Tag: Spider

A Work of Art

Sometimes the simple geometries of The Wild stagger me.

Consider a simple (simple???) spider web. The elegance, the symmetry.

Now consider how many years of evolution it took to get it just right.

Now recognize that evolution is still happening. What we recognize as a spider’s web is what a spider’s web is at this moment in time. Who knows what they, and spiders themselves, will be in another million years.

I saw a video once of a spider thinking.

It chilled me once I understood what was happening.

A spider and some insect were in a control setting and separated by a pool of water about a foot across. The spider saw the insect. The pool was too big to leap, too deep to wade, and extended to both sides of the setting so the spider couldn’t go around it. A fan produced a light breeze from the spider’s side of the pool to the insect’s side, and a small, flat piece of cork floated on the spider’s side of the pool. Not out of the water, just on that side of the pool.

The spider went back and forth along the “shore” line a few times, always coming back to the cork.

It got on the cork, lifted its spinnerets into the breeze, sent a line over to the insect’s side, then pulled itself across on the cork.

The spider reasoned out a solution to its problem.

I don’t want to encounter human sized spiders.

 

Grandmother Spirit Dines

Such a beautiful lady.

So regal.

So tidy.

Good housekeepers, these.

Their threads extensions of themselves, their way of exploring their cosmos.

But not to conquer, not to vanquish, not to acquire.

When their needs are met, they rest.

Never asking more than is required, never taking more than they need.

Strong teachers, they.

 

Babies

There is joy in new life.

When the life is different from us, more joy.

There are things in The Wild some find disturbing.

I understand.

Some in The Wild are dangerous because their evolutionary track granted them venoms and poisons and abilities our evolutionary track denied us.

So the disturbing attitude goes both ways.

They may disturb us, we may disturb them.

All the more reason for understanding, me thinks.

Both intraspecies and interspecies, meaning amongst our own kind and amongst those not of our kind.

Preferably before it’s too late.