Are You Brave Enough To Be A Spider?

One of my very favorite poems is called, The Spider, by Mary Thompson.  I first heard it at a memorial service for a friends mom, and the profound truth of it has stuck with me for going on 5 years now. Whenever I feel lost or uncertain, confused if I am indeed on ‘the right path’ – I return to these words, reminding myself that I am doing the best that I can, the only way I know how, and that it takes time to weave worlds.

The Spider

Do not be afraid.
This web will not hold you prisoner,
pin your wings,
cut short long flights of fancy.
This web is beautiful.
See how it shimmers
in the morning light,
nestled dewdrops, shiny as glass.
This web reaches out across time and space
draws in stars, starlings,
the soft, surprising thought,
excludes nothing and no one.
It is a cradle of welcome
a place of rebirthing,
a nest for the lost, wounded, lonely.
One touch of one strand
signals another’s presence.
Tiny vibrations are calling cards.
We do not need to see to know.

I am dark spider, black as the night sky,
and darkness is welcome here,
the darkness of womb
of rich earth,
of a lover’s eyes.
In the shadowy center of me lie the seed
of the cosmos, bursting forth from
my body in a flood of unrelenting light
to become galaxies and planets,
to become the soft-palmed hand
that hovers here, above this page, as you,
inking your own web from words
also sense something, just out of sight,
by the slight catch in your throat,
the tug in your stomach that tells you
were you willing to sit
here patiently at the
center of this web
whatever it is you long for
would come to you.

I spin the thread.
You spin the thread.
It takes time to weave worlds.
_____________

The spider, doing what it does best, what it is born to do, weaves a web.  Complex and beautiful, it’s focus is doing what it does exceptionally well.  The second part is trust that what it desires will be attracted and drawn into the web.

Concern yourself with doing what you do best, being your best self, the right people will be attracted to that and come play.  What I particularly love about this, is it’s not just about sitting still and hoping that things will just ‘work out’.  Nope.  That spider spins one heck of a web.  She is working hard to create what she was born to create.

This hits me on a few levels – dating, business building, being a good friend, learning new things.  If you really focus on being your best self and working in alignment with what you know in your core that you are supposed to be doing in this world, the right people are going to notice, they’re going to pay attention, and they’re going to come out and play.

You be you.

At the end of the day, it’s the only, and best thing you can possibly do.

Photo credit to the lovely TeaBeat.