Fog and Spider Webs

Every morning, when I get up, I take the dog out. This morning was very foggy. We’ve had a very cool and wet year here in Virginia. I opened the door. Outside, it was dark and gray. Everything looked different, like some eerie parallel world. Unusually cool air whipped in. My dog looked up at me and in a very small puppy voice said “Can’t we just go back to bed.” He didn’t really say it of course, but he thought it. Or maybe it was just me thinking it. We went out for a walk. Thick fog. Visibility was a 100 feet or so. A funny orangish red disk hung low in the sky, burning like an ember. We live out in the country and have a lot of trees in the yard. When I walk the dog after dark, I often stumble into spider webs that are suspended invisibly between the trees or between the branches and the ground, and of course, every time we go out, the dog tells me that he must sniff every tree, be there rain, snow, or spider webs. Or maybe he doesn’t tell me, but he thinks it; I know he thinks it. You can see the webs in the day, but this morning was a little different. The humidity seemed to make the webs just precipitate out of the air. They were everywhere, all over the ground, in the trees. We approached a big one hanging at eye level. Dew hung on the delicate web. Absolutely beautiful. The dew drops on the silk were strung like glistening beads on silver thread, but more wondrous and delicate than any necklace.

Beginning the spiritual journey, looking for answers to the big questions, is a bit like this morning’s foggy sunrise. When we begin, it’s like a fog, confusing. You think you’ll never understand, never put all the pieces together. But as the dawn breaks, the fog will clear. In time, the fog dissolves into the light. The most important thing on the journey is to keep the Light burning in your heart, if only as an ember at the beginning. That ember, along with the joy that accompanies it, allows you to begin to see the world differently, even in the inevitable fog; it allows you to see the things you never saw before. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. It’s like some mysterious parallel world. You can see things more clearly- You come to see the ordinary and even the things you formerly didn’t like in your life, or in the people around you, or in yourself, as wondrous and uniquely beautiful. Perhaps, the fog of nascent spirituality actually accentuates the marvels that come into focus, like dew on spider silk. What happens is that the Light’s glow brings forth a love of others, and as we learn to love others, with all their flaws, we learn to love ourselves. The Light teaches us that we too are worthy of love and that in all our ordinariness, we are uniquely special.

© 2005 Kurt Venables      

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