Newsletter-Next Millennium/Magicalomaha.com

Totem Animals

Animal totems offer spiritual guidance. To best understand the lessons conveyed by animals that show up in our lives, we must learn more of their instinctual behaviors, and natural habitats. Is the animal nocturnal? Does it live in the desert or the tropics? Is the animal solitary or lives in a pack? What type of diet do they eat? Answers to these questions and similar questions will give you clues as to what message is being offered.

Spiders
Ashley, from Las Vegas, asked us to showcase spiders this week. Spiders are a fascinating totem. Thanks Ashley for the suggestion.

Spiders are a symbol of wisdom.. many Native American tribes consider Grandmother Spider to the wisest of all spirits.... Grandmother Spider wove the fabric of the universe.
Spider's Wisdom Includes:
Master weaver
Weaver of the web of fate
Wisdom
Creativity
Divine inspiration
Shapeshifting
Understanding the patterns of illusion
Female energy for the creative force of life
Orb web spiders are a large and diverse group of spider ranging in size and coloration. Most of them spin an orb web characterized by expandingcircles of sticky silk thread hung from support lines that meet at a central point. Females are usually considerably larger than males. Many Orb Web spiders build a new webs each night, often by touch alone. As a defensive strategy, they frequently drop to the ground when disturbed.

The most recognizable characteristic of spiders are their abdomens which are sharply pinched at the base. Easily noticed, for example, with the large, rounded abdomen of the Orb Spider. At the posterior end of the abdomen are spinnerets which look like slender, finger-like limbs.

We tend to be a bit like the orb weaver spider. We spin our "webs" all
around us. Then we wait and see what collides with them. This isn't bad,but we need to remember that the orb spider builds a new web each night. We too need to refresh our webs so that we can keep the cords strong and ready for anything.

Orb-weaving spiders are found all over the world, and orb webs are often under great research. Their web is an engineering feat that is
amazing. They are built by many species of spiders at night. First, a bridge is established, then the spider reinforces it by walking back and forth over it, adding more silk. Next, the spider drops down on a thread it has fastened to the center of the bridge and secures this vertical thread. It then begins spinning and tightening radii out from it. Spirals come next. The radii and spirals are often rebuilt each night.
Because of this construction feat, orb weavers teach us how to carefully
and creatively weave and engineer what we need in order to capture what we wish. This can be a job, a dream, or even the solution to a problem. They teach us how to bridge past difficulties.

All orb-weaving spiders have poor vision and locate prey by feeling the
tension and vibration in the threads of their web. When an orb spider
appears, it is not a time to trust what we see but rather what we feel.
When prey gets caught, the orb-weaver spider quickly bites it and then
carries it to the center or to the spider's retreat in a corner where the
prey is eaten. Anything inedible caught in the web is cut out and dropped to the ground. Orb weavers remind us to use the web to capture what we need, but it also reminds us not to hang on to that which we do not need.

As a powerful totem animal in many cultures, the spider's act of weaving its web may serve as a symbol of the creative process, a warning of entanglement and deception, or a representation of the illusory spiral of reality.

In India, the spider is the emblem of Maya, the eternal weaver of illusion. In ancient Greece, the creature and its web was the totemic symbol of Athene, goddess of wisdom, and the Fates. In Egypt, the spider represented Neith, the Divine Mother.

The Cherokee have a folktale in which it was the spider that answered
humankind's prayer for fire and brought the mystic energy on its gossamer web from the Spirit of Flame to the tribes of North America. Other Native American tribes depict the spider as the sacred weaver that spun the world into existence, and the industrious, insect remains emblematic of the creative female force.

If you have recently received the spider as your totem animal, you have joined energies with an ally that will assist you in grasping the interworkings of personal dynamics more than ever before in your life. You will begin to have a completely new perspective on how seemingly
disparate facets of your life are all woven together in intricate patterns with infinite possibilities.

If you have been feeling somewhat dissociated from others and confused about what specific earthpath you should be following, your spirit helper will guide you to a much clearer understanding of your niche in life.

Spider will also assist you in perceiving the application of ancient wisdoms to your life today and help you to separate the webs of illusion and confusion from your worldview.

The spider has shown up in myth and lore throughout the world. Usually its symbolism has been very similar wherever it is used. In India it was associated with Maya, the weaver of illusion. It has had connections to the Fates in Greek mythology and the Norns in Scandinavian lore -- women who would weave, measure, and cut the threads of life. To the Native Americans, spider is grandmother, the link to the past and the future.

Spider teaches you to maintain a balance -- between past and future,
physical and spiritual, male and female. Spider teaches you that everything you now do is weaving what you will encounter in the future. In the tarot deck is a card - The Wheel of Fortune. This is a card that has to do with rhythms -- the rise and fall, the flow and flux. It is linked to the energies of honor and fame, and the sensitivities necessary to place ourselves within the rhythm of Nature. Meditation upon this card would be beneficial for anyone with the spider as a totem.
The spider awakens creative sensibilities. It weaves a web of intricate and subtle fabric, as if to remind us that the past always subtly influences the present and future. Often the webs will take a spiral shape, the traditional form of creativity and development. The spider found within the web reminds us that we are the center of our own world. The ancient mystery schools had one precept inscribed above their portals: "Know Thyself and Thou Shalt Know The Universe!"
Spider reminds us that the world is woven around us. We are the keepers and the writers of our own destiny, weaving it like a web by
our thoughts, feelings and actions.

The spider, because of its characteristics, has come to be associated
by mystics and in mythology in three predominant expressions of magic. The first is magic and energy of creation. It is a symbol of creative power, reflected in its ability to spin a silken web. It is also associated with assertiveness of that creative force, of keeping the feminine energies of creation alive and strong.

If spider has come into your life, ask yourself some important questions. Are you not weaving your dreams and imaginings into reality? Are you not using your creative opportunities? Are you feeling closed in or stuck as if in a web? Do you need to pay attention to your balance and where you are walking in life? Are others out of balance around you? Do you need to write? Are you inspired to write or draw and not following through?

Remember that spider is the keeper of knowledge of the primordial
alphabet. Spider can teach how to use the written language with power
and creativity so that your words weave a web around those who would
read them.

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Source:animalmagick.blogspot.com
Photo from www.problogger.net/wp-content/spiders-web.jpg