the heidi chronicles

to preface: i love spiders. they eat things that want to eat me, and as long as we don't mess with each other, it's a nice altruistic existence. they eat mosquitoes, i let them live in my bathroom.

the last book i finished, an eloquently written young adult's novel loaned to me by kat, contained a passage something like this...

to paraphrase philip pullman's words: the man who had rescued the bear from danger and fought beside himin his own world, had died. Iorek would avenge him. the good man's flesh and bone would both nourish him and keep him restless until blood was sspilt enough to still his heart... the sun set as the bear finished his meal and dropped a flower where the remains lay. the rest of the body was free to all who came and it soon would be nourishing all kinds of needful life.

i was reminded of this passage on my walk home from the station with the comrade. on the path we spotted a lovely fallen butterfly, almost crushed underfoot. once we'd reached the conclusion that it was beyond nursing and had, in fact, been long gone, the russian asked, "should we take him to spider?"

the speed limit sign at the nearest intersection to our place is home to a gorgeous writing spider whose spinning work we stop to admire on our morning trek. what also comes to our attention is that he never seems to have much in the way of food stocked up. confident that he's probably just finished something up, but never quite sure, we've strangely found ourselves concerned for his welfare. so with our last visit, we brought our arachnid friend an offering, that such a lovely creature as this butterfly - deceased - could continue to contribute to other life and not simply find its way trampled under someone's boots.

there's a lot to be said for a spider's craftmanship not only where their webs are concerned, but in the oddly elegant manner that it packages up an offering like this. seconds pass and what was once easily his same size is compacted and packaged in his silk spinnings and safe from the eyes of thieves. if only we had had the camera to document it.

sounds corny, but i'll risk it. i would explain the sentiment i take from these - the passage, the offering - but i think it's sufficient to say that sometimes when humanity lets me down, nature can be brilliant at restoring a little faith in the world itself. the rest pretty much speaks for itself.

posted by trixievw @ 1:38 AM