Autumn Contemplations

Good Evening on what has been a truely beautiful Autumn day . Autumn has as usual moved me into a contemplative mood.

Spiders - 4 moments
1. I took the small dog for a walk this morning, one thick with mist. We walked along a footpath between fields, every section of fence post was festooned with glittering spiders webs: complete webs, fragments of webs, single strands. I could have counted them but on this occassion I felt it would have diminshed the organic abundance of the experience. That the invisible has been made visible - briefly.
2. I was collecting ripe seed pods from my Morning Glory screen & wondering who would like to have/be able to use some of these. I reached out to pluck a brown pod & withdrew my hand at the last moment when I realized it was a fat-bodied, short legged spider.
3. My significant other was rumaging amongst some old farm hardware & called me over to look at something. "There" he said, "don't touch it, watch out, it's a hole-in-the-wall spider, they bite". It was on the wall by now, disturbed from it's home, a dark brown, exotic looking spider unlike anything I have previously seen in this country. I looked it up on the internet when I got home - a bet it's a False Black Widow Spider & they do bite http://www.britishspiders.org.uk/
4. A friend directed me a lovely site - give it a go http://www.poweranimal.com/. I got a spider.

Ripples
I stood and watched a snatch of wind make a leaf quiver - just like an idea, an inspirational thought, an idea. One that hovers & makes a tiny ripple in everyday awareness, so small a movement that it may be missed by a preoccupied or trammeled mind. Fortunately today I had a quietish mind that welcomed the poetic, the inspirational the new.

Emmerdale
My Significant other is an Emmerdale fan so we watch it every weekday evening. I have been following the battered wife story-line & wondered where it would fit on the realism-TV gloss continuum. It appears that they are going for a dose of realism. Unlike Jo, many women do not find close friends & family who believe them: they chose to side with the man -who lies to cover his tracks, not prepared to question his story or character. Jo is an intelligent, accomplished woman with low self confidence. She is able to realise that by beating her & mentally & emotionally degrading her, her husband is pushing her along the road of brutalisation & thus acceptance of the way things are (the way he wants things to be). It will be interesting to see how the story continues to unfolds. I applaud the writers & producers who have chosen to deal with an unglamourous but wide-spread issue.

So my Thursday Thank You this week is to a quivering leaf that has enabled me to understand that, the time, when I chose to believe an unpalatable truth & take action, was a gift to that person. To the spiders who have reminded me that there are hidden things revealed at the special moments. To the good things TV soaps can chose to do, and actually do..