Kissed by a Spider Web

​Poetry is a
fresh morning spider-web
telling a story
of moonlit hours of
weaving and waiting
during a night.

-Carl Sandburg

After a rainy night, I look out my east kitchen sink window and see the sun highlighting webs – woven silky spider webs. There are layers of webs between the porch and beyond the garden.  I count 4 rows of big, sparkling webs.  Each web is picture pretty – in fact stunning, when one realizes a very small creature made it.  The dew is glistening on the silken threads, and each web is different – yet a bit the same. I stand with a cup of hot herbal tea in hand and study the webs. I want to take a picture of each one, but I know the camera will not do them justice.  How does one capture the beauty of this surreal moment?  The geometric patterns are fascinating, and I am enthralled by the “zipper” in a few of the webs.
 
It is late summer and autumn is on my mind.  The spiders know it too, spinning their webs, catching the silky threads on a branch and down to a grass blade and up again and back and forth. I know these fat spiders that live on the edge of my woods.  I have run into them, literally, not seeing their web in front of me.  At a certain angle of light, the web can be seen clearly and beautifully and then, with a change of light, it is hidden from human sight, unless an insect is snared in it or we happen to meet up with it unexpectedly.  I am reminded of the following quote:

A spiderweb is a thing you walk into
​which suddenly turns you into a karate master.
–unknown
 

The silken threads are all over me, and the spider retreated knowing the threat I perhaps represent, but my mind has not caught up with the reality. My arms flail every which direction trying to get the sticky web off me, to no avail.  I am not that afraid of spiders, but I don’t want to feel a big fat one crawling over me. But again, if it did, I would probably just say “Hello, and I’m sorry for ruining your web” and then take a stick to help it off me and back into the bushes to make another web, another night.
 
During the summer, I see spiders now and then, but this time of year, I see them every day – hanging out in their webs or on the edge waiting for their next meal.  The webs are truly a work of art and I admire each and every one of them.  Oh, the work and know-how or instinct it takes to make a web!

The greatest artist and web-designer ever is indeed a spider. – Munia Khan

To answer some of the questions going around in my “inquiring mind,” I researched and found these tidbits of information worth knowing:
 
- Spiders are NOT insects, but they catch and eat insects – they are arachnids.
- Spiders are the leading predators of insects.  They keep the insect species in check which helps keep civilization alive.  We should thank the spiders - not be terrified of them.
- There are about 45,000 named species, & that could be as little as 10% of what’s really out there.
- Grand-daddy long legs are not spiders.  
- About half of all spiders make webs, mainly females, to forage for prey.
- Webs are spun of spider silk.  The two universal uses of the silk thread are the drag line for descending quickly and for making an egg sac.  They always have a thread behind them, wherever they go.

A poem is a spider web
Spun with words of wonder,
Woven lace held in place
By whispers made of thunder.
- Charles Ghigna

 Last week, as I walked in my long lane, I stopped to admire the new blooms of the goldenrod.  On the pretty yellow flower- I found a pretty yellow crab spider – she matched the flower perfectly in color.  The crab spider catches her prey without a web.  This is a different species of spider also known as flower spider.  These spiders can camouflage to match the flower such as the goldenrod.  The fascinating intricacies and miracles of nature – all from a spider.
 
 On your next walk, I hope you will watch and come across the intricate silky and beautiful spider web.

Note:  It is September, and time to read the next chapter in your copy of Gatherings of the Good Earth.  I hope you have been following along, reading month by month as we go through the year -- and journaling your own reflections and thoughts. Signed copies of the book are available at the shop (and make great gifts).

Twila

Resources: Rod Crawford of The Burke Museum Arachnid Collection and The Golden Nature Guide Series, Spiders and their Kin