The spider turns up in lore and myth all over the world, from the Native American's Grandmother Spider to The Norns of Scandinavia and The Fates of Greek Mythology. The symbolism for spider is usually very similar wherever it has been used - the Norns and Fates were women who weaved, measured and cut the threads of life, and spider has links to the past and the future. The spider's body is in the shape of a figure of eight, which, on it's side, is the symbol for infinity. It is the wheel of life, always flowing. It builds a spiral shaped web of fine silk and walks these threads every day. The spiral is indicative of the circle of life, the rhythms of life and the path we walk in life. Are we walking towards a central goal, or scattered all over the place?Spider spirit teaches us to create our future, just as she creates her fine web, so do we weave our present and future with our words, thoughts and actions. There lies a difficulty in learning to walk these threads and circles of life and hold our position - to walk in balance. This extends to balance between the physical and the spiritual, between male and female, between being present in the now and planning for the future, and balance in our words and thoughts - which are all threads of the life we are weaving for ourselves. So balance is a strong lesson from spider. The spider also teaches creativity for these very reasons. She not only walks the web - she creates it, and many people who are professional writers or even speakers will have spider as a totem.
I have been afraid of spiders ever since I was a young child, and I still am to quite an extent. There has been no particular reason for this - I have never been attacked - and it was only when I began studying Native American Spirituality that I realized that spider was one of my shadow totems. As mentioned on my totems page, a shadow totem are those totems that test us. They have great power for us but will put us through tests before they will let their power work with and for us, instead of against us. The shadow totem often represents inner fears that you must overcome. Until you face your fear of the totem it's powers will work against you, but when you overcome the fear of the animal they will become one of your most powerful totems. Your goal with a shadow totem is to learn the lessons and incorporate that animal into your life. If you are scared by something over and over then you still have not accepted the lesson that animal has for you.
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Click here to read about Panther
Click here to read about Butterfly
