Spiders in indigenous cultures are referred to as Grandmother Spider — signifying her wisdom and knowledge of her ability to weave her web. By tracing your red thread, you can gain perspective on the web that your mother line has been weaving. The good, the bad, & the ugly.
If we don’t face all facets, who will?? If not now, when?? What I’ve come to know is— it’s necessary to witness and speak to the knots in the thread in order to unravel and break the chains/cycles.
Did you also know that biologists recently discovered that the web is intricately linked to the spider? Like an extension of her nervous system. When the web is torn the spider experiences something similar to a stroke - a moment of paralysis — before she regains her senses to rebuild. Typically a stronger more strategically placed web.
Is this what happens when we face our ancestral trauma — our grandmothers’ trauma? A moment of paralysis and then the wisdom to rebuild stronger with the knowledge to pass on? Healing ourselves, our lineage, and the universe?
Quantum physics would say that time is a fabric that bends around awareness. Time isn’t a line. All moments - past, present, future — exist simultaneously. Healing, in the quantum world, can ripple backward — rewriting what already happened. So our awareness — our witnessing — and the healing from tracing the red thread can create a ripple of healing all the way back (at least that has been my experience).
Here are some ways that I have traced my Red Thread:
