Message of the Spider

Over the last couple of weeks, I have considered what the spider might symbolize to me. Wisdom of connectedness has been my prevalent thought.

At some point last week, the name Susun Weed came to mind, for the first time in about five years, while I was walking to my car. I thought of her name when I noticed clover growing through the cracks in the sidewalk along my street, and recalled times when I’ve plucked and eaten their leaves.

Friday night, at my first drum circle, I mentioned my recent spider presence. One woman said that the spider is used frequently with “grandmother”.

At a friend’s house on Sunday, three times I relocated baby spiders which were dangling from my body.

Today, I took a couple minutes to look up spider symbology on the Web. There are many references, most having to do with dream interpretation, and although they made sense, nothing seemed to be significant. Then I recalled what the woman from Friday said, and I looked up “grandmother spider”.

There was Susun Weed. I clicked her site's link first (even though it was second in the list) and found a wonderful story of how everything is connected in the Web of Life.
I clicked the link listed first and found a fable of wisdom, where Grandmother Spider is titled Firebringer.

In the past month, I have been present at a couple of fire circles. Each time, I sang a song in my head:

Rise up o flame
By thy light's glowing
Show to us beauty
Vision and joy

When I learned this song, it was sung over and over, in a round, as the campfire was being lit. I had prided myself on becoming one of the few “one-match-fire” starters. (The key was dry blueberry twigs.) This was at the summer camp I attended for 10 years… where I first enjoyed the company of wolf spiders in my tent.

Message received… loud and clear.