Cheyenne Zarate
Grandmother Spider or Spider Woman is a prominent figure within the folklore of many Native American peoples throughout the United States and Canada such as the Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, Apache, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Ojibwe.
To the Hopi, she — along with Tawa, the solar Masculine creative force — is the Creator of the human race and all animals that walk, crawl, swim and fly on this planet. To the Navajo, she taught their people the art of weaving, agriculture, and advised the Hero Twins, Monster-Slayer and Born-for-Water, on how to defeat the monsters who were destroying humankind.
To the Ojibwe, Spider Woman or Asibikaash taught the women how to weave magical webs made of willow hoops and sinew — Dreamcatchers — to hang above their babies’ cradles which would trap nightmares and allow only pleasant dreams to enter through. While the stories pertaining to Grandmother Spider vary from nation to nation, she is most commonly seen as an Earth Goddess figure — the Divine Feminine creative principle who guides, protects, and supports all life on this earth.
Although Spider Woman is sometimes depicted as a maiden, she is more often than not depicted as an elderly woman. Considering that many Native American societies historically were and remain today matrilineal, the title “Grandmother” is indeed an honorific term which denotes a woman of great wisdom and knowledge. Grandmother Spider is, in many ways then, a symbol of feminine introspection and a mode of leadership that promotes harmony and balance amongst all life forms by revolving around partnership rather than dominance and cooperation rather than greed.
In today’s world, it is not hard to see that we have largely lost our understanding and respect for the Feminine — its creative power, its instinct to protect, and its interconnectedness. If the manner in which we treat our Mother Earth is a reflection of how we, as a species, treat our own human mothers and grandmothers — and I assure you, it is — then it is obvious that we have lost ourselves.
At large, humanity does not value women — especially women in their Crone stage of life — and this is reflected not only in our blatant objectification and commoditization of women’s bodies and the devaluation of any female form that does not embody youthfulness, but in the degradation and destruction of the planet we call home.
In the great web of life that Grandmother Spider weaves, everything within the universe is intricately connected. Both on an intrapersonal and interpersonal level, whether we choose to call it fate, karma, or merely cause & effect, what we have done up until this day has influenced where we are today, and what we do today will indeed influence where we find ourselves tomorrow. There is no escaping this truth, and so Grandmother Spider’s message is loud and clear: Remember who you are and why you are here, or perish as all the great civilizations have before you.
While there is no easy way to do so, we as a species have no choice but to wake up to the immense value and wisdom of the ancestors — the grandmothers who, like the powerful spirit of Spider, knew and taught of humanity’s great strength and creativity, yet simultaneously warned of its fragility and ultimate mortality.
Just as our thoughts and creative energy have so largely been used to spin webs of greed, competition, and cruelty on this earth, Grandmother Spider reminds us that we also have the power to spin webs of generosity, cooperation, and compassion.
We have the power — no, the responsibility — to reawaken our long-lost reverence, respect, and devotion to the primordial Feminine creative, sustaining force within ourselves, planet Earth, and the universe.
