I have to tell you about my little friend...well, she is not so little....

About three weeks ago I stepped outside early in the morning to have my coffee, as is my ritual, when i noticed in the corner of the vertical wood beams of my deck, a beautiful garden spider. She had over night constructed a most magnificent web....(keep in mind that i am about as arachnophobic as it gets). I strode over to the hand railing as i have always done to peer down towards the pond where the mist lies heavy without fail.....there she was, a very large black and yellow spider.....i noticed immediately that she was missing one back leg.....a warrior i thought...a survivor....it soon occured to me that she had been watching me from somewhere with out my knowlege. I know this because she had not invaded my space in any way.....she had made adjustments for me it seemed....as i looked closer at her work i could see where she had altered certain parts of the web to accommodate my presence.....a genius i thought......even human beings don't do this for one another....so for weeks now we have had this one-sided dialog....i say "morning beauty", and she totally ignores me.....she goes about the business at hand, which often times is binding, quite neatly, her latest prey, a tender morsel for later in the day.....

A week into this little relationship i noticed that there was a lot of activity on previous nites, as her web would be all tatterd and damaged....but by the time i got home in the evening she had masterfully repaired it with only a few "web scars" to show that anything had happened...this put me to thinking about my own life.

The metaphor was crystalizing in my mind and soon i found myself considering her technigue in gruesome details, cruel as it may seem, (waiting patiently and still, drawing them in with her cunning, injecting them with her venom rendering them helpless, binding them with her silken stings, then eating them at her liesure), this was her way, her instinct to survive was forefront in my mind....here this spider was with only 7 legs, clearly negotiating her life with ease. Did she hide under the eves of my home and build? No! she put herself right out there for all manner of fowl to see, knowing full well that at any moment she could become the preyed upon and be devoured by any one of the many birds that reside here. It occured to me that the credo she lived by was,..... live and let live...
Never give up....rebuild......survive at all risk.....mend and go on....

Everyday before going outside i hoped she would still be there..that she had indeed survived the bats and night creatures....my heart was warmed each new day that i was fortunate enough to be graced by her pesence....
i had noticed this past week however, that she had been letting herself go a bit....her resolve was waning....her web would lie broken and tattered for days.....i began to worry that she was ill, or giving up...she had eaten well these past weeks, worked very hard in her repairs....what could be the problem i wondered....

This morning as i reached for the door i somehow knew.....a sense of forboding came over me....but i had to know and so went i to my little spot of daily inspiration.....yes, she was gone.....no sign of her at all...i looked under the eves, and handrailing.....in fact i searched the entire porch area for any sign of her, but she was nowhere to be found......

We had shared this space for a month, she and i......had long discussions (however one-sided), about my life and hopes and aspirations. i told her how happy i was that she had chosen this place to live and hunt and survive. She had silently listened to my sorrow, my grief, my anger, my joy, my wonder, my musings.....she was of course indifferent about it all......but today as i came to the realization that i would never see her again, i felt a deep sadness. Some part of me knew that she had fullfilled her destiny and without pleas and screams for help, she had succumbed to whatever end she met.

I still imagine her somewhere around....just moved on is all...greener grass and such...

What i took from this experience is beyond measure for me, in fact i feel totally inadequate to pass on this silent knowledge in terms of some grand pulitzer prize winning solution to any thing....however...on a personal level, she enriched my shallow little world with golden, glistening threads of wisdom, without a word her actions had spoken volumes about life and survival. Some how this beautiful Garden Spider (named Beauty), spun her ancient knowing around my soul.....

Evon Creamer - Copyright ©2002

Black-and-yellow Argiope
Spider photo copyright 2002  Maidenfaire

Text converted by Text2Html
Built with Arachnophilia 4.0 on 5/25/2002
Arachnophilia
the CareWare Idea
Go To Top

Total unique visitors for all Inspiration pages.

All Original Art - Copyright © by Individual Artist - All Rights Reserved
Site and Web Page design copyright © by Star Spider Dancing - All Rights Reserved

Circle and Tree || Obligations of the True Path Walkers || Rose's Dream || Uncle John's Album || The Water || A Better Plan || What We See || Hearing The Cricket || 1000 Marbles || The Song of the Cardinal || American Indian Grandfather's Insight || Courage and Love || Love Letter || Alone? || A Poet's Story || America || NYC Perspective || Hugs & Hopes || Beauty || Katie || Inspiration Index || Our Affiliates