Bi-Weekly Topics for March 15, 2004
Miss Muffet Has Left the Building
By Fragments from Floyd
This biweekly topic at Ecotone for March 15 will be "Spiders and Place". I'll just let the images speak for spiders on our place. I've linked to the original posts that went with them, too, if you just can't get enough ArachnoPhilia. Enjoy!
Come Into My Parlor 
Ephemera 
Truth Plain and Simple 
Lost in Space
Comments
What a showoff.
Really, though, these shots are amazing, as I've told you before. I'm still not sure how you caught them.
Ohmigosh! Here you are, sticking space hubbles on your desktop, and for a month I've been trying to draw a spider web for my banner on Spinning! Maybe I could buy a photo off you?
And this too, I haven't seen such gorgeous spider webs since I took pictures of HUGE (I'm talking, like six feet!)ones catching morning sunlight along a highway in Alabama.
Beautiful. In the throes of winter, I'd forgotten what cobwebs look like. (Excepting, of course, the ones here in the house...)
Awesome photos!
Oh my! Would it be silly of me to say that these are so beautiful that I'm almost choked up with appreciation? Something about the juxtaposition of the photos, the perfect lighting, and the accompanying stories just really zings shockwaves into my happy places.
This may become my new favorite fredism. Yummy.
These are just wonderful, Fred. Thanks!
SPIDER IN THE BATH TUB
By The Middlewesterner
I dust off this old essay as my contribution to Ecotone's "Spiders and Place" topic this week.
How a spider finds its way into our bathtub, I confess I don't know. The occurrence is common enough, in our house at least, that I have to think these creatures are particularly adept at getting themselves into such situations. They are not, I'm finding, particularly talented when it comes to getting themselves out, however.
Even as I write this, a spider struggles against the porcelain world in which it finds itself imprisoned. It came sometime during the night, was there when I rose this morning, two and a half hours ago. Its day, thus far, has been entirely devoted to scaling the sheet white cliffs that surround it - or, rather, attempting to scale them.
Our tub is of an ordinary variety, twenty-eight inches broad, fifty-eight inches long, and - most telling - thirteen perpendicular inches deep. To me it would appear to be not an especially attractive tableau upon which to play out one's little drama - no food, no water (at the moment), and no hiding place but the drain, no obvious footholds - but I am not the spider and my choice of landscapes might seem likewise as peculiar to him.
So one of the eight-legged wonders of the world has wandered into our tub again and, resourceful as this one is, there it remains. Eight legs, he's discovering, are not legs enough to pull him out of this little mess he's gotten himself into. He knows now, I believe, that there is no easy escape, for he has circled the tub entirely, testing its boundaries, facing steep walls everywhere.
When I first saw him this morning, he was madly flailing his legs, on the theory perhaps that simple hard work would be sufficient to free himself. Hard work, he quickly discovered as he made no progress whatever, was not the answer, as is generally the case in these Sisyphean dilemmas.
If not hard work, then cunning perhaps? While I watched from my distance, the spider appeared to massage two of its front legs with its mouth and feelers, coating them - I assume - with some of its homemade rosin. First he carefully prepared the front-most leg on his right side, then the second leg from the front on his left, testing each as he finished. He employed the two legs he had gummed as anchors, fixing them to the wall of the tub and holding them in place while scrambling about with the other six. He made half an inch progress, as far as he could move with those two legs set; and then his anchors failed him and he slid backwards to the bottom of the tub. And there he sat.
A few minutes later, he moved about six inches toward the front of the tub and proceeded to apply his rosin to two of his hind legs - the hindmost leg on his left side, the second from the rear on the right. Again he rested, and then again he moved himself forward and upward, using the rosined legs not so much as anchors but as the main driving units of his climbing machine. His other legs seemed to move more lightly and quickly, while the rosined ones were brought deliberately forward, alternately, with each bit of progress, and were used for upward thrust. Of course the attempt was only as successful as the previous, and soon he was back the half inch to the beginning.
The next time I checked his progress, he had moved almost the length of the bathtub, crossing above the drain and resting to the right of it, in the corner. His position afforded me an especially good view of him as I set my elbows on the side of the tub and bent to observe him more closely. This, it began to appear, was to be his most ambitious assault yet, for as I peered from above I saw him place each of the front four legs into his mouth (or so it seemed), one at a time, working them in and out, painstakingly slowly in and out, massaging each with his feelers, testing each and applying more rosin when the results seemed unsatisfactory; then he started work on the four hind legs. From my position, I was unable to tell whether these went into his mouth or not, but I noted his mouth was moving energetically all the while, in a kind of sucking motion. Soon he had the hind legs readied.
