Image by FotoRieth from Pixabay
Calico glow slants
through dew crystal spider web -
warming cold beetles.
As autumn fades to winter, I find myself fascinated by the glimmer of dew laden spider webs hanging from the bushes in my garden. The perfect symmetry and geometry in a spider’s web pays homage to my belief that our fellow creatures on this earth have intelligence near or equal to our own.
Different... undeniably, but humans are prone to dismissing what they can’t understand or prove empirically. How could we fully understand how the spider sets out its web weave pattern year after year, each mathematically perfect, without communicating with that creature?
I think our experiments trying to learn how other species on earth might communicate in ways alien to the human mind are often flawed by our methodology. We become limited by our frame of reference, our own form of communication. E.g. migrating birds, animals and sea-life all navigate vast distances with no map. Is this because of learned behaviour? In many cases, the answer is yes, but the unspoken question remains; do these creatures only impart this knowledge through repetitive action and observance?
I don’t think so.
I think that there is an entire world of experience living in the mind of a spider that we find it hard to even imagine, like the changes in the pattern of light through the leaves signalling the times of the year to spin webs higher or lower on the bush. Instinct is a massive part of it, but there is also a communication happening between creature, their environment and their offspring that goes beyond instinct.
A kind of collective unconscious communion with all that is within and without, maybe some kind of hive consciousness? Who knows? The mystery of these types of things is part of what inspires me creatively, pushing me to seek fresh paths of expression through words.
A limited format indeed, when held up against the majesty of the spiders’ weave.
The basic definition of Haiku is-- an objective, Japanese short poem based on a nature theme. Haiku should have three lines consisting of the following number of syllables per line-- five, then seven, then five.
True haiku should contain one or two images that have a simplicity and clarity that actually become transcendent. The analogy has been posited of Haiku as the artistic equivalent of the practice of Zen Buddhism. By reflecting a simple moment of perfection, one finds the universal moment.
The haiku in this post attempts to capture what Japanese Haiku masters call Kigo (季語):
an explicit or implicit reference to a season, that defines the time of the year in which the haiku is composed or referred to.
Wabi (侘寂)
the taste for frugal and natural things, rustic simplicity, freshness or silence; it can be applied to both natural and artificial objects, or even non-ostentatious elegance.
And Yūgen (幽玄):
a sense of wonder and mystery representing the state of mind produced by the inexplicable fascination of things, the feeling of an 'other' universe, full of mysterious unity.
To read more about the aesthetics of true haiku, and the difference between haiku and senryu, please check out my post: Haiku Vs Senryu - The Aesthetics of Form
All images in this post are creative commons licence or my own property. If you have enjoyed this Haiku, please check out my homepage 
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