Pretty and Perilous World

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.