Very slowly, almost resolutely, he headed upward again, one leg set carefully, then another, until he had gained nearly an inch and a half. The attempt ended in mid-step, when all the legs lost hold at once and he slipped again to the bottom. He sat perfectly still then, and if I were one to attribute human characteristics to eight-legged creatures, I'd venture to say he was disgusted by the futility of it all. I left him to his fate, poured myself another cup of coffee, and listened a while to some Beethoven on the radio.
Since I started writing these few pages, I've checked on the spider's progress every ten minutes or so, to see whether, wunderbar, he has succeeded in extricating himself from his rather hopeless circumstances. Often, as I enter the bathroom, he simply appears to be resting - sometimes in one corner, sometimes in another, or anywhere along either side. He had, I'm convinced, tested every conceivable route of escape. Once, as I entered, I saw that he'd made a snatch of progress by anchoring one hind leg to a piece of grit attached to the side of the tub. Yet even as I stood observing him, that tenuous foothold gave way and he slid backwards. Another time he was running somewhat sideways along the wall of the tub, as if to use centrifugal force to hold him against the porcelain. This attempt, too, was futile.
I do feel a bit foolish every time I descend the flight of stairs from my office to check on his efforts. And, too, I do feel somewhat foolish expending the energy and hours (for I am a slow writer) needed to record this insignificant little tragedy - an inconsequential struggle that matters little to the rest of the cosmos.
I am not one to believe very deeply that spiders and such are inhabited by the souls of our ancestors, nor that I too shall be a spider or cat or cow someday. I am not particularly fond of eight-legged creatures, and have no more empathy for the animal world than most of the rest of men. Yes, I am a meat-eater, a custom I have inherited and one I have thus far found enjoyable. Yet the whole morning I have noticed myself wondering if this is a metaphor for our existence in the universe. Is life a continual struggle to roll the stone to the top of the mountain, only to see it roll back to the bottom, again and again? Some days it surely seems that such is the extent of human existence. Then again some days life seems to hold much more than that.
On my most recent trip down the stairs to observe the spider, I found him motionless, his legs splayed around him. I watched for seven minutes and he didn't move at all. Without apparent reason, then, he moved a few steps forward suddenly, stopped; turned one hundred eighty degrees and moved a few steps, stopped; turned ninety degrees and moved a few steps more. He stood motionless for an instant, then went round in a circle, then another. He was motionless again for a minute or so, before he started applying the rosin to one foreleg, then another. By this time I'd watched his struggle for five hours and here he was, back to the beginning, putting rosin on exactly the same forelegs as when I first observed him.
What sensations had he felt, I wondered, while he sat motionless those seven minutes. What befuddlement caused him then to move first in one direction, then another, then still a third, and finally to walk in circles? What silver thread of instinct told him to start preparing his legs with rosin again, for another assault on the white cliffs that surrounded him? I confess I don't know. I had been content to observe his fate. It was apparent now that he didn't recognize the futility of his efforts. A spider in the bath tub is condemned to one of two, or possibly three, destinies: if he remained entirely undisturbed, he could scramble and scramble until he had no strength left, until he starved to death; or, should one of us in the house want to take a shower, he would end mashed against the porcelain or washed down the drain; or if he were adventuresome to a high degree, he might try his luck in the drain, make his way through the standing water in the curve of pipe, find his way to the sewer and, through a manhole cover, to daylight and freedom. Those were, it seemed to me, his possible fates.
For myself, I know I'd be immensely unhappy to think there is no possible rescue from my own stupidities. How a spider finds its way into our bath tub, I don't know; nor am I always cognizant of the routes I'm taking into silly predicaments of my own. I, too, have walked in circles, frustrated.
As the spider was applying rosin to the second leg, readying himself for yet another attempt, I took a piece of cardboard, got him onto it, carried him to the garage and left him there to fend for himself among the flies and wasps. This action was not - and was not meant to be - consequential; it was simply a personal affirmation of some sort, one made against my intellectual desire to observe the spider's natural fate, an affirmation, perhaps, that there is more to living than the mere avoidance of death. Something. It was a gesture I felt the need to make, the way one raises his fist against a threatening sky.
