by JoAnne Dodgson

I love watching the spider weave. Long grounding cords are stretched high above to the roof and all the way far below to the tips of purple wildflowers. Then she circles and circles and circles around weaving an elaborate spiral design with sticky translucent threads. The sacred geometry of the web and the delicate sturdy fibers are naturally birthed from inside the spider. The web is woven with the very fabric of her being according to the blueprint she carries within.

Whenever the web needs mending or changing, the spider simply reweaves with steady focus. This is not a rigid cookie-cutter fear-filled approach that demands things stay exactly the same, day after day, web after web. Rather the spider builds with flexibility and flow. She knows the purpose of her weaving and what she’s aiming to create while aware of and responsive to others around her and the changing world in which she lives. She embraces all of this all at once with natural ease.

One morning I rested on the hammock while watching her, admiring her creativity, sensing her attentiveness as she grounded herself in the very center of the spiral. And similar to the ways the spider first showed up, something new in my surroundings quietly crept into my awareness.

Sunshine flickered on a glowing thread I hadn’t seen before. This thread reached horizontally through the air from the spider’s web to the braided cotton ropes of my hammock. Spider had intentionally woven a connection between us. We were purposefully joined, web to web.

So there we were – me in my hammocky web, she in her fibery web – swaying back and forth with the breeze. Distinct and unique yet our lives interwoven and undeniably connected. Eight-legged to Two-legged. Aliveness to Aliveness. Friend to Friend.

The sunlight suddenly brightened as the clouds passed by. Touched by the sun, the web lit up like a shimmering rainbow. The spider was sitting in the middle of a dynamic light show, riding the waves of the winds dancing through the glowing fibers, the glistening oranges and purples and greens and blues beyond imagination and words. This radiant I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-seeing world existed there right before my eyes.

This is the truth of the web of life, Spider said.

Colorful. Creative. Openly loving.

Intricately connected. Magical. So alive.

I watched her watching me from the center of her creation, the vibrant fibers of connection reaching out in all directions, beautiful beyond words.

How are you weaving the web of your life? Spider asked.

Her question resonated along the fibers woven between us.

How are you weaving the web of your life?