In order to bloom, all of us need a root system. For well over a month now I have been rooted in observing an Orb-weaver garden spider who spun her web near my back door. Because she is never around during the day, I’ve become a night watcher. I check on her before I go to bed and again early in the morning when it is still dark. Once I found her in the center of her web at twilight. But usually, she arrives after dusk and leaves before sunrise. I’ve been heart deep in the river of observer, grounded in a regular practice of watching. Because I see the spider only briefly in the dark of night, never staying long so that I won’t disturb her, what I have really been observing is the state of her web. It’s perfectly formed at dawn and always in disarray, torn or tattered as the day wears on. Each night she repairs her web and it is spectacular.
Yesterday morning I did not visit the spider like I usually do. She was thriving the night before and after so many weeks I had come to feel she was a constant. Keenly aware that one day she would finish her cycle and leave. Meanwhile a steady center to my days and nights. Instead, I was in a hurry to begin my morning walk. I like to walk when the morning air is cool and already it was sunny and warm.
When I returned at first all I saw was no web. Nothing. It was gone. What remained was three slender threads leading from the juniper bush to the eaves just below the roof. I know she spends her days tucked into the eaves. I’ve seen her there. But now she was gone and had taken her web with her. She probably ate the silk. The protein from the silk is never wasted. It goes into the silk glands to be made into a new web. Or perhaps her life cycle was over. I had become so fluent in her rhythms and now I realized that I was going to have to learn to live without her. Never mind that this is the law of nature and the law of everything we love with our whole heart, there will always come an ending, a time when we must part. Yet my sadness knew no bounds. I felt joy too. This was likely a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I’d had my once.
Then last night in the cool of the evening light, just before dark, I went to stand near the place where her web once was. And there she was, at the top of one of the left-behind slender threads, near the eaves. I’ve not seen her again. But that last moment together is all I need to go the distance and live forever on gratitude.
