I've been feeling unable to "center" ever since the election, confronting the division and hostility that seems to be overtaking our country so quickly. I guess the image of "a webbed vision" seemed important, along with circles...............
“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of
relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk,
yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”
Catherine Keller, Theologian, From
a Broken Web (1989)
Years ago I climbed
the Superstition Mountains in Arizona, just outside of Phoenix, where I used to live. It was a long and hot climb, and I was
exhausted when at last I sat beneath a mesquite tree to enjoy a panoramic view
of the Sonoran desert below. The
silence was broken only by the sound of wind whistling through the needles of
the great saguaro cactus, and an occasional cry of a red tailed hawk circling
overhead.
I happened to
be sitting before a spider web, stretched between two dry branches. By shifting my point of view I could view the entire landscape through the
web’s intricate, transparent pattern…..a
landscape seen through the
ineffable strands of an almost, but not quite, invisible web that shimmered with the currents
of the air.
I think I’ve
been seeking “a webbed vision” ever since, trying to reclaim that overlay and
underlay of an invisible, yet tangible inclusiveness - to see the links,
instead of the breaks and tears, beneath everything. I’ve been on the trail of Spider Woman.
The Pueblo people, from northern New Mexico to the
mesas of Arizona, still inhabit their ancestral lands. They are descendants of the ancient Anasazi
peoples, who built cliff dwellings and ceremonial centers throughout the area
over millennia, including the famous Chaco Canyon. Spider was the first weaver, bringing
order and form, balance and symmetry to the primal, formless chaos. Spider Woman is also called Tse Che Nako, Thought Woman, the “one who creates the world with the
stories she tells”. The
world shaping power of story is also a gift she gives to her relations - an
eternally generative thread.
Stories don't end after we close the book, or turn off
the electronic box. When we talk about “spinning a tale“ we’re
participating in something that has to potential to keep evolving, generation
into generation, from the waking world to the dreamtime, back into the past,
and forward into the stories of those who are yet to come. So what kind of stories are we telling about
being in the world, about being a part of the world?
The Navajo (who call themselves the Dinah) revere Spider Woman (Na'ashje'ii
sdfzq'q) for teaching them how to weave, which may be seen as a spiritual
practice more than simply a craft. Wool
rugs often have “Spiderwoman's Cross” woven into the pattern, representing the union
of the four directions. Some Navajo
weavers, it's said, still leave a flaw in the work - because the only perfect
web is that of Grandmother Spider Woman, the first weaver. To the Navajo,
Spider Woman is a wise guide but one must be prepared to listen.2 Spider Woman is a bridge that allows a certain
kind of knowledge to be transmitted from the sacred dimension to the mundane
among those who have been initiated and can thus be receptive to her
teachings. To immature eyes she will
appear only as an insignificant insect, a web invisible, unseen and unheard.
Weaving and spinning, the creation of baskets and rugs
from cotton (and later wool) was important throughout native America,
just as it has been in other parts of the world. It was both a practical and a
holy activity, and is usually associated with women. Among the Maya, Ix
Chel was an important earth goddess, matron of childbirth and weaving. She
was reincarnated as the Aztec Goddess Tlazolteotl, “the great weaver”,
illustrated in Aztec art holding spindles and with strands of cotton fibers in
her earrings.
In shell ornaments belonging to the Mound Builders,
the prehistoric Mississippian people, a ubiquitous spider with a cross within a
circle on its back symbol occurs. And
among the Osage, until little more than a generation ago, important women had spiders
tattooed on the backs of their hands.
Spider Woman
has a way of getting around. Some say that the World Wide Web is her
latest appearance. Although she can
be found in the canyons and deserts of the Americas, her archetype is found in
many other places and times. In the
Odyssey there is the faithful wife Penelope who wove and unwove a shroud
each night as she waited for Odysseus.
Yet the name Penelope probably derives from a much earlier oracular or
fate goddess, because it means "with a web on her face". Another way of translating the origins of
this name might be expressed as one who “sees with a webbed vision”
Spider Woman wove the world with the stories she told, and she reveals the timeless web of interdependency that unites all beings. Even today, among some Navajo when a girl is born a spider web is rubbed into her hands so she will become a good weaver.
May we all be good weavers, rubbing a bit of spider
web into our palms.
References:
Loftin, John D., Religion and Hopi Life, Second Edition,
Indiana University Press, 1988
Keller, Catherine, From a Broken Web , Thames & Hudson,
1989
Patterson-Rudolph, Carol, On the Trail of Spiderwoman,
Ancient City Press, 1997
Franke, Judith A., The Gift of Spider Woman, Dickson Mounds Museum, “The Living Museum”, volume
61, No. 2, 1999
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