"The Hands of Spider Woman" .... Excerpt from "A WEBBED VISION"

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 

I began this Blog in 2007 when I went to Michigan on a Fellowship with Aldon B. Dow Creativity Center and Northwood University.  The basis for my Fellowship was a personal and Community Arts Project I developed based on the ubiquitous Native American "Legends of the Spider Woman". .... a mythic Presence throughout the Americas that has called to me for many years.  My quest to "follow the trail of Spider Woman" has been fraught with beauty, synchronicities, and many conversations with kindred souls.  

The Dictionary defines an "archetype" as: 

"the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.  (in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches."

I suppose the mythic and conversant intimacy I feel with "Spider Woman" could thus be explained, by a psychologist,  as the 'presence of a universal archetype that has inspired me'.  I do live in the Southwest, and pentimentoes of the earlier Native American cultures are ever beneath the surface.  I tend to think that "archetypes" are not just psychological patterns, but that they  have a primal life of their own, and they grow and change through time and culture.  Even saying that, it doesn't quite ring true for me.  Spider Woman has been a mentor and guiding intelligence for me, and She has an important message for us all in this time.   She, in my opinion, is not confined to any one culture or time or interpretation - She is simply too big for that!

Spider Woman (called by the Keresan Pueblo people Tse Che Nako, "Thought Woman") is an  archetype that occurs, with many variations,  from the Mayan Earth Mother to the Spider and Cross symbol found among early Mississippian Mound Builders to the Great Weaver of the Navajo, and a Creatrix figure among  the Pueblo peoples.

The Mayan and Hopi Calendars ended in 2012, signalling the end of the Fourth Age and the  advent of the Fifth Age.   Among  Pueblo legends it is Spider Woman who comes at the end of each Age to lead the "new people" through the Kiva hole (which might be seen as a birth canal) into the next World. 
 

"Kiva at Spruce Tree House" by Adam Baker

I believe She calls to us now, across the ages and across human cultures, to remember that we also are "making the world with the stories we tell", and that at the core of the New Story that MUST ARISE for us to survive into the next Age there is the profound truth of the unity and  inter-dependency of  all life.  The "Great Web" that lies beneath and above and within every manifestation.  

Perhaps the World Wide Web, within which I write, is Her latest appearance......

I've just begun to return to that body of work I did recently, to the many many images I have done over the years that are Woven, Rooted, Webbed..........and I find I do not speak this woven language alone, I have many, many colleagues who are also "Spider Woman's grandchildren".    Among my archives I  found a short excerpt from  a performance piece with two "voices" I wrote some 12 years ago, and never developed.........but I felt like sharing it here.

There is a simple Loom on stage. Long threads extend in various ways from the Loom, some disappearing off stage.  A woman sits musing at the loom.  

Weaver (Voice 1):

At the very very very very very
small quantum level
it gets strange, very strange indeed.

It seems that particles, the playful dust motes of eternity,
can be both solid, and not solid
particles, and waves,
form and not form
Depending upon where the observer is,
who the observer is,
and what the observer is thinking.

Form, it would seem, has an identity crisis.



Voice 2 (off stage, unseen):

Tse che nako
Thought-Woman,
is sitting and thinking as she weaves.

She thought about her two daughters
and together they created this world
and the four worlds below.

The spider, Thought-Woman,
named all things
and as she named them
they appeared. She is thinking of a story now
and the story I'm telling you
she is thinking
as I'm telling you

Weaver (Voice 1):

Water, Dr. Masuru Emoto has discovered,
Is talking to us all the time.
We can learn to listen he says
by freezing water, 
and observing what happens to the crystals that form

"Water", he writes, "exposed to the words "thank you"
 formed beautiful geometric crystals, no matter what language was spoken. 
But water exposed to "you fool" and other degrading words
resulted in broken and deformed crystals."

What's a word, but a crystallization of a thought?

Last night I wrote "thank you" on my water bottle
with a magic marker
I am drinking gratitude now


Voice 2 (off stage, unseen)

Tsityostinako the Spider was called
"thought woman" by Pueblo people
because they believe Her thoughts 
are always becoming something.

