All through my life I’ve had an irrational fear of spiders and other small crawling creatures. Apparently I screamed my way through ET under the seats of the cinema, because I thought ET was a giant bug. I don’t really remember that, and I’ve come to discover that my fear of spiders is really pretty stupid. I love spider webs, and have developed an even greater respect for them since learning to knit and spin. I still get spooked at times when I come across a spider or bug (or anything really… I’m embarrassed to admit that I spook quite easily…) when I’m not expecting to, but I’ve hit the point where I can catch most of these in a glass and take them outside. If I see a spider living in a little nook or cranny out of reach, I’m happy to leave it there. I know some of my growth in the fear department is a result of a growing general respect for the order of things — a realisation that I’m not the centre of the universe and other beings have just as much right to share this space with me.
Occasionally I’ll read a blog post where the writer freaks out about confronting a spider in their home, and waxes lyrical about their efforts to kill it because spiders are just. so. disgusting. And I always hope that someone in the following comments will come to the defense of the spider, but they never do… a lot of times the comments make me sadder than the posts, and I’m always too shy to make a stand. Maybe this blog post is my passive-aggressive retort.
The huntsman in the picture above isn’t from my house. We do have them here, but they seem to prefer living up the back of the yard, which is fine by me. This one was our Christmas Day spider. It watched us eat lunch at my sister-in-common-law’s house, and I took some photos of it afterwards.
It made me happy to see a spider on Christmas Day. I discovered an old myth from the Ukraine recently about spiders and Christmas, where it is considered good luck to have a spider somewhere on your tree. I might have linked to it in an earlier post, but it goes something like this.
Once, there was a widow who was very poor. One day a pine cone took root on the floor of the hut she lived in with her children, and all through the year they talked excitedly about how they would decorate their beloved Christmas tree. But they were so poor that come Christmas Eve, it was still bare. The widow knew that the tree would not be decorated.
Then on Christmas morning, she awoke to the delighted shouts of her children saying “Look! Look! It’s so beautiful!” A spider had visited their tree during the night, and spun a web all through the branches. When the first light of morning made it’s way through the window, the web turned to silver and gold. The widow and her children never wanted for anything again.
I don’t know about that spider in your tree thing. The idea of having a huntman in my Christmas Tree would turn me agaisnt having a tree again. Not that I have one in my house, but if I did!
We don’t seem to get them in Melbourne much, which is a good thing. Growing up in East Gippsland we seemed to have them in the house on a weekly to daily basis. I think there was a nest in the house somewhere. They scare the crap out of me.
Comment by Anna — December 30, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
Well, technically it wouldn’t be a huntsman in your tree, because they don’t spin webs. The spider I put in my tree was fake — something I cut out of paper… but I’m sure that the little garden spiders that live in our house will like it in the branches.
Why do huntsmen scare the crap out of you? Did you get bitten by one?
Comment by Crumpet — December 30, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
I’m ok with tiny spiders, but once they get bigger than an inch I am out of there. Gotta go. See you never. Gone forever. Good thing there are no huntsman spiders near me.
Comment by Junior — December 31, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
I’m one of those few who have grown up loving creatures with six or more legs from the get-go. I think they’re fascinating and wonderfully beautiful, once you look close enough. I work with a tarantula regularly, as a nature interpreter. Our last tarantula, Rosie, was over twenty-five years old when she died, and completely gentle. Part of what I love about my job is being able to show everyone — kids and adults — that they have nothing to fear.
Part of this is that I come from Canada, where I have nothing to fear from our spiders; but part of this is growing up in a family where no one else was freaked out by spiders either. Most of the time they get left in the house where they’ll take care of the flies and mosquitoes and other creatures we’d rather not have inside. I don’t like them in my bedroom, but then they just get shooed somewhere else.
A film recommendation, if you haven’t seen it: “Microcosmos” is a remarkable piece that really opens eyes, I think. There’s almost no narrative, just the images, but the images tell an amazing set of stories.
Comment by blue — January 1, 2008 @ 2:07 am
I have seen Microcosmos, but not for a long time — I think we actually have it on laserdisc though, so when the player is hooked up again I’ll have to rewatch it. One of the coolest things about seeing it the first time is that it screened in an outdoor cinema in the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens. Quite the setting for such a film, especially with the silhouettes of Melbourne’s bats flying overhead.
Comment by Crumpet — January 1, 2008 @ 8:07 am