Thoughts After Contemplating Dead Spiders

Dead spiders fascinate me.  I’ve seen everything from a tiny dead jumping spider to a bird-sized tarantula dead on the forest floor in Mexico.  No matter the size, no matter the place, no matter the cause of death, all dead spiders look essentially the same: a spider with its legs curled up touching its abdomen.  And they tend to be on their backs.  And they look like spiders.

How is it that a creature so varied in form and so plentiful on this Earth should end up looking exactly the same in death regardless of species?  I’ve never seen a dead spider that wasn’t all curled up.  Even those goofy daddy long-legs attempt to do the curling up thing.  Of course, they are so brittle that their legs break off, but you can just tell they are trying to ball it.  It’s crazy.

It just doesn’t make sense.  Different species.  Different sizes.  Different in so many ways…yet not so different.  It is clear that there is a commonality in how these creatures are constructed that defies logic and common sense.  It defies intuition.  Yet, there you have it…all dead spiders curled up into balls large, small, and all sizes in between.

I marvel at the simplicity of the message: all spiders are one.  Really, they are.  They come from the same place.  They are interconnected.  As varied as their forms have become over the course of thousands of years, there are fundamental characteristics of all spiders that make them undeniably…spiderish.  And it is the same with people.  

We are one.  We are the same.  We come from the same place.  We are interconnected.  As varied as our forms have become over the course of thousands of years, there are fundamental characteristics of all people that make them undeniably…human.  Make no mistake; every color, size, and shape is a variation on a theme.  We may not curl up into a ball when we die, but that doesn’t mean that we retain even one iota of our perceived uniqueness once death and time have had their way with us.  

We become food for worms.  Our bones are ground to dust.  There is no you, and there is no me.  What we were transforms into something new.  Our borrowed matter returns to the source only to be used again.  Over and over and over…again.

Our uniqueness exists today and today only.  While we may be unique, we are not isolated.  Uniqueness and apartness are not the same thing.  We are unique, but we are not apart.  We are a part…a part of the whole.  We are interconnected.

So, love the next person as you would yourself.  Or maybe you should love yourself as you would love others.  I don’t know…maybe it’s both…  

Just some thoughts after contemplating dead spiders.