The Web of Life

Several years ago I realized that every aspect of my life kept boiling down to one central belief. Everything I learned or unlearned, practiced and felt came together in this: 

We are all connected in the deepest, most intricate of ways – each of us to every one and every thing, seen and unseen. There is not one thing we do or action we take or belief we hold that doesn’t affect the whole. 

I became so obsessed with this belief that it filtered into every piece of artwork and writing I created, visually in the form of spider webs and metaphorically as the web of life. And it became my everyday. 

This awareness often moves through me so deeply, so powerfully that I have trouble walking through my day. I am there now. I am so acutely aware of how each step – literal and figurative – affects the whole web with gentle ripples and firm tugs and harsh rips.

Every lookthrough space touches someone’s being, shifts them and transforms the web. 

Every thought is carried into the consciousness of others. 

Every time I nod to someone I pass on the street or chit chat in the grocery line energies mingle and swirl. 

Every Facebook post and Instagram image and text message beams into someone else’s space. 

Every belief, hard set or new, from childhood or from experience, has its place on the web.

Every worry and doubt, hope and joy, fear and ounce of courage – every emotion and outpouring from my heart and soul – has its own current that ignites another current.

Every kindness. Every meanness. Every disgust. Every flash of anger. Every under-my-breath utterance and every proclamation. Every apology and every self-righteous statement. These reshape, reweave, distort, break the web. 

Every insight. Every learning. Every time I open or shut my heart the web stretches or constricts.

Every breath in, every breath out pulses the web of life. 

Every touch from petting my dog to weeding my garden to hugging a friend – or a stranger – is like touching the web. 

Every choice – what I eat, what I read, what I watch. Who I say yes to and what I say no to. When I choose love over hate or fear over hope. The web changes. 

Every single everything. Nothing is spared. It all alters the web. There is no judgment here. Or at least there is an attempt at none. One kind of tug on the web isn’t declared as better than another. Not right now. Right now it’s just awareness. 

I’m learning to carry that awareness more solidly in me so I can continue to walk with it always. It can be raw. And it sometimes feels like my nerve endings are exposed which can literally hurt. Tears come more easily. I speak less. I sit on the ground more. I used to have to retreat and insulate, protect my heart and body from the power of the awareness and the love and pain it brings. It felt necessary for my own well being and also so I didn’t make others uncomfortable. But now I know that even that retreat is action. It also pulls the web in its own way. Expanding. Allowing. Being OK with discomfort. Trusting.