# posted by Tom Montag @ 4:21 AM
Source: http://middlewesterner.blogspot.com/2004_03_15_middlewesterner_archive.html
The Worlds We Weave
By g r a p e z
The web is an almost endless firmament of threads. While searching for blogs concerned with nature, I came upon a wiki called Ecotone. From that wiki, I discovered some interesting blogs, Fragments from Floyd by Fred and Cassandra's Pages just two exceptional examples of these. From Fred's page last week I discovered that Ecotone runs biweekly topics in which its community of bloggers discuss a single topic en masse. And today's happens to be about spiders.
Spiders in New England are such tame characters. No Black Widows or Tarantulas roam the back roads here. My closest encounters usually occur inside, maybe spotting an eight-legged creature scurrying across the bathroom tiles. I usually leave it alone, considering it a small pet that collects undesirable insects, much like a cat that catches mice. And furthermore, on a superstitious note, I don’t wish it to rain.
Which brings me to my encounters with spiders in the great outdoors, usually just those threads between low-hanging branches. They'll catch your face while hiking like a loose strand of hair that just won't go back in place. Or those small rock spiders I see when resting on a rock: they clamber all around hiking their own steep territory, looking for their own inspiration.
But when younger, I saw spiders as welcome curiosities and Daddy Long Legs were my favorite ones. Their small pill-sized bodies, held in suspension by eight long thin spindly legs, presented an otherworldly creature to eyes trained on Saturday films of aliens and monsters. Here was a real monster.
Children are cruel sometimes and I’ll forego the horror stories here, but leave it said that Daddy Long Legs were approached with both dread and fascination. They made the world of tree and pond more than New Hampshire lakeside property, but a land of marvel and wonder.
In reflection, I guess that’s what all creatures do for us humans, whether those creatures be insect, animal, or next door neighbor (or blogger.) They remind us that the world is a miraculous place, full of, miracle of miracles, abundant and various life. Including our selves. And including our souls.
A Noiseless, Patient Spider
Noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
by: Walt Whitman
posted by Greg @ 2:00 AM
Source: http://grapez.blogspot.com/2004/03/worlds-we-weave.html
Sat down beside her
By Working bug
Long after dark every worknight, I climb two flights of shabby stairs to fetch my car. In contrast to our gleaming offices, the garage is old and is maintained with an eye to keeping it from collapsing, not impressing visitors and staff. So the cream-colored walls are stained where indifferent mopping has sloshed dirt on them, the undersides of the stairs are rusty and the steel reinforcements bolted on to stave off catastrophe are painted only with red primer. The only decoration is a decades-old legal disclaimer whose white background paint has gone tan and blistered. The rogue apostrophe in "the company will take no control of your vehicle or it's contents" never fails to make me wince.
At the top of these stairs is an ill-fitting industrial door. On warm summer nights, someone props it open to relieve the smell of damp and dust from the old masonry inside. And so the stairwell becomes the parlor of the largest spider I have ever seen outside a zoo.
Its globular tan body must be the size of a quarter. On warm nights it builds a classic spiral web, efficiently braced, across the upper right corner of the doorway, where it can trap moths and other insectile tourists blundering unwarily toward the harsh light over the landing. By its size, it must feed lavishly.
I am always impressed when I mount the stairs and see the master in its workshop. With a sweep of my briefcase, I could spoil its night, or worse, but instead I duck underneath and continue on my way, daily reminding myself that I want to live and let live. Nevertheless, the spider and web make me uncomfortable. They're an apt metaphor for the city I live in and my relation to it.
The walk to my desk takes me along a sidewalk that is part of the blocks-long path between a downtown shelter and a meals site for the homeless. When I meet someone there, we eye each other warily, trying to seem not to notice at all. I am not much less shabby than they are, but cleaner, and obviously employed. Sometimes they ask for money. Sometimes, if I have change, I give it. Sometimes I'll nod, if I happen to catch someone's eye; sometimes I'll hear "what's happening!" as I pass.
Over the years, we have logged one robbery, some car break-ins, one dramatic arrest (fat cop nearly dies trying to outrun lady car thief in high heels); several auto accidents and one fistfight. Old-timers tell the hilarious story of how a stripper and a customer had a falling-out in our parking lot; the John tried to hit her with his car; she dragged him out and chased him into the ladies room of the bar across the street, loudly promising colorful mayhem until the police arrived to bust them both.
The crime rate is not high, really, but to a boy raised in the country, where you knew everyone and worried about dogs, not people, it's uncomfortable. Embracing diversity is harder than it looks.
