The Wisdom of Spider Woman

Excerpt from Painted Earth Temple

While Spider Woman sat weaving the beautiful design with her nimble fingers, Cat told her of his White Mountain adventure. She sat quiet for a while as several layers of grasses danced around the small basket, then said:

“What happened to you on this journey is big medicine. It has brought you closer to your initiation time and has affirmed my intuition concerning the identity of your power animal, the snow leopard.

The teaching that the spider medicine gave to you is a wonderful gift. The rainbow that you awoke to is a reflection of the medicine power of light. Although light is white, when it joins with rain, waterfalls, or dewdrops, the rainbow magic is created. The one white light becomes the six colors within the rainbow. Likewise, there is light energy within the Earth, and it enters our feet and rises upward. This light also turns into the colors of the rainbow.

Our bodies have seven moving circles of light within them. The lowest circle is in the seeds-of-creation center. The color of this circle is red. The second circle of light is orange and is where food is changed into life’s essence. The source of life’s breath is at the third circle and its color is yellow. At the heart power center, the fourth circle is green. The fifth circle is blue and radiates from the throat. At the brow, the sixth circle is purple. The seventh circle of light is at the top of the head and the light here is white.

Each circle of light has an animal’s medicine power. The first circle has the medicine power of the snake. Some of the snake’s gifts are the physical body, pleasure, pain, and creativity. Fish are always in motion through water and they are the animals of the second circle. This movement reflects the feeling awareness that is the power of the fish. The third, yellow circle of light is the power of mind that can take flight like its animal, the bird. The animals of the fourth circle nurse their children with milk. The loving and nurturing that these animals show their young comes from the power of the heart circle. At the throat center is the human animal. The power here is speech. The power of all these circles finally gathers within the forehead. When we open this circle of light we can see into the world of Spirit. At the top of the head, the many colors become a single white light, connecting us with the All That Is. Light enters from the Sky through this seventh circle of light. The Sky’s light is equal in power to the light from the Earth, and when they join in the heart they dance the Sacred Balance.

All these moving circles create a body of light that surrounds our physical bodies. This light body is woven by and reflects the seven circles. The different colors are like a painting of light that tells a story to a healer about how best to heal a body’s sickness. As you become a healer, you will learn to see this body of light and you will learn what the various colors mean.”

Grandmother placed the now-finished woven basket in Spotted Cat’s hands, and he turned it over and admired the intricate designs as she continued:

“What you felt as you walked along the path is called the Web of Life. Everything surrounding us seems to be separate, but all is connected like a spider web stretched across the All That Is. Where the strands cross and touch, there is a tree, a rock, a human, a star, or some other being. Whatever affects any one of these beings affects the whole Web. The medicine power that came to you affected me and our tribe and sent vibrations throughout the entire Web, even to the stars.

You came into the Web of Life with the helping power of a spotted cat, the snow leopard. This power will influence your gifts in life. You are not a herd creature. You are a solitary creature and will enjoy roaming far from our tribal circle. Where many of our tribe feel very uncomfortable away from the community of the People, you feel joy in your wandering, the same as your medicine animal.

The place on the Web of Life into which an individual is woven determines his place on the Path of Fate. Fate opens before us our life’s journey, but it does not determine how we use our gifts of power. We may cause very little disturbance in the Web of Life or we may develop all of our gifts of power until we help cause a shift in the entire Web. I have chosen you along with a village girl close to your age, White Bison Calf, to be my apprentices. The reason I have picked you both is that I feel that you will honor, celebrate, and develop your gifts of power.”

Cat felt a bit overwhelmed by all this information given to him by Grandmother Spider Woman, yet he also felt its resonance within his body in a way he could not fully grasp. He knew too that, above all else, he had been honored by Grandmother choosing him to be her apprentice, and that somehow his life had changed when she imparted her wisdom to him.