Right Now, There are Tiny Arachnids Crawling on your Face
They are especially active at night
One night when I was about seven years old my mom was walking by my bedroom and heard me moving around.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I’m afraid there’s a spider in my bed.”
“If you don’t go to sleep right now, I’m gonna go outside and get a whole bucket full of spiders and dump them in your bed.”
Yeah, not her most impressive parenting moment.
All of my life I’ve been terrified of spiders. My sister is the same way. My fear of spiders has kept me from camping, traveling to South America, and joining the Peace Corps. I don’t know where this fear came from and I know that most common house spiders are completely benign.
Still, a spider is the only insect that I will kill if there’s no one around to take it outside. Every time this happens, I feel guilty. As a yoga teacher, I am aware of the first principle of yoga, Ahimsa, or non-violence. I don’t eat meat. I don’t buy leather. I don’t kill any other bugs, even mosquitoes. But my spider fear endures, even after trying hypnosis, where I was told to address the spider’s soul and promise not to harm it.
