The Web

A considerable part of becoming mature is learning how to hold what we cannot change. This capacity doesn’t just come with age—it comes with a conscious, determined, messy relationship with loss. When we become students and stewards of grief, the soul and mind are transformed.

This isn’t a one-person job; we belong to each other in an inextricable web of evolution and connection and community. Webs are strong; spider silk, though it varies by type, is incredibly tough —it is one-sixth as dense as steel—but it tends to beat steel in its ductility and tensile strength. Ductility is a material's ability to deform—to bend or be formed into different shapes— under stress without breaking. Tensile strength is the maximum stress a material can withstand—how much it can be pulled or stretched—before it fails. Think about spider silk for a moment; it is gossamer. How can something so light and delicate also be so malleable, elastic, and strong? This is what I want us to think about when we consider our web of connection with each other and the rest of this Wild World. Our web feels tenuous right now, like anything could rip us apart…and maybe it could. And yet, the delicate web holding us together is incredibly strong—able to withstand more than we know.

When we look at our capacity to bear the unbearable, it is our unseen web of belonging that makes this possible. A mystery beyond our understanding holds us together—a community of beings with the capacity to stretch and reform without falling apart is the magic of Life herself.

Maybe you’re experiencing loss that is tearing at your insides. If you are, I’m sorry. And also… thank you for being someone who helps hold our collective grief within the web. Here’s what I know about loss and fear and despair—buried beneath the shock is an invitation to grieve. Grief is key to our individual and collective capacity to engage the life we’re living and evolve through the Unknown. Grief is essential to the strength of our web.