Delight was not the primary emotion I experienced when I encountered these garden spiders in the prairie plantings on campus earlier this month. Especially when I looked up from photographing a clump of seedheads and realized I was nearly surrounded by garden spiders and their webs. Despite fond memories of Charlotte's Web, and appreciation for the way Charlotte uses her writing/weaving skills to come to the aid of Wilbur the pig, my visceral images were more of Bilbo's encounter with giant spiders, and of the giant spiders in the forest at Hogwarts. Thanks a lot, Tolkien and Rowling. And it is really not fair. Garden spiders are harmless -- to humans anyway. Their webs are works of art I can appreciate, especially when they catch early morning light in a dewy outline. I'm sure there is a plethora of fascinating things to be learned by those willing to look at the spider with a attentive, compassionate spirit. Still, my first reaction is an "Ewww," especially with these large garden spiders. And why is that? They are no bigger than a monarch butterfly, and their color scheme -- yellow and black -- is not far from the orange and black of a monarch. Yet I'm drawn to the butterfly and flinch from the spider. I set my spider photos aside, unable to see a spark of delight in them. And then I read this poem by Mary Oliver, from her book Swan: poems and prose poems. And I take delight in her attentive, compassionate perspective. Ah, yes. Spider, butterfly, human, all doing our best to create our homes and find food, making our way as best we can in this pretty, this perilous world. Torn I tore the web of a black and yellow spider in the brash of weeds and down she came on her surplus of legs each of which touched me and really the touch wasn't much but then the way if a spider can she looked at me clearly somewhere between outraged and heartbroken made me say "I'm sorry to have wrecked your home your nest your larder" to which she said nothing only for an instant pouched on my wrist then swung herself off on the thinnest of strings back into the world. The pretty, this perilous world. Mary Oliver And just in case you need a break from looking at spiders, here's another image from the same day.
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We had our first frost the night before last, so yesterday we woke to a frost covered yard. The rest of the day was clear and sunny, so mid-afternoon I wandered over to the prairie plantings on campus to see how things were doing. There is quite a mix of flowers gone to seed and flowers still opening blooms. I was examining some seed heads when two grade school children from a nearby house waded through the plantings to see what I was doing. They were friendly and curious, so we talked about the prairie plants for awhile before the brother headed back to their swing set.
His sister stayed and watched. I was trying to get a photo of a big brown grasshopper, but it kept leaping away. She tried to catch it for me and told me about finding little green grasshoppers in the field earlier. I told her that this one might be one of those -- that they get bigger and browner as they get older. She nodded and thought about the way things change color as they get older. "Like grandmas!" she said, looking at my white hair with a big smile. "Like grandmas," I agreed, though I'm not one yet. Grandmas and grasshoppers and all things grow and change. This past week we slipped from summer into autumn, and the trees are beginning to turn vibrant colors, and the smaller plants are turning brown. Or white, like grandmas. Either way, there is an abundance of seeds, so the cycle of growth and change will continue. To everything .....turn, turn, turn...... There is a season.....turn, turn, turn.... And a time to every purpose, under heaven. From the opening lines of Dewdrops on Spiderwebs, by Susan Classen: I am the breeze that nurtures all things green. I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits. I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life. God speaks to Hildegard of Bingen, 11th century The other day my eye was caught by the sunlight streaming through the leaves of one of my geraniums. These shots fit well with one of the meditations in Classen's book that tells of a child just back from a school class field trip in the fall. "Look!" she exclaimed. "This leaf is orange. This one is orange and green. And look at this one," she added excitedly, "It's all green!" When a green leaf calls forth awe and wonder, then all life is budding with reasons to celebrate! p. 38 We'll soon be seeing orange and red leaves again, but in the meantime, let's celebrate all things green. And things blue -- though if your downloaded image of this dragonfly is big enough, you'll see the green as well.
Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish Carmelite nun and mystic, uses a metaphor of the silkworm for talking about the soul's journey toward union with God: You must have already heard about His marvels manifested in the way silk originates, for only He could have invented something like that. . . .The worms nourish themselves on mulberry leaves until, having grown to full size, they settle on some twigs. There with their little mouths they themselves go about spinning the silk and making some very thick little cocoons in which they enclose themselves. The silkworm, which is fat and ugly, then dies, and a little white butterfly, which is very pretty, comes forth from the cocoon. Now if this were not seen but recounted to us as having happened in other times, who would believe it? . . .Teresa, The Interior Castle She goes on to equate the silkworm with the soul coming to life, and the cocoon time with resting in prayer in Christ.
Now, then, let's see what this silkworm does, for that's the reason I've said everything else. When the soul is, in this prayer, truly dead to the world, a little white butterfly comes forth. Oh, greatness of God! How transformed the soul is when it comes out of this prayer after having been placed within the greatness of God and so closely joined with Him for a little while...Teresa, The Interior Castle This is a season for butterflies and moths of all colors, all of whom have gone through their own time of transformation. We celebrated Labor Day by cleaning out the garage, resulting in one trip to the recycling center, one pile to be put out with the trash later this week, another pile ready to be hauled to the Depot, and a somewhat tidier garage with room for all the bikes. We also took an early morning walk along the millrace, soon after sunrise, and enjoyed the light on the plants along the water's edge, and the close encounters with miniscule wildlife. (Even though we didn't find any monarch chrysalis hanging from a milkweed leaf.) This seems to be the season for spiky purple plants in my garden -- salvia, sage, lavender, hyssop, butterfly bush. The butterflies are loving it. While the overall effect is spires of purple, when you focus in on the shapes of the individual blossoms, what a variety of shapes! Butterfly bush has a fanfare of trumpets with fire at their hearts -- and the underside of this swallowtail butterfly echoes the fire with its own refrain of orange and blue.
There was just enough breeze the other night to make this web dance slightly in the light, sending out shimmers of light which caught my attention -- and then, fortunately, enough of a lull that the photo came out as something other than a blur. This metallic green bee appeared to have dipped his pantaloons in bright yellow paint. Dragonfly at rest -- and then catching the light.
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My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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