Originally published on Eagle Song September 3, 2015
About a month ago, Spider announced herself in my life in a somewhat startling, then very beautiful way.
On the night of the last Super Moon at the end of July, I brought all my crystals outside to soak in the moonlight. I joined them on an air mattress and was sleeping relatively peacefully, until sometime in the middle of the night when I awoke to feel a spider bite my top lip, right in the center. In my half-asleep, bewildered state, I announced to the spider, “That hurts! Who does that?!?” I rolled over, already feeling my lip swell under my fingertips. I managed to fall back asleep fairly quickly, thinking that the spider had some nerve biting me (on my lip, no less) while I was minding my own business, sleeping.
The next morning, my upper lip was swollen to several times its normal size. I endured a few hours of talking strangely and drooling a little bit, but with my magic natural detox, my lip looked pretty much normal by midday. I filed the incident under “Unusual, but not significant,” and moved on.
Two days later, I participated in a traditional Native American dance ceremony. At some point in the late morning, I noticed some very tiny spiders appear on me. I escorted them down to the safety of the grass, only to discover more and more baby spiders show up throughout the next several hours. They appeared as if out of nowhere to crawl on my body and my clothes, and I gently transported them to the grass and nearby plants where I wouldn’t accidentally smoosh them with my movements. I asked both of my dance neighbors on either side (about 5 or 6 feet away) if they had any tiny spider visitors, and I felt surprised when each of them told me that they were completely spider-free. Apparently there had just been a hatching immediately over my head. The rain of baby spiders continued through the early afternoon, and while I thanked Grandmother Spider for sending me her grandchildren and tried asking her what I was supposed to learn, I was sufficiently distracted by the dance ceremony itself (read about it here) and did not have enough attention for an answer.
When I eventually did get to meditate with Spider energy a few days later, the information that came through resonated deeply with me:
Spiders are the weavers of life. Through their weaving, everything is connected. They help form the bridge between the past and future, the subconscious and conscious, male and female, waking and dreaming life, physical and spiritual realms. They embody infinity, and their webs’ spiral shape represents the First Cosmic Key of the Universe, from which all other forms manifest.
Research from outside sources revealed that Spider is the keeper of ancient languages and alphabets, and that the geometric shapes found in a spider’s web became the first symbols of written language. Spiders are storytellers! How cool is that?
It blows my mind that I could be so deeply connected to Spider without consciously knowing that I work with her energy. Maybe that’s why she sent one of her children to bite me in my sleep, on my lip, infusing me with a strong dose of Spider medicine to aid in my own storytelling of weaving the bridge between human and Divine realms. (I even use the term “Thought Spiral” when I’m describing the long, multidimensional path an idea takes when it pulls together many seemingly unrelated concepts that ultimately connect to form a complete and cohesive picture. Thank you, Spider.)
All that said, working directly with Spider medicine has not felt completely intuitive to me. Some animals (generally mammals and birds) are so much easier for me to jump right into a very embodied understanding of what it means to access their energy. Maybe it’s partially due to cultural conditioning, maybe it’s because their movement and body shape are so unlike my own, but I definitely need to sink deep in order to fully honor this guide and do her justice.
That’s partly why I’m so excited to teach my Animal Dance workshop next weekend in Portland, OR. While I guide others through the process of discovering their Animal Totems and moving into a place of embodied understanding, I plan to do the same with Spider. I am so grateful for the opportunity to facilitate this journey! Working with my own Animal Guides has been a rich, truly educational experience that helps me discover more and more layers of my own consciousness and personal evolution. I can’t wait to help others access the wealth of knowledge and powerful wisdom available to them from their Animal Guides.
If you would like to register for the workshop, please do so here.
Workshop information here.
To sign up for my newsletter and receive notifications about future events and workshops, do so here.
