Afternoon sun, Keene, NH

Last night, late, as I sat working in the office long after Chris had gone to bed, a small, pale brown spider–waxy and translucent, like a young, freshly hatched thing–walked up the wooden armrest on the chair where I sat, computer on my lap, feet propped on a green upholstered ottoman. Well, hello there, little spider: did you come looking for me?

Although I’m sure there are plenty of spiders in New Hampshire, as there are everywhere, I always think of far-off places, not sites here close to home, when my thoughts turn to spiders. I remember, for instance, the large, dew-bejeweled orbs spun in weedy Ohio fields by garden spiders. These arachnids were large and jet black, sometimes adorned with yellow spots and stripes, and each of their webs was transected by a large white zigzag, like a silken lightning bolt or drunk-stitched cicatrix. These zigzags, I was told, were supposed to keep birds from flying through the webs: a kind of spiderly Do Not Enter sign. I’ll never know whether that’s true, of course, since the spiders themselves aren’t talking.

Then there were the spiders of Jamaica; I don’t know what kind. Chris and I took a cruise for our honeymoon, and we stopped for a day in Ocho Rios to walk up the waterfalls: standard tourist stuff. Halfway up the rocky, braided stream, someone nudged Chris who then nudged me, whispering: “Look up.” The leafy green treetops were festooned with spiders, each as large as my hand, brightly colored like butterflies. It was a rare and glorious sight for our winter-weary Ohio eyes; for the dirt-poor locals, though, these chitinous gems were as commonplace as backyard rats scurrying in treetops.

And spiders inevitably make me think of Cumberland, Rhode Island and the Zen monastery where I used to spend so many weeks–one in winter, up to three in summer–staring at the floor meditating. Sometimes a spider would wander across the field of my vision as I sat staring at the space of wood floor immediatly in front of my mat, the wood-grain morphing into fanciful shapes and faces as my mood and energy ebbed and flowed: now angel, now demon. Whenever an actual sentient being interrupted this karmic play by traipsing, eight-legged and multi-jointed, across the floor in front of me, it was a momentous occasion: finally, something to watch.

Although I watched various spiders while sitting on retreat in Rhode Island, never did I experience the enlightened clarity of mind that would have allowed me to hear the spiders singing. No, all those hours and days and weeks were spent contemplating spiders who remained entirely and utterly silent, although I still harbor a shred of crazy hope…

One year, you see, when Chris and I both sat a week of retreat, in March, during my spring break from teaching–in a word, during a week much like this one, when the earth was on the brink of spring–it also happened to be the last week of our Zen school’s annual 90 day retreat. We ourselves were sitting only one week, but most of the other folks sitting with us had been there, in silence, for three months. The mood was that of barely contained giddiness. The whole monastery had a terminal case of the Ninety-Day Giggles, a situation that was only exacerbated by the fact that the teacher who was leading the retreat had recently gotten engaged to the fellow sitting next to her. For Valentine’s Day, Piotrek had snuck into Jane’s room and used dental floss–the closest thing to a craft supply he could find in the monastery kitchen–to weave a large spiderweb-like tapestry in her window, the words “I love you” and a translucent red cellophane heart, cobbled together from a produce-wrapper, hanging at the center.

Sitting this week of retreat was like meditating in the middle of a big Zen slumber party, the men rough-housing in their rooms while the women giggled in theirs. One guy, though, slept alone in a sleeping bag out on the wooden deck that skirted the glass-windowed dharma room. Surreptitious whispers told the tale: he’d slept outside in his expensive four-season sleeping bag every night, eschewing both bed and bedroom, for the entire retreat: January, February, March. Some nights the snow drifted over his prone sleeping form; he kept alive thanks to the warmth of that four-season bag and the sheer strength of the fire in his belly.

On the last day of the retreat, we gathered in a circle to share a brief word about our experience: a chance to thank teachers, tell embarrassing stories about roommates, and otherwise exercise those long-underused vocal cords. When it came time for Wilderness Man to speak, he wove an intricate rhapsody describing the oneness he’d achieved with nature: at one with snow and cold, he had finally attained the clarity of mind to hear the spiders singing.

“You heard what?” the guy sitting next to him interrupted.

“I heard the spiders singing.” The room shifted in its collective seat, squirming with the tension of stifled giggles that threatening to erupt at any moment.

“Dude, spiders don’t sing. What the hell are you talking about?” The wry skeptic who posed this question was smirking, barely containing his glee at the absurdity of singing spiders. “I mean, maybe you’ve been sleeping alone for too long, dude!” At this the women started giggling, then laughing, Spider Man looking crestfallen and bemused.

“No, really. I heard the spiders singing. They have a clear, high-pitched call: peep, peep!”

“Ah, dude, those aren’t spiders. Those are the damn frogs–spring peepers. They call like that from the pond every spring…”

By this point, all hope was gone: the room was rolling with laughter, sides splitting at the absurdity of singing spiders. Recovering from the initial sting of his mistake–the occurrence he’d taken as a sign of his impending enlightenment was a vernal commonplace–Spider Man too laughed, his first tense giggles cascading into deep-belly guffaws. “Singing spiders: I thought I heard singing spiders! Man, I need to get a room, and a bed, and a woman. Piotrek, you got any more of that dental floss?”

Zen, like spiders, is nothing special. You’ll find it underfoot, in the trees, in your bedroom window, or in your very own fiery belly, anytime and all the time. Even when you think you aren’t looking for it, enlightenment will walk unexpected up your armrest, pale and translucent, seeking you out with its story. And that’s sweeter than any spider-song, and more precious.

    This entry is my contribution for the Ecotone bi-weekly topic, Spiders and Place. For those of you not familiar with Ecotone, it’s a site “intended as a portal for those who are interested in learning and writing about place.” If you’ve never checked it out, give yourself a treat. If you’ve been there before, take another gander.)