The Wisdom of Spiders

I don’t know why I have had this sitting in my drafts for a while, but spiders and spider webs have fascinated me for some time. Especially their clear structures and intricate patterns, which come out in their full glory during the first morning sunrays, are mind boggling.

And to think that such a fragile construction may only be up there for a few hours at a time, and that the spiders don’t mind going at it again and again, is amazing. Of course, any spider that gets interviewed will claim it’s simply a matter of survival.

I will explore a few spiders that I have come across in the real and art worlds.

Maman of the World

Louise Bourgeois, one of the great figures of modern and contemporary art, is known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art. Her giant spider sculptures, called Maman, French for Mother, are displayed in modern art museums around the world.

Bourgeois had a difficult childhood and once said that “art is the experience, the re-experience of a trauma.” Her spider sculptures were inspired by her mother because spiders reminded Bourgeois of her who was a master weaver who restored antique tapestries.

Bourgeois saw spiders as clever and hardworking: “If you bash into the web of a spider,” Bourgeois observed, “she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.”

Motherhood, she had seen, was often this kind of unseen work of steady care and strength.

Anansi, the Folk Hero

During the Covid days, I was reading stories from around the world and came across the story of a spider named Anansi, a famous trickster hero from West African folklore. Instead of relying on physical strength, Anansi uses his cunning, wit, humor, and clever tricks to outsmart larger, more powerful animals and adversaries.

While brilliant, Anansi is often greedy, boastful, or selfish, meaning his own tricks frequently backfire on him.

The story goes that Anansi wanted to become the owner of all the stories in the world, which were held by Nyame, the Sky God. Nyame set him a series of impossible tasks: Anansi had to capture a fierce python, a dangerous leopard, a swarm of hornets, and an invisible fairy.

Using his wits rather than force, Anansi tricked the python into measuring itself against a stick, fooled the leopard into falling into a pit, and trapped the hornets in a gourd, successfully claiming ownership of all storytelling.

He then tried to store all the world’s wisdom in a container and hide it at the top of a tree. But he kept struggling to climb because the container was tied in front of him. His son suggested putting it on his back instead.

Anansi realized that if his child could see what he couldn’t, then he clearly hadn’t collected all the world’s wisdom after all. In frustration, he dropped the container, and the knowledge scattered.

The key idea is simple: knowledge has to be in our heads to be of use to us.

Black Widows and More

I don’t know how spiders are in real life, but their construction embodies diligence, surrender, and the beginner’s mind—in their ability to remake their entire world again and again.

Whatever the spider symbolizes, it doesn’t seem to dread the futility of effort. It keeps building and rebuilding with the same wholeheartedness, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

How can we not talk about the black widow spider when it comes to this topic?

The black widow has become associated with a particular kind of feminine power: a woman who is powerful, independent, and difficult to control. Something attractive and delicate on the outside, but underneath all that beauty lies enormous power.

I will consider spiders nature’s way of reminding us to be creatures of adaptation and survival.

Thank you, spiders.

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Featured Image Credit: Marieke, TripAdvisor of Louise Bourgeois’ Maman sculpture

Blog Image Credit: My friend’s encounter on her many walks in a local park

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