Certainly there's race. You try to avoid the subject, but you can't deny a difference, even if your Mediterranean ancestors were nearly as brown as theirs. And some of the thin, tattered guys I pass look at me as if they're see Part Of The Problem in the pudgy white guy approaching. There's a bigger economic and emotional gulf -- for I'm going to a good job and a warm, cluttered home, and they're leaving a utilitarian free meal and headed for a Spartan place crowded with unpredictable strangers.
Some other differences in values must be driven by money. I hate asking for anything and I can't imagine asking for spare change. Some of these folks do it with aplomb -- seemingly unfazed, some with good (if dubious) stories. The best was one who spoke passionately to me for a minute about getting right with God and drew from me some hesitant agreement about Christian virtue, then concluded: "Give me a dollar." I gave him that, and welcome; I thought of it as admission. It can't be easy work. Another panhandler caught me in the parking lot and didn't want to take no for an answer. He followed me into the office door, where the guard stopped him. As I walked away, I looked back to see some office bigwigs -- and some of the top citizens of the city -- strolling in the door while the hapless guard was trying to throw the interloper out.
Many of the women I work with look for escorts to their cars. I leave later, but don't feel so vulnerable. It may be a matter of odds, but I have not been bothered, even late at night. But perhaps the security guards have learned my habits, for their van is always in the parking lot I cross when I walk out, and it always pulls away just after I pass. Maybe they know something I don't. They're not telling. I don't really want to ask.
I suppose that the fat, industrial-strength spider at the top of the stairs and I have something in common. It, too, has a fortunate place in the world. I doubt it's aware of that, though.
I'll leave it alone. But I'll step warily as I pass.
Source: http://my.core.com/~pzicari/text/Spider.html
By The Cassandra Pages
ECOTONE TOPIC for March 15: SPIDERS
Charlotte probably gets the credit for making me into a spider protectress. I read E.B. White’s classic at an early age and have ever afterwards identified all spiders with the heroine of that book. My mother, though, was their advocate in real life. She taught me to be a friend of all creatures, and showed me that they all have their place. “It’s more scared of you than you are of it” was the way I was introduced to snakes, snapping turtles, spiders, and even wasps and bees. “Let’s just be quiet and watch it for a little while.” As a result I don’t remember ever being especially afraid of anything I found in nature; in fact I was surprised and affronted the first time a bee stung me. I learned to be respectful, yes; but scared, no.
We lived in a rambling old house with a large spider-harboring attic and spider-friendly gardens; I often woke to a lawn covered with dew-studded “fairy” webs. In the summers we went to our unfinished camp on the lake where for years we were mere visitors amid the fauna who really lived there. Our lake house always had spiders in it. They were mainly allowed to stay put, in the bathroom or the damp downstairs, or were escorted gently outside. That’s my policy today, too – we’ve had a resident spider (or its progency) in the bathroom for years, and my often-unused studio has many more, their egg-cases hanging in the corners. I don’t remember most of these spiders as individuals, but there’s one who remains stickily in my mind.
She – let’s say it was a she – lived under the dock. This was cohabitation, when I was eight or nine, because I lived on top. The dock was long, maybe fifteen feet, and six sturdy feet wide, and it stretched out into the lake from the shore, supported by several posts sunk into the lake bottom. The water at the end was well over my head, so diving and jumping were safe, and there was sun on that end nearly all day long. It was a fine place to fish, worm-can at one’s side; or to play with dolls, or sunbathe with a book, and later in my adolescence it was a place for solitude and daydreaming, or lying on my back at night, gazing at the stars.
But when the sun baked down on the dock, midday, all you had to do was swing your head over the far edge to find yourself eye-to-eye with the other inhabitant: an enormous black spider with hairy legs that would go scurrying through a crack into the darkness beneath the dock. She rarely came up onto the top surface, and although all the kids who swam there knew about the spider and had varying degrees of, shall we say, familiarity with her, no one deliberately splashed her or tried to knock her into the water. That seems strange to me now; maybe we knew the adults would have been angry at us. But perhaps she was preserved because she did scare us a little, and provided part of our fun.
Almost every time we swam, one ritual was to dive underneath the old metal barrels that supported the far end of the dock, and come up into the small dark place underneath. There was two feet of headroom in which to breathe, and another foot on either side of one’s shoulders, but it was quite dark, with a little light filtering in through the cracks in the decking and between the barrels, and the water was always still. That was an advantage, because it meant you could see very clearly all the way to the bottom. Small fish frequented this place too, moving their blue-tipped fins slowly in the water. And – there was always the spider. Finding her was the challenge of going under the dock, and while you were there, treading water and looking around for a glimpse of her hairy legs, a sunfish or rock bass was likely to come up behind you and take a nip of your tender, pale, young back. We worried about eels – although I only saw one there in all those years – and snapping turtles, who kept their distance. So in reality, it was just the spider: slightly menacing; annoyed but not enough to relinquish her territory;, an adult-substitute of sorts in this child-world where we were utterly free; a reliable constant from season to season.
