Ordinarily I haven’t much love for or knowledge of spiders, but I’ve just read an article about their web-making capabilities. I am impressed. They use one of their own unique skills and two natural elements: they have the ability to spin thread and they know how to use gravity and breezes
The spider stops somewhere on a branch or a stick she (in most species, the female makes the web) has decided would be a good place to start. She lunges into nothingness, gravity pulls her down, she spins as she falls. At some point a breeze will nudge spider and thread in one direction until it reaches a final hold spot. The spider then climbs up the thread she just made, and once again jumps into the powers of gravity and breeze. Again and again, she will repeat this performance until some inner button tells her it is time to work the cross pieces and then, finally, that the job is finished. A food trap, a fortress.
My mind wants to fall and then to connect in these beautiful chilly November days. After a dog walk I sit in a sunny part of the porch and join the morning: busy woodpecker, cawing crows, truck struggling down a distant highway, squirrels silhouetted against tree trunks, small airplane engine, a chorus line of leaves dance on their tiptoes across the clearing.
Winter is on the horizon. Right now, we have the archetypal memory of harvests, of celebrations, of sharing the bounty.
This year we become increasingly aware of forces that will not share, politicians who will hold excess food supplies as bargaining chips, who will release help to “red states” and withhold from “blue states.” Extremely wealthy people make laws for people whose lives they know nothing about – wealthy people know nothing about how to save money, how to “make one dollar do the work of two.” They have never been hungry, never worried about warm winter clothing. They do not have the skills that a single working parent must have.
Such politicians are a temporary blight on the landscape of this country, a mistake that can be corrected. In the meantime, we must act as we’ve always acted: with generosity of spirit, of money, of goods, of willingness to share, of kindness.
The spider acts naturally, beautifully, successfully. We the people can do not less.