Her eyes followed the butterfly as it passed from flower to flower – and as it fluttered and dipped and rose in the morning sunlight, it took her soul and lifted it to the sun and she found lightness and joy in the swoop of its fluttering wings.
What heaviness that had been there dropped away and in that second she understood the diaphanous nature of time .. that time was illusion and life hung in a moment spread between the petals of a flower. hung like the spider web spangled with dew.
Her garden spider.. every day she stopped just for a few moments to say ‘Hello’ to the fat spider hung between the orange tree and the scraggly and unruly lemon tree.. the guide ‘wires’ of its web attaching firmly across the narrow path between the two trees.. no longer used as a path .. the way blocked by a strategically placed old green plastic chair – a reminder that ‘here is the spiders web.. do not disturb.. walk around .. not this way’.
The spider.. its larder string like a thread of pearls .. all bundled up above her in a line.. the fodder for the coming famine.. every day the line of embalmed and bundled prey growing longer and more intricately stored.
And then suddenly the spider who had been so fat .. was suddenly only half her size .. and if I looked closely tiny clones were shown throughout the web.. she had birthed her offspring.. but still she hangs there.
This morning when I looked .. the sun behind her web I was gifted the view of an incredible spinning and weaving .. the sun shining golden through the web of the night’s work.. intricate pattern of beauty.
I am so thankful to the spider.. she shows me stillness and strength and perseverance and trust.. for she hangs in her web so faithfully every day.. that web so tenuous but so strong.. that web that could be swept away in an instant by a careless human blundering through the timeless nature of the Golden Orb.