that to be my job anyway?! I guess I should have been more careful about what I was signing up for! People in my home town still cherish the memory of me tearing out of the barn topless while screaming at the top of my lungs! Hmmm…now I’m thinking this chore was simply for their entertainment!
As I progressed through the years not only did I learn to delegate that chore to the kids in the barn but I gained a new found respect for those creepy arachnids. As I gained an interest in gardening I began to understand that the number of baby spiders in my yard helped me to know how buggy my yard was going to be in the future months. More spiders meant more mosquitoes and black flies. There is a simple balance in the eco-system that exists in your surroundings. I just needed to learn to respect the space that spiders need to exist in. As I see it, they were in my space first so naturally I feel the need to be more accommodating to them as they try to exist where I have built my home.
Several years ago I spent an entire afternoon watching a garden spider weave her web on my deck. I was fascinated at how precisely she placed each strand of her web. She had an intricate plan and she was masterfully creating a necessary tool for her very survival.
Now I should mention that she built this web right across our steps so God forbid we should use the stairs to get off the deck. I have a very patient husband.
Since reaching adulthood I have developed a live and let live approach to life. I try not to stomp on bugs anymore and I have given up tossing Grasshoppers to the spiders. You can only have so many Gold medals anyway. So now I wait patiently and let unfortunate bugs accidentally fly into the webs sealing their own fate. Supper is often late in our house as it would appear that bugs are getting smarter over the years.
My interest in spiders lead me to look up their spiritual meaning. It should surprise us that spiders are the creatures that help us to focus on the web we are weaving in our lives. They show us how to weave the fabric of our lives.
Here is the beauty of Spider medicine. When we attune to the energy of the Master Weavers we begin to see that many of the walls that we have put around us in our lives are not as solid as they appear. We discover that by looking at things differently these walls or barriers can disappear, and we can see our lives in a more balanced and integrated way. The spider knows how to create a perfect web that suits her needs. She also knows how to rebuild it when some bozo walks through it or tears it down with a broom. She remembers what is important. She knows when stormy days are coming and when her potential harvest will be better. She’s no fool! She is flexible in her approach to life and when outside influences break down her foundation as she knew it…she simply rebuilds another one and gets on with life.
I hope that before you spray the spiders webs and nests or knock their webs down that you’ll consider how wonderfully simple their lives are and that we can learn so much from them. Let your supper burn. Take time out to watch a spider build her web. You’ll be glad you did!
Ann Perry
