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Spiders are everywhere this time of year and there’s only the reality of life and sudden death down at the spider's level.
I love spiders. My first tattoo was a very large spider on my left forearm. I carry her with me to remind me of her wisdom. Spiders established their own web sites long before any of us appeared on the scene and each species has its own distinct, inherited pattern. Spiders create from their own bodies. The building of a web starts with a single, super-strength strand of silk that is spun by specialized spinnerets. Spider doesn’t force or squeeze, she just releases the silk from her body and then trusts the wind to carry the filament across wide intervals of space, sometimes a mere four feet, sometimes across an entire river. Spider creates and releases until this strand of silk connects with something. This is called kiting, this allowing to be carried by the breeze, not knowing. Spider knows when there’s something in the air. If for some reason the strand doesn’t make contact with something and attach, spider will often gobble up the strand and recycle its protein and try again. Once connection is made, spider sets to work reinforcing the strand and then uses it to begin building the web. Sometimes this single bridge thread is left in place overnight marking or claiming territory, and the web building begins the following day. I don’t know about you but most often when I’m ready to create something I experience a certain amount of fear and uncertainty, usually stemming from the fact that I don’t know the how of it, and sometimes I don’t even know the what. I just know. Spider reminds me that all I need to do is remember and trust. Remember that I create from the very substance of myself, my body. Remember that I know how to build a web and that each one of them carries my own distinct, inherited pattern. Remember that I need only to release and then trust. Trust that my silken thread, be it delicate and fine or thick and strong, will be carried by the breeze of life and it will attach somewhere and then I can begin. A spider builds her web because she’s hungry. Being hungry is about being alive. What are you hungry for? Ingrid, the Rune Woman Wise and Irreverent Awaken Your Hunger
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You walk your way in and you must walk your way out. The experience of the journey often feels surreal as it seems you have already been in this place before. You have and yet you have not for you are doubling back in twists and turns and once you reach the center your return is the same path, only in reverse. This is the labyrinth.
My friend Clare of Tiger Food Press in North Portland, Oregon says that printing something with moveable type is the same process. I can and must believe her. I haven't done it myself. She has done it. She printed my book (un) familiar with her letter press. So she has and does and will continue to do so. Walking the labyrinth with her printing press. The letters must be set by hand, one at a time, with much care and attention as they are opposite of the way they are viewed when read. They produce an image in reverse. As each word is formed and spacers are set, it must feel much like the walk; I have been here before but not really. And when you reach the center, which is the actual experience of pressing the type into, not just on to, the paper, then you must turn and walk your way out. You must remove the type, one letter at a time. The type is changed some how by the pressing, as you are changed some how by the walking. The type is different. You are different. You have both experienced the pressing which was the creation of something new. It is a pilgrimage, a journey made by a foreigner. It is a sojourn, the distance you can walk in a day. What are you hungry for? Ingrid the Rune Woman Wise and Irreverent IngridKincaid.com Two books. The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau The Way of the Traveler by Joseph Dispenza |
title Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash
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