Tsityostinako lives
at the empty  Center of the Web
singing  the world into being
with the stories She tells.  

"Your father", she told her daughters,
"lives in the Sky, 
but we live here, in the land and in the red  clay,
and among the leaves, and the night,
and the day, and the animals, and those who fly,
and swim, in all the peoples of the worlds."

Then She taught Her daughters how to sing.

"Here's a basket for each of you", She said,
"filled with seeds, and little pictures of animals.
Go plant what's in each basket
at the four quarters of the world,
and everywhere in between."

And that's how her granddaughters the Yellow Women
were born, along with corn and mesquite and coyotes,
and that's how Sun Youth,
and Spider woman's grandsons
the Warrior Twins were born.
And ravens, and wrens,
and eagles and mice
and how all this world
become populated.

Weaver (Voice 1):

Grandmother Spider can be so small,
like a spider, very difficult to see.
Each strand She spins is so transparent
so invisible,
you'll never see it
unless you learn to look
in a certain way.

So small and yet  everywhere
always there, maybe, whispering in the wind,
on your shoulder, even  now, as you ask
these questions with an open heart. 
Always there, talking,
trying to help Her grandchildren.


Voice 2 (off stage, unseen)

She is sitting in her room now,
thinking up a good story,
an old story, 
a New Story:

I'm telling you
the story 
She is thinking.

Empathy is the Next Human Evolution

“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,  From a Broken Web

Here is something  I believe is at the heart of what the archetype of  Spider Woman means to me, what Her evolutionary work (remember the many Pueblo  legends of Spider Woman being the "Midwife" of each new age?  I wrote a bit about this on the advent of 2012).  In these sacred stories of the birth of each age, and the ending of the old age, it is Spider Woman who leads the people through the Kiva, or birth canal, into the new world. 

Spider Woman, the great Weaver, weaving the world with the stories that She tells, casting a thread to the new people, a thread of the great Web that resonates with every other thread.

I like to think that the Internet is Her latest appearance.  

Photo by J.J. Idarius

“Hope now lies in moving beyond our past in order to build together a sustainable future for all the interwoven and interdependent life on our planet, including the human element.

We will have to evolve now into a truly compassionate and tolerant world – because for the first time since the little tribes of humanity’s infancy, everyone’s well being is once again linked with cooperation for survival.  Our circle will have to include the entire world.”

Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad,

from The Guru Papers

As  I think about how I and friends and colleagues are going to the World Parliment on Religion in Salt Lake City this October (thanks to Macha Nightmare), it seems to me that Grandmother Spider Woman is a deity who should, and will, be there, although perhaps little spoken of.  But as so many have said so much more eloquently than I, the new and ancient  theology for a global civilization facing a global crisis must ultimately be a theology of holy  inter-dependancy. 

Interconnectedness, Spiritual Ecology, quontum entanglement.  And I also believe there is a profound need for new forms of spiritual iconography and meaningful  ritual  that reflects that paradigm of ultimate unity...........work for artists of all kinds. 

 

"What is the new mythology to be, the mythology of this unified earth as of one harmonious being?"

 Joseph Campbell, from "The Power of Myth" (with Bill Moyers)

To me Spider Woman is also about synchronicity, that vast, mysterious, and sometimes funny as well,  Web of Being that underlies our lives.  So interestingly, as I was contemplating all of this, along with practical matters like hotels, I received an interesting email from Trish  and Rob Macgregor, a writer team exploring Synchronicity (among many other things) whose Blog I often visit for its wise, and often surprising, articles.  Trish and Rob are working on an article about "planetary empaths", and wanted to know what I and others thought the world might be like in 15 years or so, if we had any impressions.  There's a bit of  Spider Woman forcing me to stop and think, and I copy how I responded to their question below. 

I'd like to explore this idea much more in the future, because I think it really is important.......

Hi Trish,

Funny, I've been reading a lot of articles lately on empathy (came up on Facebook), and the word keeps turning up, including my own recent article.  

