Much feared and so often maligned, the spiders are all American in spirit. They have tenacity and boldness and extraordinary dexterity. Watching them keep up a web is a quite remarkable sight.
We have one very large, healthy specimen outside the front door to our home. It spins long and hard and creates a complex web designed artfully to snare insects of lesser vigilance. One has to marvel at the delicate filamentary tendrils. Like very fragile guitar strings, they vibrate when plucked and signal a meal in waiting. Everything moves with precision and the spider works tirelessly to repair damaged parts of the web while securing the day’s catch.
Our door-front spider is on my mind today as I consider the unsung labors and remarkable architectures he has designed and executed. With efficiency and speed, unlike human construction projects, this arachnid gets it done without cutting corners, and takes pains to keep the web fully functional.
In a similar fashion, our lives are all about casting out a wide web. The wider we cast our web, the more we learn, and the more opportunity we have to uncover for ourselves untapped potential for influence and positive presence in the world. Unlike the spider, our “stick-to-it-iveness” and resilience are sometimes undermined by negative thoughts, demoralization, depressive outlooks and worry.
The industrious spider is a teacher of continuous practical hope and continuous improvement. A positive realist worthy of Ayn Rand’s respect, the spider makes fools of the unwary who fail to look out where they are going, as well as those who waste time bogged down in worry or getting stuck in cynical reasoning that leads to paralysis or just nervous flailing about without any purpose or benefit.
I find the spider a great teacher of the way of practical optimism, hard work, resiliency, and positive expectation. So long as we put ourselves out there and build a web that brings in as much of world experience as possible, we will discover that our well is bottomless with ever greater depths to explore.
The Beloved is at work in the spider, showing us how to live in the midst of adversity, challenge, change, and through times of both plenty and privation.
Behold the spiders and how they spin. They make clear the wisdom of the parable of the talents.
© Brother Anthony Thomas and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
The Harried Mystic 