Mother Spider (May 11, 2008)

As always, I was removing brown leaves and dead branches off my plants when I noticed something underneath a leaf. It was my dreaded arachnid, spiders in other words, manning her batch of eggs. I said dreaded because I was bitten twice, one in each hand in two different occasions and it was not a nice sight afterwards. My hands swelled and they were very itchy in the process. I waited for about three weeks for them to heal. Fortunately, I was fine. Unfortunately, I didn’t acquire super powers of climbing walls and shooting webs to buildings and poles.

Anyway, I wanted to speak of something interesting about these arachnids. It is the way they take care of their babies. I was once fascinated by their synchronized actions when I was blowing air on a family of spiders in my garden. They were on top of the leaf so I tried to blow some air to them and see what they reactions would be. Once the air hits the leaf and moves it, the entire clan immediately goes to the underside. After a few seconds, they all come back one by one. So I did it again and they all in one swift action disappeared from the top.

I am amazed how in even in the smallest world of species mothers are always and had been the source of inspiration, guidance and care. It seems that this motherly nature is inherent as one gives birth to a child, or in the case of the spiders, babies. It is so reassuring that mothers will always be there to protect and love, unconditionally.