spider medicine

I kept dreaming about spiders.

And in one week I kept seeing them, in curiously intimate situations. Changing bed linen. A clutch of little eyes. Doing laundry - a big one, immobile on the jeans. And then getting into the car after a rare night with friends in Melville. As I turn the ignition, there it is on the inside of my windscreen. If it was Disney I would swear the thing winked at me. And not scurrying, mind you. Just fixed, sitting there. Take note.

So I google spider medicine, thinking well its all about networks and I should be accessing my networks. I found this, by Ted Andrews. I love this.

"Spider reminds us that the world is woven around us. We are the keepers and the writers of our own destiny, weaving it like a web by our thoughts, feelings and actions. The spider, because of its characteristics, has come to be associated by mystics and in mythology in three predominant expressions of magic. The first is magic and energy of creation. It is a symbol of creative power, reflected in its ability to spin a silken web. It is also associated with assertiveness of that creative force, of keeping the feminine energies of creation alive and strong."

The second aspect relates to the shape of the web.
"Are you moving toward a central goal or are you scattered and going in multiple directions? Is everything staying focused? Are you becoming too involved and/or self-absorbed? Are you focusing on others' accomplishments and not on your own?"

And then this: spiders are the keepers of the alphabet..."considered the teacher of language and the magic of writing. Those who weave magic with the written word probably have a spider totem. If spider has come into your life, ask yourself some important questions. Are you not weaving your dreams and imaginings into reality? Are you not using your creative opportunities? Are you feeling closed in or stuck as if in a web? Do you need to pay attention to your balance and where you are walking in life? Are others out of balance around you? Do you need to write? Are you inspired to write or draw and not following through? Remember that spider is the keeper of knowledge of the primordial alphabet. Spider can teach how to use the written language with power and creativity so that your words weave a web around those who would read them."



sigh.



and the other part I love is that the thin line that the spider casts out, treads, threads and treads again is the frail path that connects the unseen world of dreams and the unconsious with the waking world.


I love this. This was about a month ago. Thanks, for the spiders. I'm listening.



Being a fighter, being a writer are not one and the same.
As I sit here. I hear the traffic. I hear the soft noises of Sanna next door.
I hear the steady churn of my head. Ambition. Ego censorship. Unsaid words to a friend, burning in my chest. Release it, says self mind. But there’s a weary wheel of what I suppose we call the grain. The ingrained noises of historical self. Don’t go against the grain. Instead I sit here, heavy with the longing for sea sand and wavesound.
Rain for three days becomes part of the air’s makeup.
I write until I can find the voice that is a just, quiet and observant voice.
Leave behind the propagandist the advertiser the polemicist. Leave it behind as you leave a knot of clothing on the floor when you enter the pure space of loving skin on heartbeat.
Return to the heart. Listen with writers ears. Every day a stretch, a strum. To get the ear in, slowly. Then wait as stories grow and seed. til rhythms creep back in. These are the lines that lead me back to me.


I may have been a bit glib in yesterday's post. My head crowding with the recent events in the country. Trying to piece and match words and images, trying to excuse, condemn, rescue. understand. I don't mean to paint pre-colonial Africa as one big harmonious family. It surely wasn't. Hospitality codes are specific to exclusive groups, like clans. And they're necessary because groups compete for land, resources, power. Not everyone was your friend. When "made in Berlin" nation states fenced such opposing groups into redtape borders, the recipe for disaster was already brewing.

The geyser of hatred we've seen is a symptom of so many colliding realities. But isn't it also an opportunity, as all conflict is? We have to grow new ways of dealing with how we relate and migrate. We have to reinvent. I feel that we will be forced to be radical about boundaries, national and personal. After the fires and the flames and the camps and the talks and the fights and the long journeys, what?

How will we relate to our neighbours, ourselves, our leaders?

Will we thread new webs? Will we string small kindnesses together to create connections between us? Will we tell each other silver stories and nod our heads, suddenly understanding?

How fragile they will seem, those thin sticky lines, with morning dewbeads shivering on them.