Spiders

Spiders are read through webs and making as often as through fear. The tradition reads the spider as a maker — of webs, of plans, of something intricate — and the reading turns on whether the web feels like a trap or a craft. In one reading, the spider is a threat: something that traps, something that waits, something that makes you feel caught. In another, the spider is a maker: patient, skilled, building something intricate and useful. The reading turns on what the spider was doing and how it made you feel. A spider spinning a web is read as making — a plan being built, a project being woven, something intricate taking shape. A spider that frightened you is read as a threat — something in your life that feels like it is waiting to trap you. A web is read as the thing that is being made or the thing that is catching you, depending on how it felt. The tradition is careful to say what this is not: it is not a sign of a literal spider, and it is not a prediction of being trapped. It is read as a feeling about something in your life that is either being built or closing in — and the useful part of the reading is naming which one it is.