“I see her!” we’d announce, and, mission completed, swim back out into the light.
Read other stories of spiders and place at the Ecotone Wiki.
4:41 PM
Source: http://cassandrapages.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_cassandrapages_archive.html#107938689552824990
Caught in the the web
By Hoarded Ordinaries
Last night, late, as I sat working in the office long after Chris had gone to bed, a small, pale brown spider–waxy and translucent, like a young, freshly hatched thing–walked up the wooden armrest on the chair where I sat, computer on my lap, feet propped on a green upholstered ottoman. Well, hello there, little spider: did you come looking for me?
Although I’m sure there are plenty of spiders in New Hampshire, as there are everywhere, I always think of far-off places, not sites here close to home, when my thoughts turn to spiders. I remember, for instance, the large, dew-bejeweled orbs spun in weedy Ohio fields by garden spiders. These arachnids were large and jet black, sometimes adorned with yellow spots and stripes, and each of their webs was transected by a large white zigzag, like a silken lightning bolt or drunk-stitched cicatrix. These zigzags, I was told, were supposed to keep birds from flying through the webs: a kind of spiderly Do Not Enter sign. I’ll never know whether that’s true, of course, since the spiders themselves aren’t talking.
Then there were the spiders of Jamaica; I don’t know what kind. Chris and I took a cruise for our honeymoon, and we stopped for a day in Ocho Rios to walk up the waterfalls: standard tourist stuff. Halfway up the rocky, braided stream, someone nudged Chris who then nudged me, whispering: “Look up.” The leafy green treetops were festooned with spiders, each as large as my hand, brightly colored like butterflies. It was a rare and glorious sight for our winter-weary Ohio eyes; for the dirt-poor locals, though, these chitinous gems were as commonplace as backyard rats scurrying in treetops.
And spiders inevitably make me think of Cumberland, Rhode Island and the Zen monastery where I used to spend so many weeks–one in winter, up to three in summer–staring at the floor meditating. Sometimes a spider would wander across the field of my vision as I sat staring at the space of wood floor immediatly in front of my mat, the wood-grain morphing into fanciful shapes and faces as my mood and energy ebbed and flowed: now angel, now demon. Whenever an actual sentient being interrupted this karmic play by traipsing, eight-legged and multi-jointed, across the floor in front of me, it was a momentous occasion: finally, something to watch.
Although I watched various spiders while sitting on retreat in Rhode Island, never did I experience the enlightened clarity of mind that would have allowed me to hear the spiders singing. No, all those hours and days and weeks were spent contemplating spiders who remained entirely and utterly silent, although I still harbor a shred of crazy hope…
One year, you see, when Chris and I both sat a week of retreat, in March, during my spring break from teaching–in a word, during a week much like this one, when the earth was on the brink of spring–it also happened to be the last week of our Zen school’s annual 90 day retreat. We ourselves were sitting only one week, but most of the other folks sitting with us had been there, in silence, for three months. The mood was that of barely contained giddiness. The whole monastery had a terminal case of the Ninety-Day Giggles, a situation that was only exacerbated by the fact that the teacher who was leading the retreat had recently gotten engaged to the fellow sitting next to her. For Valentine’s Day, Piotrek had snuck into Jane’s room and used dental floss–the closest thing to a craft supply he could find in the monastery kitchen–to weave a large spiderweb-like tapestry in her window, the words “I love you” and a translucent red cellophane heart, cobbled together from a produce-wrapper, hanging at the center.
Sitting this week of retreat was like meditating in the middle of a big Zen slumber party, the men rough-housing in their rooms while the women giggled in theirs. One guy, though, slept alone in a sleeping bag out on the wooden deck that skirted the glass-windowed dharma room. Surreptitious whispers told the tale: he’d slept outside in his expensive four-season sleeping bag every night, eschewing both bed and bedroom, for the entire retreat: January, February, March. Some nights the snow drifted over his prone sleeping form; he kept alive thanks to the warmth of that four-season bag and the sheer strength of the fire in his belly.
