Back in 2019, I sat with a few friends in a Rapé ceremony around a fire pit made of Grandfather stones. Rapé is a shamanic snuff that has been used for thousands of years in the Amazon jungle. Rapé is not sniffed, snorted or inhaled. Instead, it is blown into the nostrils with a special pipe called a "Kuripe" (self administration) or a "Tepi" (another person administers). It burns like fire injected into the third eye.

This pre-Pandemic event feels like another dimension now. There were five of us - Jadie, Jai, Colleen, Rosary, and myself. We passed the Kuripe around the circle and, one by one, blew Rapé up both nostrils. It was electrifying and felt like my entire body was charged with energy. After the ceremony, Colleen went to connect with the Earth somewhere out of sight, and Jadie performed some Reiki and body work on Rosary, also out of sight. It was a warm, sunny day, so Jai and I stayed at the fire pit, removed our shirts, and basked in the sunlight.

Suddenly, a tiny jumping spider lands on my right hand, and starts crawling up my arm, reaching my bicep. I forcefully blew it away with a puff of air.

A few minutes later, the little spider returned. It started crawled up my right arm again. “Where are you going?” I asked it. It kept going up my arm, over my shoulder, on to the back of my neck. “Jai, would you?” He puffs it away again.

The spider returns again. This time, Jai and I are staring at it… I have my arm cocked in front of us as the spider reaches my elbow. I tell it, “If you want to bite me, go ahead.” It stops, seems to wink at us, and flies, backwards, in a straight line away from us, disappearing into the Grandfather Oak Tree about twenty feet away. Jai and I look at each other, stunned to silence.

At that moment, Jadie and Rosary return to the fire pit. Rosary also seems disoriented.

“Guys? Can I share something?”

We nod.

“I’m feeling a lot of spider energy right now. When Jadie was working on me, I could feel the Grandfather spirit and spider energy from the Wahzhazhe tribe. The girls from that tribe get spider tattoos on their hands and I could feel that pattern.”

The Story of the Osage Spider tells the legend of how the Spider became a symbol of their tribe.

“Grandson,” said the spider, “look upon me. I am patient. I watch and I wait. Then all things come to me. If your people learn this, they will be strong indeed.”

Last week, as I was exploring electric field rabbit holes online, I discovered that spiders do fly, and scientists found out in 2018 that spiders can sense the Earth’s global atmospheric electrical circuit and use this electric field to fly. It often feels like the Universe whispers to us through different channels. In this case, the Universe is winking at me through the spirit of the Spider.