House Spiders

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I give them names, the spiders who choose to live in our house.  That’s how I named Henry, shown in the photo.  I grew up with an almost debilitating arachnophobia, and as with most of my fears, worked hard to overcome it.  So when a spider moves in, I let them stay.  Unless they’re too big.  Here’s where it becomes interesting.  Like quantum mechanics, there seems to be an arbitrary point when something is “too big” for the rules to apply.  What is that tipping point?  The other day I bumbled into the kitchen early to get some water, having given up coffee years ago.  There was a spider that I could see from across the room.  It was very large.  It’s a sign of how much I’ve overcome my phobia that I was able to walk around the counter and to the sink to fill up.  I kept a wary eye across the room, however, in case Octavian made any funny moves.

The spider held very still, as arachnids often do when they know they’ve been spotted.  I sometimes wonder if they know how scary they are to other creatures.  I searched around for a jar large enough to catch and release, without pinching any legs, and crept over.  Turns out Octavian was faster than I am first thing in the morning.  And, honestly, I was still recovering from a vaccine that had knocked me out the day before.  At least I can blame that.  I wonder if that’s one of the reasons fear of spiders is so widespread—they’re fast.  Or is it something inherently menacing about those eight legs?  I’ve never experienced any kind of octopus phobia, so I can’t think that it’s merely the number.  The jointed legs?  That seem disproportionate to the body size?  Whatever it is, days later I’m still cautious in the kitchen.

I have a great appreciation for spiders.  I don’t like to be startled by them, but otherwise, if they keep their distance, I’m fine with them.  I do wonder what they think, living in a world of giants.  Some insects, in the same size range as arachnids, seem ignorant of the human threat.  It’s not unusual for an ant to find its way inside and walk right up your foot and leg, oblivious to the danger.  They seem to have no fear.  Spiders, however, do.  They’re very good at running and hiding.  I like to think they know our house is generally a safe space, until the vacuum cleaner comes out.  When I’m behind it, I always try to give Henry and his friends a chance to get out of the way.

Spider Thoughts

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Spiders know.  Spiders are aware of when they’ve been seen.  I’ve been noticing this for some time now.  You can verify this yourself, but it may take some resolve, depending on your level of arachnophobia.  You walk into a room first thing in the morning and see a spider placidly hanging from its web.  If you intentionally look at it, it knows.  Leave the room for at least ten minutes and then come back.  The spider will be gone.  When you first stare at it, it won’t move.  Nature’s flight, fight, or freeze response has a clear winner here.  Spiders play it cool.  This happened recently on a weekend.  I had my wife verify this for me.  I pointed out the spider (I’d already stared at it) and told her I was doing an experiment.  She’s been married to me for thirty-five years, and such things no longer come as a surprise.

I told her my thesis and suggested we both just get breakfast ready as normal.  The spider didn’t move, even with clatter of bowls and spoons.  When my wife went to take her bowl to the sink several minutes later, the spider had vanished.   (This doesn’t seem to apply to spiders actively descending on a web in front of your face, I’ve noticed.  They’re too busy with their spider thoughts.)  Animals are smarter than we give them credit for being.  Who ranks spiders on their list of smart critters?  But they are.  And I wonder what they think of me.  If a spider crawls on me, I run away.  Like a spider I won’t return to the same place where it happened, at least not for some time.  All of this brings Rupert Sheldrake to mind.

Sheldrake has been summarily wiped off the table by other scientists, in part because he has explored the sense of being stared at.  Materialistic science tells us there can be no such thing since being seen is passive and we have no sense organs to detect it.  We have all, however, had the experience of turning around to find that someone has indeed been staring at us.  As so often happens with materialism, we’re told simply to discard it as fantasy.  But that’s not the way it feels.  So I look at my most recent spider—I know there will always be more—and know that s/he knows they’re being stared at.  When you’re small running may not get you away swiftly enough.  Freezing makes more sense.  Freezing and waiting.  The thing you fear (for a spider it’s me) will generally go away on its own, looking for something more material, I suspect.

Spider Planet

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Misnomers aren’t uncommon when it comes to click-bait.  I’ve fallen victim more than a few times.  But such misdirection is probably as old as humanity, and is perhaps part of consciousness itself.  (Some birds are known to practice deception, as are some other primates.)  Earth Vs. the Spider is drive-in-bait as a title.  In the 1958 horror-sci fi movie (also titled The Spider), the danger isn’t really to the earth but to one small town.  There is, however, a giant spider and somehow it’s not as scary as the real thing can be, writ small.  Occasionally, such as when a spider comes out into the open in the house, I ponder why this is such a deep-seated human fear.  I know spiders are beneficial to the ecosystem and that they pose very little danger, at least in places where I’ve lived.  So why are they so scary?

Scientists, including those of the mind, have proposed looking to our primate cousins for an answer.  They too are afraid of spiders, and it’s posited that since primates climb trees to escape danger and that spiders also climb, the phobia is hardwired.  For me it’s only certain body-plans that are scary.  I don’t mind the cute little jumping spiders that get in around the windows.  They don’t seem out to hurt anybody.  It’s the kind with long, grasping legs that bother me.  As a child I used to try to identify spiders with a picture book identification guide, but soon the guide started to scare me and I had to put it down.  I wasn’t cut out to be an arachnidologist, I guess.  The movie could’ve used one, however.  They kept calling the spider an insect.

The unblinking advocacy of DDT was the scariest part of the film.  Got a problem?  Spray chemicals all over it!  It gives me the same fear as when I see all those pallets of RoundUp every time I go to Lowes.  That stuff is deadly to the environment, and I’m kind of attached to the environment.  Spring arrived around here late this year, but it was spider season by the time I watched Earth Vs. the Spider as part of my minor quest to see the “so bad they’re good” movies.  They’re also part of the history of horror.  Apart from Psycho in 1960, horror was kind of on vacation for the fifties and into the late sixties.  Of course, movies kept being made.  It’s just that they couldn’t be taken seriously.  And even though drive-ins seem to be extinct, I still fall for drive-in bait from time to time. Even when watching alone.