mulberryshoots

Last week, G. pointed out a spider web that could be seen outside our kitchen window as he was making coffee in the morning. I was reading my email and answered absently. That evening, as I was measuring out the coffee for after dinner, I glanced out the window and was astonished to see a perfectly symmetrical web with a queen spider in the center putting on the finishing touches.

This spurred me to look up what spider totems mean. Here is some spider medicine language:

“Spiders are very delicate creatures that play an important role in the myths and lore of many peoples as the teacher of balance between the past and future, the physical and spiritual.To the Native Americans, Spider is Grandmother, the link to the past and future. In India it’s associated with Maya, the weaver of illusions.
With its gentle strength, Spider spins together the threads of life with intricate webs. Spider knows that the past affects the future and vise versa. It calls us to make use of our creativity and weave our dreams into our destiny. For many Native Americans, “spider woman” stories are important creation mythologies. One of the common feature of those are wisdom symbolized with spiders’ webs (for example, she taught the human how to weave). Also generally accepted are the ideas that her “thread” connects the human world and the world of spirits or the “above world” and the “below world”. Spider Woman also weaves the “relationship” of the Web of Life and all beings.”

So, I guess the appearance in such a prominent place might be some kind of “sign.”

Coincidentally, its presence appeared the same day as I launched a new website that I have been thinking about for a long time: “A Life Of My Own” ~ a place for women to tell their stories in their own words. My hope is that it will be a place where anonymously or not, women may reflect on meaning in their lives, write from the heart and share their thoughts with other women around the globe.

I don’t know if it will catch on or not, but it’s out there now as a part of the web of life.

follow-up photo of spider tending her two-week old web!