Spider Engineers a cross-country transit

Observing nature is one of the passions of Lorraine Burlingham.  A passion she explores at Harmony Farm and that is shared with regular postings to and to their website www.gemstonetherapy.info with its portals to All Beings, Deep Ecology, and Earth Healing.

Here is one such story special to the Harmony Forest blog:

Taking some lettuce down to her creek to wash in the lively running water of Gateway Creek at Harmony, Lorraine noticed a spider clutching a bright white egg ball, and carefully shifted it to the dry rocks beside her.

Immediately the spider kept position with some of its feet on the egg ball and some feeling the territory around her.  Feeling it was safe she started to move her eggs to safety.  She was barely visible yet sensed her greater environment in some way that only she was aware of. She moved directly away from the creek. She attached silk pulleys to the egg ball and these lines and pulleys to rocks in such ways as to move the egg ball over, and around rocks that were small to Lorraine but required engineering feats for her to achieve.   Seemingly knowing where she was going, knowing the tension to put on the cables, where to attach them, where to cut them, she precisely swung the egg ball, which was much larger and heavier than her.

At times Lorraine wondered at her strength to move the ball when needed, her ability to produce so much silk, and to take it back in when no longer needed.

When the tiny spider had the ball inside the cave entrance that she had found so unerringly, she suspended it in the middle to keep it dry, and continued to watch over it.  The cave was just a few centimetres high and deep, but that was several of her body lengths, as were some of the chasms she had crossed on the way.

Lorraine said “I was really amazed at how clever this spider was at lifting this nest of eggs up to safety and finding a hole (cave) in the rocks. How did she see – she couldn’t see very far – to know where this safe, little cave was. How to make all these webs and pulleys to lift the egg (sack) up. A mechanic would be amazed, She was able to judge where the ball was going to go, and attach, and detach, guide this thing (ball) up, past, over, around rocks to a safe little cave. Just as well she did as the next day it rained.”

You can read more of Lorraine’s adventures with all beings and different plants and animals here www.gemstonetherapy.info/all beings and at: http://harmonyfarm.wordpress.com.