On the last day of the retreat, we gathered in a circle to share a brief word about our experience: a chance to thank teachers, tell embarrassing stories about roommates, and otherwise exercise those long-underused vocal cords. When it came time for Wilderness Man to speak, he wove an intricate rhapsody describing the oneness he’d achieved with nature: at one with snow and cold, he had finally attained the clarity of mind to hear the spiders singing.
“You heard what?” the guy sitting next to him interrupted.
“I heard the spiders singing.” The room shifted in its collective seat, squirming with the tension of stifled giggles that threatening to erupt at any moment.
“Dude, spiders don’t sing. What the hell are you talking about?” The wry skeptic who posed this question was smirking, barely containing his glee at the absurdity of singing spiders. “I mean, maybe you’ve been sleeping alone for too long, dude!” At this the women started giggling, then laughing, Spider Man looking crestfallen and bemused.
“No, really. I heard the spiders singing. They have a clear, high-pitched call: peep, peep!”
“Ah, dude, those aren’t spiders. Those are the damn frogs–spring peepers. They call like that from the pond every spring…”
By this point, all hope was gone: the room was rolling with laughter, sides splitting at the absurdity of singing spiders. Recovering from the initial sting of his mistake–the occurrence he’d taken as a sign of his impending enlightenment was a vernal commonplace–Spider Man too laughed, his first tense giggles cascading into deep-belly guffaws. “Singing spiders: I thought I heard singing spiders! Man, I need to get a room, and a bed, and a woman. Piotrek, you got any more of that dental floss?”
Zen, like spiders, is nothing special. You’ll find it underfoot, in the trees, in your bedroom window, or in your very own fiery belly, anytime and all the time. Even when you think you aren’t looking for it, enlightenment will walk unexpected up your armrest, pale and translucent, seeking you out with its story. And that’s sweeter than any spider-song, and more precious.
-
This entry is my contribution for the Ecotone bi-weekly topic, Spiders and Place. For those of you not familiar with Ecotone, it’s a site “intended as a portal for those who are interested in learning and writing about place.” If you’ve never checked it out, give yourself a treat. If you’ve been there before, take another gander.)
Comments
Source: http://hoardedordinaries.wordpress.com/2004/03/16/caught-in-the-the-web/
rsvp to the anarchid rally
By alembic
This post is my response to ecotone's (March 15, 2004) biweekly topic: Spiders And Place:
On Sunday, which was what, March 14? I was in the early grip of exhaustion from my third bout with some kind of flu bug or other, my throat raw, my mood even crabbier from the unrelenting heat wave that has swept over us in such a rush. There was that March 15 deadline looming over at ecotone, but I thought I would skip this one, for what can I say about spiders, anyway? They dont paralyze me with fear but nor do I go out of my way to hang out in their company. I admit, I am careful to save the odd little spider that comes up the water spout and then promptly gets lost in the vast emptiness of the bathtub.
Then again, most of the spiders I come across in the house or in the garden are small, thin in other words, fragile-looking and in need of protection. (The black widows in the darker recesses of the garage are another subject ... and, having lived this long in California, I know how to spot their presence ... which they certainly advertise with bravado!)
So, imagine my surprise when, at around sunset, I went to close the door to deck off the kitchen area, and, in the window next to the door, I saw the reflection of something rather large, almost bat-like, swaying in an out of focus. Synchronicity, it seems, brought me the opportunity to spot the largest spider I have ever encountered in my backyard so far, and the first one ever to give me a slight shiver. I guess, size does really matter and although 2 inches may not be anything to croon about, when you are a spider, that could put you easily on the smooth road and into the fast lane to boasting. This ferocious arachnid Arnold had already spun a large orb web, which looked like a batters cage as it already covered the upper half of the window.
There wasnt enough light nor did I have the requisite skills to capture the truly frightening hairy features of this creature with my camera, but here is what I stared at through the lens:
My spider encounters didnt end here. This business of synchronicity, like the heat wave, was bent on lasting statements. I was in no mood to make dinner, what with the heat and the flu taunting me, so I decided to go to the store and buy plenty of ingredients for a refreshing salad a version of fatoush salad that I have been perfecting. When I reached into the neat row of hearts of Romaine lettuce, I felt a shock shoot up from the tip of my finger, through my arm, right through my shoulder. I assumed I got an electric shock of sorts, and it wasnt only after a minute or so that I noticed the swelling on my finger. There were no wasps to be seen (aside from those few shoppers that have descended from their well-appointed hives from exclusive neighborhood on the hill behind the store and were walking about with their stinging attitude....). But there were plenty of bugs in the lettuce, as I found out later when I made the salad, all of which made me think that the jolt from finger to shoulder came courtesy of a spider unhappy at the prospect of losing its brunch buffet of bugs at my hands.
