Walking through the bushland track yesterday we stopped to admire the impressive webs of the female Golden Orb Weavers. This large spider, Nephila edulis, is not aggressive, and the symptoms of a bite are mild. She builds such a large strong web that sometimes small birds or bats are enmeshed, wrapped in silk and eaten. Males are very much smaller, and live at the edges of the female’s web.
Female Golden Orb Weaver
The spider is confident and bold, holding her space in the centre of the web, her feet touching different threads. Are we also so confident and poised in the centre of our lives? Do we have the different threads of life at the tips of our fingers? Where have we lost touch with those things that we have created, and where do we feel centred and capable? Do we have support or dependents around us? Today we are enjoying the pleasure and support of our overseas guests, so grateful that their lives have intersected with ours!
Smaller male spider on right
Our lives are like a web, reaching out in all directions, fixed to important supports such as family, work, beliefs, activities. Our daily life brings both comfortable and uncomfortable things into the web, the small and the large, providing nourishment, delight, challenges and creating pressure that stretches and tears at the fabric of our lives. Can we remain calm and centred, still, managing all with equanimity like the beautiful Golden Orb Weaver? 
You are unique, at the centre of your life, the only one who has created your particular web of contacts and connections. When my mother died I realised the wonderful web she had woven, linking all her cousins and their families, her bowling friends, her neighbours from different times of her life, her rich social network, her nephews and nieces, and of course her children and grandchildren. Without her that web is broken. Remember how special you are … only you can live your life, and bring together all the threads that give it meaning. Yesterday the filaments of our web brought two young people to Gray Rocks radiant in the April sunshine.
My friend Sue sent me this quote from Chief Seattle: “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” 
dadirridreaming 
Amazing & thoughtful questions we can ponder here. One of the quotes I have either on my altar or within eyesight of my workspace is by Chief Seattle: Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Did you take these stunning photos when you came across the spider?
I received my mail from Australia today. Thank you. I met a young Phillipino woman at the retreat last week, who is very excited I am going to share some of the Ancestor essence with her because she is trying to workout some significant trauma connected with it. I’m going to see if I can get a small dropper bottle and put some of mine in it and mail to her.
Hi. I am a subscriber and love all your photos, but was just stunned by the Golden Spider.
Do you allow others to use any of your photos on Facebook if you are given credit.
I would love to post this one.
Oh wow! She is just gorgeous. Awesome photo’s dadirri! I loved how you compared the spider and the web to our lives. That was stunning! 🙂