It was a quiet night just one week after the Winter Solstice. We were preparing a soup over the woodstove in the Longhouse and there dangles a spider… A sign that life will return to the earth and Winter shall not last.

She watched us a while then climbed upward to the wooden crook above the woodstove. I believe she knows that is a good spot to sip warm water droplets from the steam of our tea kettle. I even caught her later in the night coming down to grab a portion of quinoa soup.

My main concern is that I do not know if she realizes that she came down from the Spirit World so early in the season. Our Longhouse is only warm a few hours per week and there will be subzero temperatures within our space intermittently for a couple more months. But the main thing to consider: Is the purpose of life to live as long as possible on earth? Is the point to bear children at all cost? Is the deepest pursuit that of physical comfort? This spider will not accomplish any of these three yet I believe she is more wise than all humans of the “modern” society.

She hatched out of her egg too early to find a mate and bear children. She will likely freeze to death in a harsh set of days of late January and certainly will never feel the warmth of late Spring. Her physical comfort will be compromised every chilled morning she graces our Longhouse during this second half of Winter.

I reflected on this a while and she shared with me some insights. Living on principles and doing what you believe is more important than any of those three pursuits. She felt the call to share a few meals with us this mid-Winter and encourage us with a glimmer of hope that life and warmth will return. She heard the rumors of the January 1^st eviction and she wanted a felony charge not as an egg in our wall, but as a conscious Spider… trespassing on mila hanska stolen land. How could she resist living? Even though living in this way will bring a quicker death, she chose to live. She says: “I would rather live one day a Spider than 500 an egg”; so, she has come and I thank her and I wish her well when it is her time to go. I hope to visit with her in the Spirit World someday and I wish more humans had the principles and convictions she is living out.

-Trey (from a Longhouse at Standing Rock)