The Spider Story

about poison and collateral damage

Today, I am seeing spider stories everywhere. When I stepped out on the rocks to welcome the day, I spotted 6 spiders adorning, literally surrounding, my office door. These spiders were all the same type, the so-called “Daddy Longlegs” spider with legs about 6 times the size of their small bodies. They are not so frightening, in fact, I felt a kind of warm feeling seeing them all basking in the sunshine and resting on the wall.  Spiders I am told represent creativity, the weaving of story. 

Meanwhile, I have spent the last 10 days or so dealing with a spider bite from what was most likely a black widow. Not that I saw the spider because by the time I understood what was happening, the spider, of course, was nowhere to be seen. But what was clear was that some kind of toxin had entered my thumb. The thumb itself had blown up to huge proportions, was hot and discolored and was telegraphing pain signals at a rapid rate.

I won’t give you the blow by blow or all the gory details, but suffice it to say it has been a journey, a journey punctuated by using the very potent medicine I possess both inside my body and in my office. My thumb walled off that poison with great efficiency (a.k.a. a lot of swelling) and my body kept me informed (a.k.a. a lot of pain) as to the presence of the poison. My body employed its very powerful practice of stagnating the blood to contain the poison in the local area preventing it from affecting my vital organs or the rest of my body. Now I am dealing with the remains of some of that blood stagnation which manifests as tingling and soreness in the pad of my thumb which is still a slightly grayish white purpley bumpy thing. I employed bleeding (think leeches only quicker because it’s with needles) to assist my body in releasing and containing that poison. Effective but not all that much fun.

But, this is all the back story. The real story is this morning I was fired up about something altogether different that at first seemed incongruous with my own predicament. I was thinking about activism, the act of getting involved with issues you deem important in the world, the act of using your own body to make change in the body of the world. And even more importantly choosing the issue, the situation or the moment, when you might act in a way that others can recognize, an act that is felt and seen by your world.  I felt hobbled, bitten, slowed and aggravated. Action did not readily seem apparent, while my stirred-up mind and stirred-up body stewed along together.

Upon enforced reflection, I began to see that the topic of toxicity, in my body or in the body of the world, were in fact, seamlessly connected, one flowing into the other, one poison, everyone’s poison somehow. The notion that one individual body can represent, demonstrate, articulate, the toxicity of the culture, the body of the many, may be controversial, frightening or abhorrent to some. Yet, in the medicine I practice, both the medicine of mind (meditation) and the medicine of body (you are a microcosm of the world) you are not ultimately separate from your world. To tend to oneself is to tend to the world. To see the world reflected in oneself is to care for the world.

In bleeding my thumb, inflicting pain upon pain you could say, I felt the potency and impact of my situation. Being called to deal with poison, called to action in a timely manner. An obvious call to action. A simple way to respond. The question of timing does not come up when you are bitten. The answer is now. But what about the question of toxicity in the body of the world, the earth, the culture? The question of timing then becomes poignant and critical. How to act when it is a bite to your thumb is not so complicated. You bleed it, you create the exit. There is some collateral damage, some pain, some difficult moments, but it is done.

In the body of the world, action does not look so simple or so easily employed. What is the right action? When is the right moment? Collateral damage in the body of the culture or the world is far more grave. That collateral damage amounts to being ostracized, isolated, demonized often. This is the real issue in my mind; collateral damage. How to take a direct action, make a clear statement, without inflicting collateral damage to yourself or others? Could we find a way to release the poison, rendering it harmless through our willingness to take action, to expose the issue (or the tissue in my case) to light, air and others without inflicting collateral damage? In this simple case, I want to say that it can be done; that I can relate with the poison in my own body without resorting to warfare. Could it not be the same in our world? Could we relate with the poisons without invoking power over others or demonizing their differences?

In an awesome moment, as I watched the first drop of blackish blood emerge from the tiniest hole in my thumb, I immediately felt the lightness, the joy even, of being witnessed in release by my world (a.k.a. my dear friend ) who was holding me on Zoom. And I felt the depth of darkness, death in the earth, the spiders who live there receiving me and the brightness of the fresh Fall day. I felt tender to the poison, watching it meet the air and the earth, becoming harmless, my body becoming strong through the movement. 

I’m still thinking on this, the whole bloody matter of when it makes sense to bleed the thing, to see it come out, to hear it, feel it, to choose it instead of choosing silence, hiding, ignorance, or retreat.  And then what to make of where the collateral is worth the damage...