The Web

First and foremost, a big shout out to Julie on the occasion of her 69^th birthday today.  You have been an integral part of the web of life for me for 21 years now, and I am truly grateful for your presence in my life!  Happy Birthday, Julie!



At MorningStar on Friday mornings a small group of us gather to meditate.  In this beautiful waning summer weather, we enjoy sitting on the deck at Rose Wind for our “quiet time”, though it is filled with birdsong, gurgling creek sounds, and an occasional rustle of some small creature. We gather in circle first and share something we would like to let go of or something we mourn, have a short reading from Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening, and then sit for 20 minutes.

Today since the suggestion was to keep our eyes open and pay attention to our blinking and how everything continues even when our eyes are closed momentarily for a blink, I decided to move my chair so I could look out over the creek.  Here is what I spied that had been invisible to me previously:  a fabulous spider web.

 It became fodder for my meditation time.  I thought of how fragile the spider web looked, all open and airy.  If I were going to create a space like this, I would want it tightly woven, more secure.  Yet as I watched, the wind blew and caused this “fragile” web to flutter and undulate.  It held its moorings and its shape because it allowed the wind through.  It was actually more secure by nature of its open design.

What can the web teach me?  I have long been in love with the illusions of security and control.  They don’t serve me well; still I hold them tightly at times.  What if I could set my anchors on something solid, and create myself in such an open way that the winds of life could blow right through me?  Sure I would get tossed around a bit; I do anyway even with my illusions.  But that openness to whatever comes would allow my anchors to be strong enough to hold.  And if the storms of life are so severe as to rip my web from its anchors, I like the spider, could start again spinning, spinning.  My illusion of security wouldn’t have held it tightly anyway.  And I prefer the feel of open airiness to the tightly woven, tight-fisted work of trying to control that which cannot be controlled. I am grateful for your teaching, Grandmother Spider, and I will need to ease into this learning.

Nepo writes, “We are human beings: our being infinite as wind, our human house full of holes.”  May it be so!