Spiders!

I am starting a two-year study with Barbara Brodsky and Aaron and John Orr. As a preparation, Barbara shared a detailed meditation/dream she had where she was asked what her highest intention was. As part of this process, a high being conducted a sort of interview. This being asked if there were those who would speak to their experience of Barbara.

The deva of the lady bugs came forth saying Barbara had been carefully removing them from the window sill and gently taking them outdoors.

A deva of the spiders said Barbara was fearful and had done great harm to their kind when they approached her. She admitted this was true.

The wise being conducting the interview said, “These balance each other out.”

As I read the rest of Barbara’s accounts, each balancing one another out, I wondered who would speak and what could be said about me.

One of my most frequent mantras is, “May all beings come to the end of suffering.” Each Sunday morning Celeste closes our meditation with the extended version including the wish that all beings know love and find peace. Is that enough?

Wondering if the times I have worried about finances and withheld my generosity be balanced by the times when you know you are supported by the abundance of the universe and give generously. “I am a co-signer on God’s bank account.” Do you know this truth?

Perhaps the moments of patiently waiting in line or traffic or saying for the third time still with kindness how to do something will be able to balance my sharp tongue and unwholesome reply when anxious about something.

What will be made of our lives? What is being made?

I had a post-Sangha conversation on the sidewalk with Don as we were leaving the library. He spoke of the great understanding coming from a true sense of what is meant by the term karma. One might steal, cheat, lie, then find themselves on the receiving end of unkindness and true lack of safe conditions for life. If you can recognize the starting of the turning of the wheel, you can release any sense of being a victim.

One of my earliest jobs was to count 50 gallon wooden barrels filled with cherries in bleach solution for making maraschino cherries. (Yes, before they become artificially red or green, toxic chemicals are used to make them white. Yuck!) Many dozens of barrels laid end-to-end in the wide open field adjacent to the warehouse of the cider mill my dad managed. Our job was to walk the barrels, stepping from one to the next, counting, making sure the people took what they paid for. This was the perfect home to a gadzillion HUGE yellow and black field spiders.

In my childish fear, I did not understand the benefit of these creatures. I only knew the fear. We would catch dozens of them in jars where they would fight to the death in this unnatural lack of territory. The unnatural environment made the spiders appear fierce and hostile.

Interestingly, years later I would discover “spider” is my one of my primary animal totems…

Thankfully, we can come to a genuine recognition of the worth of all beings and experiences.

The Four Immeasurables as a Traditional Tibetan Buddhist Prayer

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.