I think strongly that the next human evolution is not intellectual, or technological, or even cultural - it's empathic.  We feel ourselves connected to each other and to the planet in its diversity. Understanding and maturing this process would create entirely different kinds of appropriate human societies.  This idea ("the next human evolution is one of empathy") is a thought that keeps coming into my mind for the past few years, and lately I've been seeing it discussed in different contexts, so I am not alone in this idea arising into the collective consciousness.  

 And I don't think empathy is the same as "telepathy" - empathy is the emotional body, and evolution of empathy means helping the emotional body or emotional mind, individually and collectively, to mature, be discerning (because being an empath means you take on every one's stuff, and often don't know where it's coming from, or you think it is you, or you just get sick)......and find a different kind of  language for perception, healing, and energy exchange, one that is based on a fundamental understanding, emotional understanding, of deep interconnection.  

So having written that...........I think that those seeds of change, and many individuals who are highly empathic, are here, trying to germinate, especially in response to the pain and crisis of the planet.  

But taking root.............I strongly feel that such ideas and groups and individuals as well will need to be in small communities, possibly alternative communities of various kinds, certainly they will need support groups............because  they will have a hard time surviving in the face of all the conflict and confusion (and violence) that I am certain is coming.  Our civilization is not sustainable, nor is our economic system, and all kinds of reactionary forces (Republicans, right wing patriarchs, fundamentalist religions, and all kinds of racial scapegoating as people look for someone to blame) will continue to arise as times become more difficult, and resources more limited.  

And yet..........I have a real sense of, well, hope?  I see all kinds of good things happening that you won't hear on Fox news.  I almost feel that empaths are a response to our need for planetary evolution - they arise from a greater purpose, perhaps, from the mind of Gaia.  

Does that make sense?  Thanks for asking me the question..................

" The new myth coming into being through the triple influence of quantum physics, depth psychology and the ecological movement suggests that we are participants in a great cosmic web of life, each one of us indissolubly connected with all others through that invisible field.   It is the most insidious of illusions to think that we can achieve a position of dominance in relation to nature, life or each other. In our essence, we are one."

Anne Baring

THREADS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN - some random notes

Ts' its' tsi' nako, Thought-Woman
is sitting in her room,  and what ever she thinks about appears.
Thought-Woman, the spider
named things and as she named them they appeared.
She is sitting in her room thinking of a story now:

I'm telling you the story She is thinking. 3

 

Keresan Pueblo Proverb  (3)

Native stories don't end after two hours in a theatre, or when we turn off the electronic box. Like the Hands of Spider Woman, they keep spinning and evolving, generation into generation, from the waking world to the dreamtime. Storytelling, in native traditions, is more than a way to pass on history and religious beliefs to the next generation - it is also a ceremony that acts as a link between the mythical beings and the people themselves, whose ritual life is based on the mythic cycles. This is the same way sacred masks, throughout the world, are regarded and used - as doorways into the realms of the deities.

Spider Woman appears in stories throughout the Americas, indeed, throughout the world. My inspiration is derived from her potent presence in the Southwestern part of the United States, where I live, which includes the rich cultural traditions of the Pueblo Indians and
the Navajo. The Pueblo Indians refers to many native peoples living there, from northern New Mexico to the Hopi mesas of Arizona, with many unique cultural differences. These people are believed to be the descendants of the vanished Anasazi who built cities, cliff dwellings, and ceremonial centers throughout the area.

In Pueblo mythology Thought Woman, Sun Father, and Corn Mother are the most important deities. These primal deities are each powerful, but they are also interdependent. Thought Woman/Spider Woman is the creatrix of the universe, which she sometimes initiates alone, and sometimes in partnership with the Sun. The creative impulse is something Thought Woman passes on, originating from the Web's center a generative process continually expanding through her daughters, sons, and a non-human pantheon of relations as well.

There are also tales (among the Hopi) that say Spiderwoman, with Sun Father, fashioned the very first people (which also included two-legged people) from red clay. When ceramic artist Kathy Space and I began our community sculpture project in Midland, Michigan (2007), we conceived of “prayer ties” to unify a mosaic composed of casts of participants’ hands and faces. This variation on Spider Woman Web seemed like another “thread“ to envision the telling. A Web of minds and hands, made of red terra cotta clay. Terra. The good red earth, the color of life, of blood, of vitality.

