Reflections on Unitarian Universalism's Seventh Principle

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

For those of you with spider and snake phobias, beyond the usual eeewwh factor, I apologize.  I’ve been there.  I used to be terrified of snakes, but I had a true spider phobia. At the sight of a T-tiny jumping spider I would hyperventilate. I still jump when surprised.

Once, in my parents’ home, in Fort Myers, there was a dead wolf spider on the floor, barring me from the kitchen…sprawled between me and the coffee pot. I crawled over the kitchen “bar” to get to the coffee, and crawled back over, cup in hand. I waited for my Dad to get up, find, and dispose of the wolfie before I came out of my room again.

My folks relied on pest control, almost as soon as we moved to Florida. Tightening our belts meant my Dad going room to room with noxious pesticides. So, for the most part, the only spiders I ever saw were dead spiders.

Then, a number of years later, I found myself living in Cross Creek—the North Central Florida town made famous by Majorie Kinnan Rawlins. It was a sane two-bedroom, cement block home—butted up against the marshes of Cross Creek.

What was I thinking?

Nature, as I’d never known her, was all around. In the evening I’d gaze out over the creek to cypress trees festooned with Spanish moss, and I woke up to the sounds of a family of barred owls nestled into an oak beside our window. Late at night, the frog song was so loud the walls vibrated.

But Nature was inside as well…a loaf of bread would mold if left out a day, and spiders marshaled each corner of the garage. I tried not to look. One morning I went to slip on my gym shoes, for a hike, and swear I heard a shriek…”No! Don’t!” I was tired and didn’t listen until my toe was smack dab against the screaming spider.

To my credit, I wore those shoes again, many times.

We weren’t terribly welcome in the neighborhood—we didn’t attend the local Baptist Church, my black cat arched her back in the window when we weren’t home, and we let the yard go—lawn orchids popped up uninvited and a quarter acre of purple spider wort was our pride and joy. The neighbors hired our adolescent friend to mow it all down.

The same young man came over shouting one day. “Jeff.” “Renée.” He barreled into the house with a small corn snake in his hands to tell us about the five or six-footer he’d just stepped over to get to us.

Before my eyes they hatched a scheme, the adolescent and my then husband, to photograph the huge snake. The young corn snake was foisted into my hands and only returned when it was my turn to grab the two and a half foot branch they’d annoyed the huge snake onto so I could lay it up against a tree…so Jeff could get some shots. It struck at me twice before careening at lightning speed up into the crown of the wee tree out front…no photos were taken…and I’ve loved snakes ever since.

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

After six months we moved away from Cross Creek, from the air boats that would blast into the marsh that was our yard, from the bellowing gators that literally lifted the deck beneath my feet, from the barred owl that shared its hunting evenings with us. We moved to the sandhill—remnant of a phosphate-mining-development boondoggle—a dry, misused, but no less lively habitat.

We were quiet. And the creatures came back. Squirrels and raccoons busted the bird feeders. Spiders set up housekeeping in the upper corners, safe from the cats. They took over pest control. I squealed and found an eyepiece to look under the deck to watch a wood rat build her home. I called her Pumpkin. Then the snakes moved into the yard—black racers, yellow rat snakes, even an indigo.

Native roaches chewed into bitter acorns, and rarely found their way inside.

A friend turned the 8 x 10 pool into a pond, and during a drought I had to pause on the drive to let the toads and frogs find their way. Dragonflies laid their eggs, and we watched pupa and tadpoles transform. Real life resurrection!

I heard a great horned owl take a raccoon, and watched swallow-tailed kites rounding the skies above the pond. Grey fox turned old gopher tortoise burrows to their liking. Red-shouldered hawks prowled. You could almost hear things falling into place, back into place.

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, but only a part… .