Over the past few months, a natural inquiry about my relationship with insects has come to the forefront of my awareness.  Seemingly a strange thing to focus on, right?  But I have noticed that I am suddenly very aware that I am looking to shift my reaction to insects, spiders, and all creepy crawly things from “AH, GROSS, SCARY, FEAR, YOU MUST DIE” to “Hello, I see you, you beautiful being, I will not hurt you, I am not afraid of you, I am just like you”.  Over the course of the past few months I’ve befriended several spiders, cockroaches, rolly-polly’s, beetles, ants, etc that I would have otherwise wanted to get out of my experience.  I even let a daddy-long leg lay eggs in my room, but they didn’t hatch because I don’t think they had enough good to survive. This has been a really great practice in learning to be with all things in a space of Love, even if they look differently than I do, even if they evoke a sense of fear in my body from past conditioned habits.   I am choosing now, as an adult, a new way to be with these lil bugs.

Cause I mean, really…. to have a full-body reaction of fear to seeing a small little spider?  To have our first instinct as humans be to reach up our arms and smack these creatures down to their deaths??? Really?! Jessica! Grow up.  Just because something scares you, it doesn’t mean that you should kill it, or have someone else kill it for you!  Just because it is “invading” your space does not mean it doesn’t deserve to be there, to be alive in it’s spiderness.  Softly, gently, with awareness… watch yourself, watch your actions, your emotions, your thoughts and your feelings… learn to see that you can shift around your perspective and learn to befriend these little creepy crawly beautiful beings.

….In a larger perspective, I see this area as a way for me to learn to be with all things that I fear in a new life-giving, heart-opening way.  It is great practice to learn to open myself up to the well-being and community of this world, and this Universe.  Starting small and working my way up, up, up….  (let’s just say I think other beings in the Universe that I am interested in interacting with may, at first glance, look and feel a bit more frightening than spiders and I’d really like to be able to lay my sight on those beings with love, tenderness, and openness too.)

~Oh and of course, oh so perfectly, I see this poem pop up on my newsfeed from a friend.  It appears I am not the only one who has started to question their feelings toward these creepy crawly beautiful lil beings 😉