Spider Dreams The Dance

Words by Pippa

West Stow: dusk. An orange glow across the sky revealing the swooping silhouettes of hunting bats. The rasping caw caw of crows coming to roost in the trees.  A lone woman walking the land, treading lightly as she listens to the breath of the air, the sighs from the trees, the inhalations of the plants, the exhalations of the many creatures above and below and hiding in the undergrowth.  She pauses, her breath becoming one with these breaths, feeling the ancestors of this place gathering around, safe and rooted in this place.   An enormous quiet settles itself over the land,  and into this rises a whisper from deep under the earth, as delicate as the filament of a new-spun web. 

Standing still, with all the beings still around her, she hears Spider give voice to her spider dream:

I dream dancers on this land, pounding their feet to the beat of drums and rattles. 

I dream dancers on this land, feeling the rich earth mark then enter their skin, their hearts, their minds, their spirits.

I dream dancers on this land coming together in joy and sorrow, anger and fear, offering whatever they bring to the earth, the air, the waters and the fires.

I dream dancers on this land, witnessing each other as they truly are, seeing clearly as the trees and plants do.

I dream the medicine of the dance.

I dream of co-creation in which no one being has more importance than another, in which all beings are kin.

I will spin my web and I will send out my filaments and there will be those who feel nothing when I touch them. There will be those who feel me call but do not respond. There will be those who follow the call and join our dream. There will be those who call others in their turn.

This is how it will be.