Preservation
starts small
“Keep inviolate an area of light and peace within you.” ~ Maria Corazon “Cory“ Sumulong Cojuangco-AquinoA house spider took up residence in a far corner of my bathroom and appears to have become as accustomed to me as I have to her.
She has ceased capering away when my shadow drapes across her low-spun web, floating fearlessly an inch above the tiled floor even when I approach. In return, I’ve stopped fretting that she’s going to burrow into a fresh folded towel and catch me by surprise, or get caught beneath my bare feet in the wee and dim-glowing hours.
I have become increasingly curious about her activities, especially when she ritually vanishes from her lookout (does she nap?)—delighted when she emerges after an extended absence.
There is a brightness about her.
She inspires me to ponder what it means to stay intact. It sounds simple but somehow isn’t, I can attest. A theme I keep returning to in these turbulent times.
I watch transfixed as this small spider meticulously maintains and minds her web amidst the hazards of human habitation. A tireless teacher to me, she navigates a domain deluged with danger and dubieties. Never discounting what may threaten, as her life depends upon a clear perception of these.
But neither does she let danger’s persistent presence alter who she is, or what she is born for. On she spins in her wefted world, aware and authentic.
Each new day, the simple act of proffering this small creature protection shores up something broken in me. Nourishing terrain where compassion and connection are cultivated in lieu of the human tendency for dominance and destruction.
The web of life chosen and rewoven inch by inch.
A spider’s holy ground may look different than my own but our precious swards overlap and our mutual need for preservation is enormously equivalent.
Maybe this is why Cory Aquino’s words in the quote above are so resonant and timeless for me.
She was neither a perfect politician nor a stranger to the beleaguered battlefield for beauty, the haunted and the harrowed, or the cruel complexities and paralyzing paradoxes comprising our personal and political disagreements—then and now.
Still she was able to articulate the paramountcy of preserving within ourselves ground that remains fertile and unbroken. Essential to the task of living, leading, and loving well; and gifting others the same vital freedoms.
A truth that summons me as a heat-seeking creature to the warm glimmer of a lit lamp at dusk.
Meditating on this language leads me to rummage around in the record for the word “preservation”—an appellation that originates from two Latin words prae (before) and servare (to keep): praeservare.
To keep as before. Which brings to my mind a primordial forest pulsing with birdsong and the movement of currents and creatures.
In Old French, the word became preserver and eventually preserve in Middle English, defined as we know it best today: “To keep safe from harm or destruction.” In modern method it can also describe “the act of maintaining something in a safe or entire state” or aptly “environmental protection” among other similar conceptions of how to repair rupture—and rein in ruin.
A calling for these times. You surely feel it too.
But how do we answer when the task is so large?
How do we keep ourselves, and so many invaluable others, whole in a world where data centers and wildfires caused by our actions are displacing wildflowers and wetlands, disappearing wild ones across the globe? When something as benign as a soccer match—lost or won—can morph so quickly into fires set in overturned cars on the streets of a beloved city (yours or mine, none are immune).
Marauding fans illustrate how terribly seductive it can be to contribute to the crazy quilt of chaos, sewn with humanity’s complicated patterns of (yes, admittedly sometimes justified) outrage and heartbreak; but even our elation because that’s how tenuous it is—and always has been. Often in the sewing (sowing) perpetuating brokenness, fueling the flames of division, forgetting that we belong to each other (thanks to Mother Teresa for these eternally relevant words).
And this is where the power of language carries me home. Back to my body and my breath. The words and teachers I choose as guides, and the decisions I make because of these choices.
Noticing more closely where I place each foot—to avoid stepping on spiders—but also my priorities as these too can harm if misplaced or misdirected. The seeds I plant; or—just as instructively—don’t as the case may be, for good or ill. Perpetually minding and mending like my small spider friend.
Kept as before. Light and peace, inviolate.
"By cultivating inner peace, we’re better positioned to protect the natural world." ~ Georgia Good, “The Birder’s Mind”
What a timely and resonant message Stephanie. I noticed you began with a daddy long legs spider and I had just dreamed/meditated / thought about the daddy long leg spiders of my youth. Just this morning. I thought about how they would run across my ankles as I lay in the grass without a care. My mind then turned to how people can be cruel to such spiders. And how it would look like for humans to treat other humans as spiders. I'm glad for people like us that leave our bathroom spiders alone. I think I got a new one, just as I was thinking about the last spider that lived near my bathroom faucet. I foolishly mentioned it to my husband, who kills spiders despite them being my spirit animal. I adamantly said that the spider was my friend and to leave it alone.
This is so beautiful, Stephanie!! I especially love this: A spider’s holy ground may look different than my own but our precious swards overlap and our mutual need for preservation is enormously equivalent.