The Bible, the Bee, and the Spider

I have been dreaming, after a long dream drought. I reopened the faucet of dreaming first by participating in an online dream workshop series with Robert Moss, and later with a new teacher, Ariella Daly. I’d worked with Robert many times, and am grateful for his new online offerings. In one of our guided dreaming sessions, he invited us to ask for a messenger to tell us about our mission in life. We may, he told us, find a reminder of a messenger who had already visited in the past. In that short drumming journey, I saw a bee emerge from the garden outside my window, as bees do in spring, rising from earthy solitude. It was indeed a reminder of a dream I’d had many years earlier.

In that dream, of January 12, 2000, I woke inside the dream to put the dog out. The rocking chair was moved, and I bumped into it when I went to turn on the light. The light would not come on. I realized it was dimmed, and moved up the dimmer switch. The light was one globe hanging, and covered by a swarm of bees, and bees flying nearby. A huge spider hung on a web. I didn’t know how I could get past all that to let the dog out. Then I said to myself, “I’m still asleep!” and went back to bed to ask my husband, still inside the dream, to wake me up. Then I woke up “for real”.

Later, when I found Ariella’s workshop series on Dreaming with the Bees, I knew I needed this. My intention was to work with the Bees Around the Light dream, but my first dream during our month as a dreaming hive was about the Spider. I WAS the Spider.

I live within a wealth of symbols. My work, my chosen public path, is ministry. My private spirituality, on the other hand, ranges far and wide, finding the God Essence in everything. And so, I was pondering how to carry all this, the Bible, the Bee and the Spider, in one perfect whole, when I realized that there are seasons and patterns to spirituality. The Bible will always be a thread through the Weave of magic and dream. And the Dream will always weave through my experience of the Christ.

The Weave, the beauty in the Weave, is the pattern. As an artist, my weaving is not the same pattern over and over as might happen in a factory. The Weave is intricate and beautiful, shaped by time and life. I have so many threads, so many colours, so many fiber types. No weaver can use all their threads at once. Sometimes a single colour cotton broadcloth is perfect, but that leaves out the other fibers, the other colours, and other textures. A fabric store with only one colour of cotton broadcloth is not inviting. Threads of Bee and Spider will always weave through my work, as will threads of the Bible. All of this is one. I am rich. I am full. I am safe.

“Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.” Ecclesiastes 9:7, KJV.

[NOTE: I weave words, metaphor, and symbol. My daughter, in the photo above, with her girls, wove the reproduction overshot coverlet you see there. It is on display at Kings Landing. For more information on overshot coverlets, please see Upper Canada Weaving.