So, although I tried my best to avoid writing anything about spiders this week, they spotted me and saw and easy mark. "Hey you," they called, "you have a spinnerette, dont you? Use it then ... make your own orbed web. Thread the words, sticky with the essence of our command performance for this post ... and if you cant catch anything tasty or nourishing this way, know that you were here, snug in the center of your own flimsy web."
Posted by maria at March 16, 2004 11:09 AM
Comments
Oh, my. Terrific and weird, Maria, and I hope your finger is OK.
Posted by: beth on March 16, 2004 11:53 AM
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20040516014526/http://www.ashladle.org/archives/000313.html
Spiders Of The Sea
By Feathers of Hope (Numenius)
It's been a while since I've studied any marine biology, but this Ecotone wiki topic on spiders and place makes me think of pycnogonids. The Pycnogonida are a group of marine arthropods related to the arachnids such as spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks. Another name for the group is the Pantopoda, meaning "all legs", which is pretty much a description of what they look like.
I don't know whether I've seen one live, but they're to be found on the Pacific coast. One list gives nine species for the San Francisco Bay. Around Bodega Bay (home of the Bodega Marine Laboratory), one species Pycnogonum stearnsi is listed as uncommon under rocks (given the locality, I think this means the rocks of the breakwater). Members of its genus feed on coelenterates, especially sea anemones. To quote from Ricketts et al. book Between Pacific Tides:
A border design of these grotesque yet picturesque animals might surround the pen-and-ink representation of a nightmare. Most sea spiders spend part of their tender youth in close juxtaposition to a coelenterate -- the larvae, in fact, usually feed on the juices of their hydroid or anemone host...It is especially common among the caves and crevices of Tomales Bluff, Marin County; sometimes half a dozen occur on a single anemone.
Posted by Numenius at March 16, 2004 11:21 PM
Source: http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/archives/2004/03/16/spiders_of_the_s.html
Fozzy Memories
By Brain Crayons
This week at Ecotone, the topic is Spiders and Place.
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If you live in a house where boys are being raised, you may as well get used to the fact that you will be surrounded by all sorts of creepy, crawly things. Unfortunately, I never did get used to it. Even to this day, I find myself getting the willies when creepy, crawly things find me (and they always do find me).
My youngest son, especially, was a lover of all things creepy and crawly. He especially seemed to have an affinity for lizards. Okay, I am completely aware that they were really called chameleons or geckos or Chinese dragons or some such thing, but as far as I was concerned, they were lizards. He had several aquariums filled with these type creatures in his bedroom. This provided ample reason for me to stay completely away from his room, (as if the mounds of dirty clothes weren't a good enough reason). I learned to tolerate the lizards, mostly by ignoring that they existed.
One summer day, he changed the rules of the game. He came through the front door with a huge smile on his face. He was carrying a little box from the pet store. I didn't want to know. That evening at the dinner table, the boys were doing their usual brotherly bickering. "You tell her." "No, I'm not telling her nothing." This went on for a while until finally the tattletale brother piped up with his squeaky adolescent voice, "Hey, Mom, ask Spike what he brought home today!" I looked at the boys, and they had shiny, eager eyes. I was sure I'd be sorry, but I asked the question. It turns out my son was the proud Papa of a Grammastola rosea, otherwise known as a Chilean Rose Tarantula. He had named him Fozzy, and "did I want to see him up close?" Uhm, no.
I should have just packed my bags and moved into a motel right then and there.
I fussed. I cried. I whimpered. I demanded. I said that I simply would not live in a house with a hairy creepy crawly big spider. I begged their father for assistance in this war against the spider. He simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders with the proverbial "boys will be boys" look on his face. I was doomed.
From that day forward, I avoided that entire wing of the house altogether. I would have had it hermetically sealed if possible. Of course, my son assured me that Fozzy could not escape his aquarium home. He further assured me that tarantulas are actually friendly, and that if I got to know Fozzy, that I would probably love him.
Not likely.
Of course, you know what happened next.
One night at the dinner table, the tattletale son calmly announced, "Did you tell Mom that Fozzy got out last night?" Biscuit midway to my mouth. Me, with frozen look of panic. Son with sheepish grin. Husband shrugging shoulders. From that moment on, I never knew another moment of peace.
