We are closing in on the finish line of our Earth cards in The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck. This element has opened us to our actions, habits, fears, growth, and manifestations. The Rabbit showed us how our fears can motivate manifestations just as much as our desires or wants.
Cards like the Buffalo taught us how to trust the journey with an open heart, and move even deeper into the storm. Earthworm invites us to risk looking foolish and share our desires and visions.
Every card has invited us to move more in alignment, in spiritual connection, and in our wild spirits. We are nearly there as we come to our second to last card, the Spider.
When I first started learning this deck, I always felt that Spider should go towards the front of the element, at the beginning. This deck doesn’t have any numerical associations. Each animal was selected to take its position based on Krans’s view of its consciousness level.
I now can see and understand why Kim selected this card to take up the thirteenth position or the second to last in the Earth element. Don’t let the size of the animal determine the depth of work you can do with it. The Spider has much to show us.
Weaving the threads of life, prosperity, and dharma with the Spider
This is an animal that you are either going to love or hate, fear or welcome. Spiders, like some other animals we have already covered, don’t sit in the in-between when it comes to people’s feelings.
It won’t be a surprise, but I love spiders. I love them for how beneficial they are to the environment and for how obscure, weird, and gorgeous they are.
The spider, as mentioned, takes the thirteenth spot in the Earth element. This number is linked to the Death card in the tarot, and that card speaks to deep transformation, rebirth, and aligning into better, higher, or clearer energy by ridding the self of the old.
This article speaks to the connection between the number 13, and Uranus. This planet is associated with creating change, deep change. This is a paradigm-shifting planet, where we bring about new ideas to better ourselves, and therefore, the global community at large.
The Spider is the known weaver of our world. Their delicate webs seem so fragile, yet have a tensile strength that is tougher than steel. They weave the delicate threads of life in a way that creates a sense of betterment for all around them. Spiders remind us to weave our own lives thoughtfully, with control, and also with a fluidity that frees us to play and experiment.
The article above mentioned that the number and planetary association of 13/Uranus connects into the archetype of the Reformer. I think the Spider is also a perfect example of a reformer because when we look at the creations of a spider, we may only see a delicate web of work that is constantly being stripped apart and recreated.
These webs, and the Spiders who make them provide many benefits to humans, animals, and the environment. Spiders are helpful in pest control with webs and predation that capture and eat insects like roaches and mosquitos. This helps lower the spread of disease, damage to plants, and imbalance that can harm or threaten an ecosystem. Spiders provide a food source for many other animals. They even help pollinate plants. Their venom has medicinal values, and beyond a scientific or logical perspective, Spiders have influenced language, myth, cultural understandings, and the stories we tell.
When working with this card, or when it comes forward, you are being invited to consider the impact of your weaving. How are you creating and weaving the thread of your life and your life’s work? When you are creating your life from a place that is deeply rooted in your vision, truth, and innovation, how does this change the lives of others? The Spider teaches us that we are forever in a space of interconnection. The webs we make are paradoxically strong and delicate, of service and completely individual to our own unique and beautiful nature. We are constantly in a space of creation. What we create is a gift, supporting that thread of our life in the tapestry of all creation.
Guidance from the guidebook
Some key references from the guidebook
Keywords/phrases: Creator of Prosperity through Life’s Work, Dharma
When in balance: appreciative, enthusiastic, prosperous
When out of balance: discouraged, tired, forlorn
To bring into balance: playful creativity
Following the guidance from the guidebook, working with the Spider is about appreciating the journey of creation, and the lived experience. The Spider reminds you that life is both tough and fragile. It is a delicate balance between the light and the dark. How we meet that balance is by finding the prosperity and abundance in the creative expression which grants a sense of freedom.
When we are appreciative and enthusiastic about life, and the possibilities that it holds, we elevate our creations, and therefore our lives to a space that transcends ego, external validation, or patterns/cycles that limit us in our growth. The Spider is a messenger of the beauty of living your truth, staying in your lane, and creating what you want to create or doing what you want to do in this life. When you move from this deeper well of truth, trust, and clarity, you are impacting those around you for the better.
That doesn’t mean that everyone is going to like you. No one is going to be liked by everyone (maybe Paul Rudd…), but when you have that level of prosperous freedom to live in your truth and not be hindered by what doesn’t serve you, you reform the spaces you weave. You create a reality that brings a palpable beauty and abundance.
As Krans mentions, the way to bring a more balanced Spider energy into your life is through playful creativity. This is creativity that doesn’t have the purpose of monetizing, selling, or feeding an algorithm. Attempting to monetize everything we create is part of the shadow side of the Spider. This need to constantly produce takes us out of the organic and freeing nature of creativity and places us into the machinery of it. We become a cog in a wheel of production, where the value, gifts, and joy of creating have lost all taste on the tongue.
Bring a level of creative play into your environment, and see what happens to your energy. Do you feel elevated, relaxed, inspired, or more present? That is the git of the Spider, and what a glorious gift it is.