It gives me the willies to walk through a spider web.

My first thought, as I swear and flail my arms about, brushing off the remains of the creature’s sticky trap, is always, “Am I going to find that spider on me in a couple of hours, in my hair, on my neck, and is it on me NOW and I just don’t know it?

  Crab-like Spiny Orb Weaver Spider (yes, that’s its real name)

This afternoon as I walked through a long arbor, covered with Confederate Jasmine, out to the compost bin, I came within inches of walking face first into a spider web created by this little creature.

The Crab-like Spiny Orb Weaver Spider (also known as the crab spider) is really small, only 3/8 inches long, but its coloring and usual shape makes it hard to miss. 


Instinct told me to get a stick and knock it to the ground. My heart told me to leave it alone. And so I did. And then I questioned the desire to destroy it at all and came up with the only answer that made any sense. Fear. It scared the wits out of me. Unfamiliar and unlike anything I’d seen before I was bound by some unspoken, almost primordial, law to fear it, to fear the unknown. It took great strength to walk away from a creature that, even right now, is lurking out there in the yard.

Fear is a wild and hungry beast dangerous to those who are unaware or unconcerned that it is capable of destroying lives either through irresponsible action or complete inaction.

Norman Vincent Peale said, “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.”

Before I moved to Florida from my home of 25 years, people asked if I was afraid to start new in an unfamiliar environment, rife with uncertainty. They asked if I was afraid to drive a 32 foot truck 1500 miles to a place where I knew no one and where the creatures native to the area were all so very different.

I said, “No, I’m not afraid to start new. I’m more afraid to stay in the old where I know exactly what the endless stream of homogeneous days blended one into another would look like for all the years of the rest of my life.”

That frightened me. To not expand in heart and soul and mind and consciousness. That frightened me.  To cease to wonder about the world at large, to cease to learn. That frightened me.

And so when I saw the little crab spider out in the yard, I resisted the urge to strike out and instead went indoors to retrieve two things: my camera and my field guide to Florida. It was then that I learned a couple of things: the crab spider is indeed very, very small (to the degree that my camera would not focus clearly to capture my own image) and that this little creature is non-poisonous and I had nothing to fear.

I invite you to examine something you fear. Perhaps in doing so you will gain a new perspective on not only the thing you fear, but on yourself as well.

<*(((><{

Copyright 2009 Diana Taylor
Photocredit: Troy Bartlett, Rob & Ann Simpson, Frank & Wooster   
For copy & paste:
http://www.bugguide.net/node/view/2331 (interesting bugs by Troy Bartlett)
http://www.enature.com (various nature resources and products)
http://www.jaxshells.org (Jacksonville Shell Club)
http://normanvincentpeale.wwwhubs.com (Norman Vincent Peale ~ The Power of Positive Thinking)
http://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-Field-Florida/dp/067944677X (Field Guide to Florida)


click on the spider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L23LOX7gjzg&feature=related (Jim Stafford sings Spiders & Snakes with accompanying art of spiders in various formats, a really interesting slide show.)