Spiders and Relics and Light, Oh My!

Did you know there are at least 900 different kinds of tarantulas? They are present on every continent. I learned this while visiting a friend's menagerie of 100 spiders. 80 or so are babies that she bred from here existing pets. I remember having an 8 legged crawl through the tickly elbow spot when I was in kindergarten. And, yup, I remembered just how it felt. Rosebud, a pinkly thoraxed tarantula about the size of my palm, did the honors of walking up the in side of my arm. Spunky, a little bigger and blacker than that, marched hand over hand inexhaustibly nowhere until my friend began stroking her favorite spot, the underside of her abdomen. Spunky stood on tippy-toe and lifted her round body to receive the finger loving.

I learned that mature male tarantulas have little hooks protruding from their two front legs. They use this to hold the female's head away from them while they inseminate her. She has a tendency to bite her lover's head off. But, get this, after insemination she holds the sperm in her body until such a time that she want to create a fertile egg sac, which she may decide never to do! Power to the ... spiders, what an interesting form of birth control. Perhaps we should get those scientists on it right away!

Earlier in the day, I visited the Buddha Relics. The atmosphere was charged with the invitation to move into awareness of boundlessness and connection to all beings. I particularly felt awakened while standing before the bone fragments of the Shakyamuni Buddha. We just celebrated the anniversary of the day he arose, enlightened, from the Bodhi tree last Monday, Dec. 8. He saw that we each are enlightened. We just keep forgetting. Such is life, I guess.

And.... Sedona played tricks on me with the light in more ways than feeling enlightened at the relics! There was a short period in the afternoon when the sky was dark gray to the north and from the south, sunshine reached at a low angle into the shadow beneath the clouds. Juxtaposed against the storm's daunting shadow was diamond brightness. I can't remember experiencing anything like it.

The storm came in gusts of rain and frozen stuff. in the middle of the night, I looked out and could not tell if the world was lit from moon glow or snow. Morning showed me it was a combination of both.

After breakfast with friends, I start the drive to Albuquerque and east.... Sedona still has the address of home above a prominent doorway of my soul.