A beautiful pink and white spider!

"Even things you see as superfluous in this world -- like flies, fleas, and mosquitoes -- are part of the greater scheme of the creation of the world.  'And God saw all that God had created, and behold it was very good.'" (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 10:1)

For many people, including the words "beautiful" and "spider" together in the title of this blog post would be an oxymoron.  Spiders are often seen as ugly and even fearsome creatures.  But for those who can get beyond their arachnophobia, some spiders can indeed be attractive.  Consider this pretty spider I spotted on a milkweed plant in my garden. (Click photos to enlarge):

I had never seen a spider like this before, and was amazed at how the pink stripes on her (yes, it is a female) abdomen exactly match the color of the flowers.  I could not find this species in any of my nature books, so I googled "pink and white spider" and immediately found this page on a spider website that not only identified the species, it gave me a lot of other interesting info.  Turns out my pink and white spider is nothing rare.  The species is very widespread and often found on a variety of flowers. There were many, many more sites where people asked or wrote about this interesting spider.

The scientific name is Misumena vatia, and it a variety of crab spider, known as both a Milkweed Flower Crab Spider and a Yellow Goldenrod Crab Spider, among several other names.  This is one of the few North American spiders that can change its color to match its surroundings -- an arachnid chameleon!   After reading this, I remembered that I had seen similar spiders on goldenrod flowers, but they were yellow.  Now I know they are the same species.

This is a "wait and pounce" type of spider that does not spin a web.  Instead, it sits quietly on flowers, blending in and waiting for something to land.  When I checked back a few hours later, the spider was still there and feeding on a yellow jacket wasp that she had caught.

Which brings me to another nature observation.  This summer, I have not seen a single honeybee anywhere on my land.  Not one!  As you may already know, the honeybees are facing a serious health crisis and are dying out by the droves.  Years ago I used to stand under my apple trees when they were in bloom and hear a constant, busy humming as the bees did their work.  But no more.  This year, the fruit trees were silent. 



Hornet on milkweed

However, I am still getting pollenation on my flowers and vegetables.  The niche has been taken over by various other insects, including paper wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, flies,  moths, butterflies, and a variety of species of bumblebees.

This is why I do not remove wasp nests unless they are in a spot where they might be a problem for animals or humans -- such as right over a door way.  Otherwise, I leave them alone.  To those visitors who complain about wasps flying around, I reply that these are the insects responsible for pollenating the vegetables we harvest.  Plus they are insect predators, removing a lot of destructive caterpillars from the garden.  Really, the wasps and hornets are more beneficial that bothersome -- and if you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

Perek Shirah, The Song of Creation

"This is my Father's world,

and to my listening ears,
all nature sings and round me rings

the music of the spheres."

This old Protestant hymn, which I learned in Scout camp many years ago, expresses the same consciousness as an ancient Jewish text called Perek Shirah, "The Song of Creation" a mystical hymn that even today is found in many traditional Jewish prayer books.  It portrays all living creatures singing their individual songs in praise of the Creator. The universe is filled with hymns as cows, camels, horses, mules, roosters, chickens, doves, eagles, cats, mice, locusts, spiders, flies, sea creatures, fish, frogs, and many more offer Biblical verses as songs of praise to God.

 A number of years ago, I had an amazing experience; I actually heard a small part of the mystical Song of Creation.  It was on a warm summer day, and I was walking through a field of blooming alfalfa. The air around me was filled with hundreds of little orange and yellow butterflies, the ones known as "alfalfas" or "sulfurs," flitting from flower to flower. Suddenly I experienced an expansion of consciousness in which those butterflies were actually singing! Of course, it wasn’t a song in the way we usually think of a song, there weren’t any words per se. It was more like a joyous energy that I experienced as an inner sound, in which those butterflies were expressing a level of absolute joy. I had, for a moment, touched a higher level of awareness about how nishmat kol chai, "the soul of every living thing," is praising God.

Perek Shirah doesn’t mention butterflies specifically (they are apparently lumped in with insects in general), but they are part of Creation’s song, too.  And if I were to assign a biblical verse to the song of those butterflies, it would be ivdu et HaShem b’simchah, "serve the Creator with joy." (Psalm 100:2)  Most butterflies only live for a week or so in the adult stage, but judging from what I heard that day, they make the most of every joyous moment while they are here.

And this is why Rebbe Nachman of Breslov told his followers to spend an hour a day praying alone in woods and fields. He even said that the grasses and trees would join in the prayers. I take that quite literally.  Every living thing has a consciousness, even the rocks and clouds are sustained by  the "holy sparks" (netzotzot) and emanations of God's energy.  Sometimes, if we are very quiet and patient, we can tune in to their mystical songs.

Garden spider in my yard 2007