Where Does My Dominion End And Hers Begin?

Ole! This mama spider seems to say, her leg jauntily thrown over to the side.
Actually, if you look carefully, she is just missing the opposite appendage and some of her remaining legs have been damaged.
She is a trooper, that one.
BUT, she has spun her golden web right across the entrance to my porch and I have to duck to get under it although Owen can safely make it across the top step without incident.
Really? Mama?

If you click, you may see the spider right in the upper center of the picture.

I have often said that my spiders are more pet than pest and I did actually move her once but she returned to the same place and what am I supposed to do? I already feel sorry for her. That missing leg. The hours and hours of work she's spent, weaving that beautiful, intricate web. Do I just take a broom to it, heartlessly and send her packing? I cannot smash her and that's just the truth of it. If I do take down her web, she will be disabled and homeless.
She ain't got good sense, I'll tell you that.

Here is one of her sister-spiders. She is entire and whole and has chosen to build her web in an out-of-the-way place on the side porch.


I don't know quite what to do. May and I sat on the front porch yesterday and discussed the situation. Mr. Moon joined us. Life here in Lloyd frequently centers around wildlife, as you may know by now.
"Too much nature!" Lily once screamed as a bat flew around her in the bathroom.
I think of that all the time.
Too much nature.
But is there really such a thing?
And is it any less presumptuous of me to take down a spider web or order Mr. Moon to shoot a diseased fox or an invasive toad which turned out not to be, than it is for an oil company to drill in the Gulf?

Would the world be any different if the Bible didn't have that line about Good Old God giving man dominion over the creatures of the earth and skies and would it have made any difference if man had interpreted that to mean we must watch over them and protect them rather than destroy them for our greater good?

And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps over the earth. (Genesis 1:26)

"Us," God said. "Our" image. "Our" likeness.

What's with the usses and ours? Who else was up there in heaven with him? That has puzzled me since childhood.

Well, it's too early to be discussing theology and I am not qualified, anyway.

I suppose a good Buddhist would simply leave the spider where she is and put up a gentle warning sign to those who wish to enter my house from that particular space. But the truth is- despite a sign I myself am apt to forget she is there and walk blindly through her web one of these days. Which will lead to cursing and using god's name in vain.

Kathleen and I were talking last night about the play and whether or not we really want to be in it. She said, "I'm like a good Baptist girl. If I kiss you, I think I have to marry you."
I said, "I'm like a good Catholic girl. If you get me pregnant, I'll have to marry you."

I am not feeling pregnant.

I am not really a Catholic or a Buddhist or even an old Cracker Woman who would just take the damn broom to that web and then sweep the porch and get on with her day, although I am leaning in that direction.

I do not fool myself about my dominion powers. But as much as I admire that spider and her tenacity, I do not want to walk through her web and find her crawling on my head.

Well, another day in Lloyd and Owen will be here later. He is already practicing his dominion over the beasts and birds.

He made this arrangement yesterday. It pleases me and I have left it up.

Good morning, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

It's ART, Dammit

To all of you arachnophobes out there, all I can say is- I'm sorry!
But look- I had to do it.
Last night, on Mr. Moon's and my martini tour of the house and grounds (haha!) I discovered where one of my banana spiders had gone. She had gone to die on the breast of the mermaid hanging on that porch. It was so poignant. So startling. So...sad and yet, rather beautiful.
Mr. Moon said, "Well, at least she had something lovely to look at as she died."
There you go.

I will tell you that the one remaining spider on the porch is HUGE! She may become larger than Zeke, my smallest dog, soon. She has a husband and if I were him (he? help me out here, grammar gals and boys), I would be very, very afraid.

So there you have it. And if I get too much hate mail, I'll take the header picture down and substitute it with a LOL cat.
Bet the ranch on that one.
And the check is in the mail.

Love you!
Mean it!
Ms. Moon

Looking Up

When I was on my way to the doctor's office yesterday morning, I saw a sign in front of a small church that said, "When you need peace, look up."
Well, I did and saw plenty of blue sky and light and I thought that was fine advice no matter what level you choose to take it on. Of course I had to turn my eyes quickly back to the road to drive, but that second of sky and trees and light was calming.
I had forgotten that sign until I I downloaded this picture I took yesterday afternoon. This banana spider has made her web not on the porch, which is where most of them seem to, but way up in the sky between a young magnolia and a post we used to put the pea-climbing fence up for the garden last spring.
This web is high in the air. I mean like maybe oh, fifteen feet up. That spider- she is looking for high-flying, juicy traffic and I'm not sure why I glanced up to see her there when I was outside, turning the sprinkler on the garden but I did and I was amazed. Her web stretches at least ten feet from tree to post and she is poised on it like she was dancing on thick, strong air.


The doctor visit went fine. I saw a different nurse practitioner whom I'd never met and to make a long story short, she actually touched me as one human to another and we both teared up, discussing the empty nest. Her son moved out twelve years ago and she is still missing him and didn't find it ridiculous that the recent changes I've found myself going through would be enough to send me into this mysterious and tentative place I seem to be inhabiting. She encouraged me to find "someone" to talk to and I swear, I will. It's time.
I came home and Miss Maybelle came over and we watched an old movie called Crimes of the Heart with the dogs all over us and we wondered why they don't make movies like that anymore. Movies where people act like people really do, pulling up panty hose and laughing inappropriately and wearing the lime green gardening gloves of a dead person to work in the garden and having really, really bad days.
Both of us are trying to find the light again, Miss Maybelle and I, and it was lovely to be able to laugh together at three sisters, trying to do the same in an old house somewhere in the south.
I sent her home with a plant that I'd rooted and a quart jar of soup and a bunch of old magazines and Lord knows I'd do anything for any of my kids, but that was all I could do today.
She did more for me than she knows.
I know she'll be okay, Miss Maybelle, because she's wise and she's endured more pain than most people I know and can still dance.
I can't tell you how proud I am of my kids and the way they've moved into the world, each of them with more bravery and bravado than I can ever imagine having.
They look up. My kids look up. And whether any of us will ever find peace, I have no idea. I don't know if that's really what's on the agenda for us humans. But it's a good thing to do, looking up.
When there is darkness in the soul, it's good to be reminded that there is light in the sky and that no matter what is going on in our hearts, there are spiders building webs that will probably last longer than they themselves do, stretching from tree to post. Spiders have short lives, and so do we, relatively.
We can pass all of our physical exams with flying colors and die suddenly of something no one could have detected.
Or, we can live long, long lives. There is no way to know.
But continuously looking down is no way to live. That church sign had it right. We need to remember to look up. Not necessarily for a god in the sky, but just for the sky itself. To be aware that although we may not be here forever, there is a sort of eternity and that we are part of it. At the very heart of it all, our being here has some sort of meaning, even if it is only that we are one tiny, minuscule strand in the brilliant web of it all.
That each strand of us has some purpose in all of this.
That's what I try to remember.
That's what I try to believe as I walk through this life, my feet so often literally in the dirt. That it is good to look up and be reminded.