Because everyone in the family knew of my arachnid aversion, they took immense pleasure in messing with me at every opportunity. They would creep up behind me to tickle me with feathers, just to see me squeal and jump a foot in the air. Or they would sneak up behind me and drop cotton balls over my shoulder, just close enough to brush my cheek. This was particularly effective in producing and ear-splitting scream, followed immediately by the spider dance. Much fun. Ha-ha-ha. I wasn't laughing.
Approximately one week later. Early Sunday morning. The entire house is awakened by a wallpaper-peeling scream. Youngest son dashes out of his bedroom excitedly exclaiming, "All right! Mom found Fozzy!"
Yes, indeed. Mom trapped in the kitchen, cornered by the biggest, hairiest spider ever to have crossed her unfortunate path. Sons watch Mom squirm. Giggle, giggle. Entire family enjoying the entertainment value of this scene. Well, to be honest, Mom wasn't looking so much like she was having that much fun. Mom was waving a broom over her head, taking careful aim. Youngest son rushes into kitchen and scoops up Fozzy the spider. Waves Fozzy dangerously close to Mom's face. Mom hits the floor in a dead faint.
Now, I've lived to see some pretty terrible things in my life. I've had some rough patches, and been through some seriously difficult times. But the one that did me in was a fuzzy spider named Fozzy. I've never fainted in my life until the day I was forced to look into the eyes of a hairy spider known as Fozzy, as my son dangled him in front of my face. The hairs on my arm still stand straight up if I even try to think about that day.
My family is nothing if not humorous. That Christmas, I received an entirely Fozzy-inspired Christmas. My gifts included the ever-wonderful movie Arachnophobia, as well as a Spiderman watch, and two pounds of Gummi Spiders. My personal favorites were the black plastic spider rings, and the crowning jewel, a 14k gold necklace with a spider pendant.
Thanks to Fozzy, it became a family tradition that every year some sort of spider-themed gift or another would show up under the tree for Mom. My family is not only humorous, they are also very creative. Usually the gift would be wrapped in something original like fake spider webs left-over from Halloween, and the gift card would say something like, "Leggy Love from Fozzy."
I never did learn to love spiders. However, I must admit that after all these years, I've actually grown fond of the Fozzy tradition. How could I not love something that was the source of so much teasing and fun in our family?
I'm just thanking my lucky stars that Fozzy was a spider, (even if he was a rather large and hairy spider). After all, he could have been a snake instead.
In which case, I would have had to move to Cleveland.
Posted by: ntexas99 on Mar 21, 04 | 5:53 am
Comments
This is wonderfully written and gave me smiles! All of your work is well written. I just don't always take the time to tell you, because of my difficulties with comments.
Posted by: Stormwind on Mar 22, 04 | 8:27 pm
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20051122142705/http://www.braincrayons.com/comments.php?id=92_0_1_0_C
Mar 16, 2004 at 8:25 am
I’m reminded of two things right away:
1. Regarding the “peep”ing spiders: Sankara’s example of the rope we think is a snake but which, upon closer examination, turns out merely to be a rope– an example of “subration,” moving from lower truth to higher truth, clearer seeing.
2. Regarding where we “find” Zen: I think of Yoda’s sermon on the Force, one of only two such theological speeches in the first Star Wars trilogy: “You must feel the Force around you– between you, me, the tree, the rock– yes, everywhere! Even between the land and the ship.”
Alas, Luke Skywalker’s reply to his teacher is a bitter dismissal: “You are impossible.”
That’s where many of us buttmonkeys find ourselves– stuck in the realm of the impossible, not realizing we’re only a stifled fart away from the ordinary and actual.
Kevin
Mar 16, 2004 at 10:02 am
This is awesome, on so many levels.
I almost didn’t read it, as I am a certified aracnaphobe, and once I saw that you were writing about those THINGS I almost stopped…but I’m glad I didn’t.
The subtle but strong transition from the spider on your chair to where you find Zen was like a lullaby, both in concept and in writing.
Thanks!
Mar 17, 2004 at 10:43 pm
Kevin, you too are impossible. That, of course, means you are like Yoda, and we all love you for it!
Zenchick, I’m so glad you stuck around to read the whole post since it wasn’t “really” about spiders after all. When I was a kid, I was so terrified of spiders & bugs, I was afraid to *touch* any book with *pictures* of bugs in it. I somehow thought the pictures would come alive & crawl on me (eww!)