While doing some late night watering to prepare my plants for an impending period of neglect, I found myself , thanks to a headlamp, enjoying a field of diamond like sparkles far greater than could be found in any jewelers shop. Between the water droplets, the prolific spider population and the starry host above me, my mind went back to a simple, yet profound, truth I learned decades ago. It needs remembering.
In college, I took an off campus ecology class. Doing an assignment with flashlights pressed to our foreheads, (Duracel and Eveready hadn’t yet developed the cool headlamps we have now) we set out to find and record our observation of spiders. To a query concerning how to tell if you were looking at a dew drop or a spider before you waded through the weeds, the instructor spoke what many of us, whose educational goal included more than the ability to put the big round ball through the hole in someone’s worn out, misplaced hammock, had already deduced.
If it’s moving, it’s a spider. Dew drops don’t crawl.
Spiders’ complex eyes reflect green. Dew drops reflect white.
It’s amazing how simple the deep truths of life are.
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