From Fear to Reverence: Embracing Spiders in Spirituality
What it means when spiders appear
As a child, I learned to fear spiders.
My mom, may she rest in peace, was terrified of them. She even couldn’t stand to be in the same room with a spider. And so it became almost a rule that spiders were bad.
Now I am here, two decades later. My mother is dead. And spiders have appeared.
Not in a creepy way, just here and there…and everywhere in my life. At home, in corners, and in most of the trees outside. Every walk I’ve taken lately has resulted in at least one or two cobwebs to the face.
Southern California experienced a wetter than average winter this year that lasted well into July. Torrents of rain resulted in raging rapids along the Los Angeles River, and everyone yearned during June Gloom for Sexy Summer.
2023 is an El Niño year, which brought cooler, wetter weather to the Southwest. In the past, it has also boosted bug populations.
Spidery fashions
It seems as though we are entering the harvest of all that rainfall, and I initially assumed this explained why spiders have appeared in more noticeable numbers than before.
I learned however that spiders appear regardless of their food supply every September for their annual mating season.
They mingle, they cruise. They mate. And then it’s all over in two months.
Sexy spider summer, what does it mean?
So spiders are all around right now. In my plants, around my reading light. Along the baseboards of my apartment and hanging from a street sign as I paused briefly to snap a picture in Silver Lake tonight.
As always, I’m curious to learn the cultural and spiritual meanings behind them, seeing as this is clearly a sign of some kind.
Sources from the web—heh—suggest that spiders appear to call attention to our creativity, personal growth, self-awareness, and rebirth. They remind us to tap into deeper currents of consciousness like dreams and impulses, and to keep going. To keep weaving.
Thomas Schenk, a contributor to the Spiritual Naturalist Society, poses the spider as an analogy for entanglement. Spider webs are sticky and difficult to escape. So too can our own mind’s inner chatter, emotions, and addictions entangle us in destructive or harmful behaviors.
A big one near the Silver Lake Reservoir
Conversely, the spider also represents ultimate liberation—able to build its incredible web in precarious and vulnerable places while not getting entangled itself.
Apparently spiders don’t get caught in their own webs because they “lay down non-sticky fibers in addition to sticky ones that they can see and walk freely upon.”
Translated to the human case, “a degree of detachment allows us to have a more objective, rational view…about legal or scientific questions…[and the] reason by which we govern the self.”
Taken as a spiritual lesson, the spiderweb may indicate that we too are capable of tending to our personal desires and ambitions in life without becoming trapped by passing thoughts, feelings, or temporary realities. We can build ourselves up wherever we are, and not get bogged down in the process.
Spiders are the ultimate quiet observers, always adapting and rebuilding.
Animal Speak
Ted Andrews’ seminal text Animal Speak, The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small has a fascinating chapter on the spider as part of its dictionary of insect totems.
From the Indian myth of Maya, the weaver of illusion, to the Norns in Scandinavian lore, which were female figures who weaved, measured, and cut the threads of life—the spider appears similarly.
Due to its eight legs and figure-eight style body, the spider represents infinity. It’s the weaver of life, the perennial balance we must all strike between past, present, future, male, female, physical and spiritual.
Andrews writes, “We are the keepers and the writers of our own destiny, weaving it like a web by our thoughts, feelings, and actions.”
He goes on to assert that the spider is the guardian of ancient languages and alphabets, its own web having served as a sort of early primordial alphabet based on the geometric angles and patterns found within it.
Floating above our heads on invisible tightropes
Have you seen spiders recently?
Don’t be alarmed. Most common spiders are harmless, and as the adage goes, they’re “good bugs” that assist in control of other pests like mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites.
Ideally, we leave them alone. In my opinion, it’s bad karma to needlessly harm other living things, especially those that are fragile.
Spiders are very, very delicate, and in both a literal and figurative sense, are a combination of gentleness and power. They’re agile but precarious, walking their tightropes.
If you prefer to avoid spiders in your home and leave the sightseeing to more natural spaces, it’s a good idea to regularly check for spiders in clothes and shoes left on the ground or furniture that’s placed up against walls.
To safely relocate an unwanted spidery house guest, place a container like a jar over the spider and slide a piece of paper or cardboard underneath, careful to not injure or touch the spider, then release it outside.
A friendly reminder note from one mister Christopher English upon my departure from my apartment in Milan in 2016
If you’re like me and aren’t bothered by spiders, let them be.
And, let them be a reminder that our creative energies must be expressed, and that the threads of our creativity may be woven in the dark corners of our mind and existence, but when the sun hits them, they will glisten with intricate beauty.
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As always, thanks are in order to my fabulous editor Susan, and to Kathryn for help with some Adobe Illustrator tasks.
Ahhh… spiders yes, they scared your mother and Susan too… I don’t mind them.. they are smart and useful, tho some are scary…:)