Spinning our next web

Last month while writing about my encounter with, and subsequent interest in the black widow spider, I found myself re-reading Ted Andrews’ book, “Animal Speak.”

Among other things, Andrews writes that spiders have been credited for inspiring the formation of many early alphabets, based on the angles and spaces created in their webs. At first I thought, “What-letters? That’s silly. How is that possible?”

As I learned, it’s true! One example is the Ogham, a medieval writing system used in early Irish language and said to have been inspired by spider webs. To the Druids (ancient Celts who followed a spiritual path based in nature) spiders represented the bard (a traveling poet and singer who played the harp) and the ovate (a prophet or healer). All around the world, spiders appear in legends, regarded in many cultures as teachers, spiritual guides and weavers of words — writers, poets and storytellers!

So, as I wrote that column I couldn’t help but think about E.B. White’s story, “Charlotte’s Web,” where an ordinary farm becomes extraordinary through the efforts of a kindly (and literate) spider. Threatened with doom, that a friendly pig named Wilbur, who was not yet a year old, would soon be sacrificed to become the Christmas ham, Charlotte makes a promise to save his life.

She begins weaving human words into her web describing Wilbur as no ordinary pig, hoping this will cause the humans to see Wilbur as more than a slab of meat and decide to spare his life. The miraculous messages in the web draw people to the farm, enlivening not only the farm, but the entirety of Somerset County.

I’m actually partial to the 2006 movie version of the story where the narrator (the late Sam Shepard) describes the barn as “full of living things, but not necessarily full of life.” “For that,” he says, “the barn needed a pig.”

Even Wilbur noticed that just because the animals lived together, it didn’t necessarily mean they were friends. And they really weren’t. They teased and scolded one another, and everyone despised Templeton, the selfish and messy rat. But Wilbur’s positive energy, friendliness and, ultimately his plight, caused the barnyard critters to come together to help him, and in doing so they learned to appreciate one another and notice even the smallest of miracles around them.

One of my favorite scenes happens one morning as Wilbur gazes out the barn door repeating, “Oooh … Oooh, here it comes …” The animals begin to look out the barn door, too, having no idea what on earth Wilbur is looking at. Suddenly, the sun breaks over the field in a brilliant sunrise! The animals gasp, and one of the cows asks, “Good gracious, has it always done that?”

And so, little by little, the values of respect, camaraderie, cooperation and affection are infused into the farm. Even Templeton, the rat, wins favor for helping Charlotte save Wilbur — and in the end for saving Charlotte’s egg sac containing her 514 babies.

The humans on the farm also begin to feel a little different. Awakened to notice and believe in miracles themselves, including the small ones they tended to miss in their everyday lives, they start, as narrator Shepard says “being special people — a little bit kinder, a bit more understanding.”

It’s funny how one thought can snowball into a bunch of other thoughts. While it would have been nice to have stopped there, basking in the warmth of “Charlotte’s Web,” alas another story about another farm crept into my head, one that is surely the antithesis to E.B. White’s warm and comforting tale.

On that farm, the overworked, overburdened and often mistreated animals realize their situation, rebel, banish the humans, and form a kind and cooperative utopia — only to be undone by their own burgeoning greed, ego, lust for power, and potential for violence — the very behaviors expressed by the humans they initially rebelled against.

The similarities between the hateful hierarchies, power-overs, abuses and violence in George Orwell’s story, “Animal Farm” (written in 1945 as an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917) and our own current human civilization is unmistakable, and chilling. And that snowballed into another thought.

A choice was made in this country last November, one that will bring many changes to our lives and to our world. I hope we can all remember that each day as the sun rises, we have a choice as to which story we want to write.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Be well.

(Colleen Dougherty is a writer, educator, artist and behavioral health therapist. Her 20-plus years in animal welfare include jobs and volunteer work in veterinary clinics, animal shelters and TNR organizations. She has been a speaker at the New Mexico State Humane Conference and the National LINK Conference in Albuquerque, holds degrees in art and counseling therapy, and graduate certificates in eco psychology and humane education. Her passion is building joyful and respectful relationships between animals, humans, and the Earth. She began writing Paw it Forward in March 2016.)