A "Spider and Cross" symbol is found, ubiquituous, among the prehistoric Mississippian people thorughout the South and Midwest, and a Spider Woman, who is also a variation of Mother Earth, is found among the Maya.  The Navajo (who call themselves the “Dine” which means “the people”) revere Grandmother Spider Woman ('Na'ashje'ii sdfzq'q) because she taught them how to weave.

According to cultural anthropologist Carol Patterson-Rudolph,

"The Navajo have their own version of Spider Woman. As with all metaphors, Spider Woman is a bridge that allows a certain kind of knowledge to be transmitted from the mundane to the sacred dimension.........they believe that an individual must undergo an initiation before he or she can be fully receptive to this kind of knowledge. Thus, to the eyes of the uninitiated, Spider Woman appears merely as an insect, and her words go unheard. But to the initiated whose mind has been opened the voice of this tiny creature can be heard. This is the nature of wisdom, c0nveyed through the metaphor of Spider Woman. 1"

Spider Woman (who lives, the Navajo say, on Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly) is always available to help her descendants. She can best be heard in the wind (or on the transparent threads of synchronicities) - if one is quiet, and prepared to listen.

Navajo rugs often have Spiderwoman’s Cross woven into the pattern. The cross of Spider Woman, it seems to me, is another very important symbol for our time, because it represents balance - the union of the 4 directions or 4 elements. The fifth element is the unifying force, the mystery at the center. To “walk in beauty” is to be aware of a “moving point of balance” as we walk across the land, and walk through the circles of our lives and relationships.

Spider Woman has a way of getting around.

Although she can be found in the canyons and deserts and prairies and forests of the Americas (and stories about the Yellow Women, and “Born from the Water” and “Monster Slayer“, and Evil Katchina, and many others, are well worth the telling) - it seems her grandchildren traveled to many other places and times as well. Perhaps she was once Neith, the primal weaver of ancient Egypt. In Celtic lore she has her hand on the web of the Wyrd, and in India, there is the great Jewel Net of Indra, wherein each gem infinitely reflects every other gem. Among the Greeks she gave Theseus a thread to guide him through his labyrinth - a thread not unlike the same threads she casts to you, and to me, now and then, on our own heroes journeys.

And today? Well, there are many contemporary ways Spiderwoman makes herself known. Ecologists speak of the great Web of life, while physicists speak of entanglement theory. I like to think that the Internet is Spiderwoman's latest appearance. I have the feeling She’s working very hard now to make us pay attention.

Because the truth of Spiderwoman's Web is really very simple. All my efforts to make a more complex tale have failed, and I can summarize it like this:

We're woven into the world,
and the world is woven into us.

We’re weaving the world into being with the stories we tell, right now. 

A cultural paradigm is founded upon mythic roots - the "warp and woof"2 from which the ideas of a culture grow. So what are those threads? Do they show us how to “walk in beauty” as the Navajo teach? Because to "walk in beauty" is not just a personal practice. It's a blessing in motion for all our myriad relations. Each of us is holding a thread, a lineage, that goes back in time and extends far into the future, a weave we participate in with our thoughts, our dreams, and the manifest creative work of our hands. So perhaps the only real question is also an ethical question, as well as a creative one. “What are we weaving?”

I have found that Spiderwoman delights in all things connected, co-creative, collaborative, cooperative, communicative - all those “co” words. Warp and weft. May we all be conscious weavers, beautiful weavers. For our children, for all our relations, for the future.

My gratitude to:

The Aldon B. Dow Fellowship, The Puffin Foundation, Kathy and Steve Space and Space Studio, and you - for weaving this story with me.

Lauren Raine, 2007

Beauty is above me

Beauty is below me

Beauty is beside me

Beauty is before me

Beauty is behind me

 Dine Blessing Way Chant

1 Patterson-Rudolph, Carol, "On the Trail of Spiderwoman", 1997, Ancient City Press, p. 82

2 "warp and woof : the foundation or base of something." [ Old English owef "weave on" <>

3 Keresan Pueblo Creation Myth - Patterson-Rudolph, Carol, "On the Trail of Spiderwoman", Ibid.