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The sun is nearly setting as I prepare to walk down the road to get the mail. Standing on the porch, I hang my camera from my shoulder and pick up my walking staff. Strolling away from the house, I near the rose bush and enjoy the radiant pink blossoms as I take pictures of a select cluster.
Now I continue onward, coming to Jan’s garage, camera in hand. I stop in amazement. Right at the corner of the garage, just at the level of my face, is an awesome husky, hairy spider about half the size of my palm, hanging by a web strand. She is backlit by the low sun, glowing with vital energy, patterned in shades of brown and grey on her back. Her abdomen is patterned in darker shades. She hangs there before me, still and watching, sometimes pulling on a web strand as if she has somewhere to go but is more interested in what is happening here. I feel that I’m meeting her being-to-being. I think of her as Grandmother Spider.
She has a lot to watch now, as I lift my camera slowly. I take many macro shots of her from various directions, the lens about three inches from her. She is patient, seemingly posing for me. I am careful not to touch any of her web strands. Finally the moment ends and I walk on, leaving Grandmother Spider to her business.
I meet Wayne T,, property manager, and his wife Debbie, by the rental brick house past Jan’s garden. We haven’t talked to one another in five years. He tells me about his trucking business and I talk about my camera.
We share about our love of nature and the quiet life. We discover that each of us is celebrating a twenty-eighth wedding anniversary this month. He tells me finally how much he appreciates my partner Bill and me, that he thinks we’re good folks and if we ever need help, to be sure to call him.
Wow. I am amazed, and feeling quite blessed. As I continue on the road, downhill, the light is fading and the sky is shades of rose deepening to red. The moon is almost full behind a thin veil of clouds.
I experience a flashback into a storybook I loved when I was small, containing stories about neighbors in the country, children walking along a country lane in a warm and beautiful world. I feel like I’m walking in that world now.
I pass Mary and Frank’s trailer, good feelings about our friendship welling up in me. Then I pass their son and daughter-in-law’s trailer where Mary’s infant granddaughter lives.
Finally I reach the mailboxes by the road. I stuff Jan’s mail and my mail into the canvas bag I carry and head back up the hill. I walk slowly past the son’s trailer, past Mary and Frank's trailer, past the rental brick house, uphill all the way. I pause to catch my breath and continue on, past Jan’s garden, nearing the big oak tree in front of her house.
As I walk under the oak tree, still happily bemused at my good fortune, I hear a sound in my left ear, a sound most amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever heard, unreproducable by human equipment, a strange frequency. At the same time, something swiftly touches the top of my left ear.
I absently think that a low-hanging branch must have gotten in my way. But wait! There aren’t any low branches in this tree! With that realization, I turn around and look behind me, where I just walked.
The light is dim now, but I can clearly make out the silhouette of a large spider hanging down from the tree at head height. It’s Grandmother Spider! She spoke into my ear and touched me! What did she say? What message was sent directly into my intuitive right brain, bypassing the rational left brain altogether?
I bow to the spider. “Thank you, Grandmother Spider,” I say. I walk a little further toward home and by the rose bush I turn around, toward the oak tree, the nearly full moon at my back. I thank the Great Mother who gives all life in form, for her many blessings.
I return home, blown away by all that has happened, feeling as if I have been walking in wonderland, weaving in and out of alternate realities. I am grateful to have encountered Grandmother Spider, who weaves her web of many strands, just as my life is also woven of many strands of stories. I wonder how Grandmother Spider’s message is patterned within the interwoven synapses of my brain. Ah! What a blessing wonder is!
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