“This life as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you and everything in the same series and sequence - and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and this same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again - and you with it, you dust of dust!” - Friedrich Nietzsche
“The means to gain happiness is to throw out from oneself like a spider in all directions an adhesive web of love, and to catch in it all that comes” - Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Lately I have been seeing spiders - everywhere. When I was a small child, I was actually quite frightened by them. As I have grown older, I have found that many things that made me pause in my youth instigate curiosity, reflection or great excitement (and generally, not the bad kind). I was a pretty rough little girl, quite tomboyish - despite the ruffled dresses and white tights my mother insisted upon cloaking me in, to her disappointment I would often return home with ripped and dirtied stockings, often bloodied at the knees and dresses that didn't fare to much better. Pretty dresses and bare foot soccer weren't a good combination. When we moved East, pretty dresses and tree climbing didn't exactly mesh well either. My poor mom, she wanted a princess, I wanted to run and reach the stars. But, I digress. Back to spiders.
I've been seeing these little creatures everywhere. Climbing on my car window, across my keyboard in my office (of all the strange places), spinning their web from the edge of a table or as I look above into a carport. Maybe I'm just noticing them more, maybe Fall is simply the season for the arachnid, I decided nonetheless to discover what they might symbolize.
Linked to treachery and death in many cultures, they have been seen as a "trickster" in ancient Africa, as "spinners of fate" in ancient goddess cultures and - in ancient Greek myths - the goddess Arachne was turned into a spider by her jealous rival Athena. "Christian" cultures have linked them to an evil force that sucks blood from its victims as well as omens of "good luck" because of the cross on the back of some species. The Chinese welcome the spider, descending on its thread, as a harbinger of pleasures and happiness from heaven.
However, the Spider is an ancient symbol of mystery, power and growth. Just as the Spider weaves a web, so too must we weave our own lives. The Spider symbol meaning here serves as a reminder that our choices construct our lives. When the Spider appears to us, it is a message to be mindful of the choices we are making - and ask ourselves: How are my choices affecting my life? How can my choices improve my life? How are my choices affecting others in my life? Not only do Spiders and their webs draw attention to our life choices, they also give us an overview of how we can manipulate our thinking in order to construct the life we wish to live.
Spiders do this by calling our awareness to the amazing construction of their webs. Fully functional, practical, and ingenious in design - Spider webs serve as homes, food storage, egg incubators - seemingly limitless in their functionality. When we consider this ingenious diversity, we can also consider the web-like construct of our own lives. How are we designing the most effective life? When we see our decisions, choices and actions as far-reaching, effective tools in life - we can see how we weave a web that can either serve us or enslave us. The Spider symbol meaning beckons us to be mindful of our behaviors - be smart about the life we weave for ourselves.
We can derive more Spider symbol meaning when we consider certain subtle characteristics that represent ancient symbols of infinity. The infinity symbol meanings occur when we consider most Spiders have eight eyes and all have eight legs. The number eight is also a symbol of infinity or lemniscate (an eight turned on its side). Also, the vibrational frequency indicates the meaning of number eight involves cycles, passage of time, and evolution.
To the Native Americans, Grandmother Spider is the weaver who brought the gift of fire from the other side of the world...her webs bind all things together and form the foundation of the Earth. Still other stories talk of Spider as the weaver of the threads of life. Spider's gift is the ability to shape the patterns of one's life. If Spider has walked into your awareness, it is a reminder that a person's Earth walk should be like a web, balanced and even and cohesive, made according to the design that Creator has given us. Watch the Weaver and see where your life has gaps and snags, and rebuild the web of your life.
The meaning of Spider in India is associated with Maya. The term Maya comes from the Sanskrit root “Ma” which means no form or limit. The term Maya describes the illusory nature of appearances. The Spider’s association with Maya brings about the understanding that not all things are as they appear to be.
The Spider symbol meaning in Egypt, is akin to Neith, a complex deity usually depicted with arrows as she is associated with hunting. Along with hunting, she is also associated with the creation, specifically the process of recreation in the dawning and dusking of each day. Neith is also a weaver, and is often shown with a shuttle in her hand (a tool used for weaving). It is this activity that gains her association with the Spider.
And of course, no conversation about the meaning of spiders is complete without discussing the Greek myth of Arachne, a mortal (although of noble stature) who was a spectacular weaver. Acclaim for her luscious lively looms spread over hill and dale and ultimately reached the immortal ears of Athena. Arachne claimed she was the best weaver, and thus prompted a challenge from Athena.
And so, they played a round of “dueling looms,” but no one could confirm the victor. However, Arachne was quite smug about the whole process. So much so, that Athena smote her with a mighty blow of conscience and a dose of guilt. Arachne took the dosage hard, and could not live with the intense feelings of guilt and sorrow so she killed herself. Athena felt awful over the whole mess and decided to resurrect Arachne in the form of a spider so that she and all her offspring would forever be the best weavers of the universe.
In the end whether an eight legged friend comes across your path, it's up to you to decide if there is an inadvertent meaning held. Maybe, the spider was simply trying to get from point "A" to point "B" and you simply witnessed it's course - but maybe, there's a bit of serendipity involved, where it served as a reminder for you to reflect on the choices in your life. It would seem as though the spider and its web have served as prophetic symbols of wisdom, labor and prudence, while the spider's web represents human frailty and the temporary nature of our earthly existence and riches.
"Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own webs from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch." - John Dryden: Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1.
