Come Back, Spider

Back in the first weeks after we closed the restaurant in 2011, I was just beginning to research shamanic spirituality, and my awareness to messages given through animal spirit guides was heightened; to my surprise, one of the first animals to step up and be recognized was Spider.

Spider is associated with a strong feminine viewpoint expressed through writing.  From the time I understood this relationship, I began to think of Spider as a sort of patron saint (talk about mixing religious traditions!) of my writing. 

Since last November, after a heroic effort to post an entry in one blog or another every day for a month straight, my connection to the blogs—indeed, my very zeal for writing—has flagged considerably.  And this has bothered me a lot.  Discovering the Land of Blog back in 2003 kindled a great fire inside my heart for a lost love—a love I had not seriously entertained for twenty years:  my love of writing.  For ten years, I wrote as if I had found my heart, my voice, my song.  And then, something just…ran out.  I feel as if I have written all I have to say.  Or, more accurately, all I have to say that anyone is interested in knowing.

Still, Spider has kept with me.  Appearing in my life and my dreams, reminding me of her presence, trying to prod me back to my spot in front of the computer, contentedly click-clacking away.  Unfortunately, I pay her less and less mind.  Too busy with everything else, or nothing else, to drag something new and beautiful out of my brain and splash it across a page or two.

A couple of months ago, a little black spider took up residence in the window above my staircase.  I saw her every morning as I trudged downstairs to start my day.  Greeted her several times each day as I went up and down the stairs in the course of my daily routine.  Every time I came into view, she would turn and look at me.   We had a relationship, that spider and I.  And I knew what she was trying to tell me.

But I didn’t act on it.

About a week ago, I noticed she was gone.  I think she gave up on me.

Then, last night, I had a Spider dream.

I dreamed I was sweeping up a pile of the endless construction dust with which I’ve been dealing at our project building—the project that has sapped my weak stockpile of creative energy since the beginning of the year.  In my dream, a huge spider crawled out of the pile of dust, and I tried to use the broom to shoo it out the back door.  But one overly ambitious swipe of the broom reduced the spider to a damp smear across the dusty concrete. 

I am not very pleased with the message this dream seems to impart…