Inspired by our hiking small groups at PCTC, Pastor Julie Delezenne wrote a 12-month hiking devotional to be used by small groups or individuals embarking on hikes in Northern Michigan (or similar climates!). Begin your hike by reading the devotional and closing prayer together and continue with one or more of the listed “practices” during the hike. Suggested hikes listed connect with the theme of the month (but are only suggestions!). May God bless your journey in God’s wonder-full creation.

July

Spiders and Spider Webs

Suggested Hikes:  

Seven Bridges 

Hickory Forest Natural Area

Regular hikers know that a consistent aspect of hiking (especially early morning hikes) is getting a face full of spider web that some hard working spider has constructed across the trail.  

A few years ago a National Park Service post suggested a few ways to avoid getting trapped in webs while you hike.  The suggestions included: 

• As you walk, use a stick to make any first contact with any potential webs.  This way you avoid using your face.
• Invite a tall person to join you and walk behind them.
• Sleep in and let the early risers clear the trail for you.  Amateurs. 

Spider silk is pretty amazing.  To spiders, their silk is everything: a sensory tool used to send and receive information, a shelter to live in and hunt with, protection for their eggs.  Silk is made from different proteins inside the spider’s abdomen.  Each spider might have up to seven different glands that produce different kinds of silk protein.  Each type of silk is used for different purposes- including web production.  

Hikers often see these webs as a nuisance- something to brush aside, or a reason to not take the lead in your group while hiking!   But what if we looked at these webs with different eyes (or felt them with different faces)?  

For most of human history up until modernity and the industrial revolution, humans have lived in an “enchanted” world or have experienced the world as “enchanted,” that is seeing everything in the world as alive, everything in the world as being a subject, as being part of the world, rather than a piece of the world to use or manipulate.  

Ecologist and philosopher, David Abram had an experience of this enchanted world when he was caught in a monsoon in Bali and had to crawl into a cave for the night.  In the cave he witnessed the beauty of spiders spinning webs all around him.  He writes: “I sat stunned and mesmerized before this ever-complexifying expanse of living patterns upon patterns, my gaze drawn like a breath into one converging group of lines, then breathed out into open space, then drawn down into another convergence.  The curtain of water had become utterly silent- I tried at one point to hear it, but could not. My senses were entranced. I had the distinct impression that I was watching the universe being born, galaxy upon galaxy….I have never, since that time, been able to encounter a spider without feeling a great strangeness and awe.”  

Enchantment is about paying attention, seeing the world connected, and alive.  Perhaps we could reframe those spider webs we get caught in as the divine trying to get our attention, trying to help us wake up to the living world around us, and know we are a part of it.  

During the hike:

• Notice the spiders and any webs you see while hiking.  Pause if you get caught in a web.  Take a moment to look around and pay attention.
• There are approximately 500 native species of spiders in Michigan.  Take a look at some common spiders here: https://usaspiders.com/spiders-in-michigan/#google_vignette
• Discuss with a hiking partner or ponder alone:  What have you been paying attention to in your life lately?  Do you see the world as enchanted?  In what ways?  

Prayer:

Creator God, your creation astounds us.  The spider spins all night long, creating works of both beauty and practicality.  Help us to pay attention to the work you are doing in our lives and the enchanted beauty you create in us and the world around us.  Slow us down and fill us with wonder that our lives might be re-enchanted through you.  Amen. 

Bibliography:

Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. Vintage Books, 1997.

O’Hanlon, James. Eight-Legged Wonders: The Surprising Lives of Spiders. Greystone Books, 2024.