What a Spider Web Can Teach You: To Look Up and Look Within

After several days of rain, I went for a trail walk. The ground was soft and slick, so I tread carefully, keeping my eyes on the muddy path beneath my feet. The forest, awakened by the rain, was alive. Creatures of all kinds were out, busy building, spinning, and claiming the forest as their own.

Not far into the walk, I happened to glance up just in time to stop myself from walking face-first into the most magnificent spider web I’ve ever seen. It was enormous, perfectly intact, and stretched entirely across the trail between two trees.

I stopped, stunned by its beauty and presence. Grateful that it wasn’t now clinging to my face—and even more grateful for what it awakened in me.

A question arose:
How often do I walk through life with my eyes down, focused inward, on my inner world, while missing what’s happening above and all around me?

Not the noise of the world—the headlines, the politics, the chaos.
But the real world.
The one that’s quietly, constantly unfolding in the space between all things. The one that speaks without words. The world of presence. Of being.

I realized that I’m often fixated either on my ego, the “little me,” with all its stories and concerns, or on the inner truth of my higher self. But rarely am I attuned to both the form and the formless at the same time.

So, how do we live from both places, looking inward and outward, up and down at once?

That, I believe, is the key to peace on earth.
Because everything originates in the formless. And when I create from that place, the world reflects to me something aligned, something alive, something I might even call blissful.

The lesson is this:
There is a way to hold your attention on the inner and the outer, simultaneously.
Because ultimately, there is no separation.

And perhaps, just like with that spider web, life will guide us.
We’ll glance up at just the right moment.
Pause at just the right time.
And witness something unexpected.
Something beautiful.
Something that reminds us:
The obstacle in our path might be the invitation to wake up.