Once I looked nature in the eye
Posted 12-09-2013 at 11:40 AM by grumptacular
One evening, I was doing dishes, and looking out the kitchen window. From my vantage point, I was looking at the corner of the property, where a telephone pole sits, maybe 30 to 40 feet from me. I noticed a line of spider webbing that ran maybe 15 feet up the pole and came down at an angle to touch a 3 foot fence post, a few feet away.
My first thought was, "That is a long strand of spider web!" Then I questioned myself because from the distance I was standing, I shouldn't have been able to see that single line so clearly. As I peered at it to figure out my conundrum, something magically started filling in the empty space between the line, the pole and the top of the fence. It started from the top and slowly, gracefully, cascaded down, almost like a sail being unfurled from the mast. It was transparent and was never steady at any given place. The colors were light blues, pinks, emerald green, just sporadic flashes but the image it created was breathtaking. Nothing I've ever seen comes close to what I was witnessing. I even questioned if I was having a hallucination. HAHAHA
As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. Just dissipated into nothingness. All that was left was the original spider line that drew my attention in the first place.
I ran outside to the corner to find a clue to what it was that I just saw, and I found it. On top of the fence post were a couple of baby spiders. They were walking from the top of the post and walking up the line. As they were getting towards the top, they were shooting out a line of web about a foot long and they would "let go". The wind was catching the line, and away they went. As the line blew away, the sunlight would hit it and create the colors that spider webs have when you look at them in the right light. I came to the concusion that these were the stragglers and the healthy mass is what I had seen from my window. There must have been a couple thousand babies! The original spider line was thicker then normal webbing. I assume in order to hold the weight of all the babies who made the jump together.
I've never seen anything else in nature that has ever held me so spell bound. I've tried to recreate the image with water colors and colored pencils but no way can I even come close. I'm sure it could be done with CGI. That would be cool!
My first thought was, "That is a long strand of spider web!" Then I questioned myself because from the distance I was standing, I shouldn't have been able to see that single line so clearly. As I peered at it to figure out my conundrum, something magically started filling in the empty space between the line, the pole and the top of the fence. It started from the top and slowly, gracefully, cascaded down, almost like a sail being unfurled from the mast. It was transparent and was never steady at any given place. The colors were light blues, pinks, emerald green, just sporadic flashes but the image it created was breathtaking. Nothing I've ever seen comes close to what I was witnessing. I even questioned if I was having a hallucination. HAHAHA
As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. Just dissipated into nothingness. All that was left was the original spider line that drew my attention in the first place.
I ran outside to the corner to find a clue to what it was that I just saw, and I found it. On top of the fence post were a couple of baby spiders. They were walking from the top of the post and walking up the line. As they were getting towards the top, they were shooting out a line of web about a foot long and they would "let go". The wind was catching the line, and away they went. As the line blew away, the sunlight would hit it and create the colors that spider webs have when you look at them in the right light. I came to the concusion that these were the stragglers and the healthy mass is what I had seen from my window. There must have been a couple thousand babies! The original spider line was thicker then normal webbing. I assume in order to hold the weight of all the babies who made the jump together.
I've never seen anything else in nature that has ever held me so spell bound. I've tried to recreate the image with water colors and colored pencils but no way can I even come close. I'm sure it could be done with CGI. That would be cool!
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