Spider Woman in the Bathroom Drain
While brushing my teeth in my normal mad dash to get my son to school and me to work in the morning, a small black spider walked out of the drain and tried to jump out of the bathroom sink. Instinctively, I pushed her down and let the water take her back down the drain.
Right before the water swirled her back into the hole from which she came, I thought "Shoot, is this a sign?" I grabbed by Medicine Cards book to look up the meaning of pulling the Spider card. I searched through the deck until I found the right card. Spider medicine represents our creativity. "Great!" I thought, "I just flushed my creativity down the drain." I also took a look at the Pueblo story about the creation of the world. My hunch was right. Spider Woman. She wove all of creation from the web of her thoughts.
For those of us interested in the divine feminine we know that both the spider and the snake are part of our heritage. I knew as soon as I sent that spider down the drain, I had rejected, without even thinking, some part of myself. What gave me the most pause was how little thought, how un-present, I was to that morning moment in the bathroom. Some of you will think I am nuts - all of this because of a spider? Perhaps. But I believe it is precisely through small moments like this that the sacred feminine shows her face to us. Are we moving too fast to notice? Often times for me, the answer is yes.
I spent the morning occasionally come back to this question. How have I been killing my creativity lately? Seriously, is the late night guilty pleasure of CSI TV really bringing me closer to my source? Is it helping me find a way to birth my creativity? Not so much. Surely I can spend some time finding a channel for creativity – writing, my blog, photography, drawing. The options are endless.
Am I slowing down enough to notice life as it unfolds? Just noticing my life in the moment is a way to bear witness to the creative sacredness of the day. No need to do, just to be.
So the next morning I started to wash my face. Out of the drain came my second chance. My little spider appeared and tried to climb the side of the sink, but kept falling backwards. This time I gently let her crawl up onto my hand. I could barely feel her; she was so light. I lifted her out and set her onto the counter.