Molt: Do Wyrd Work

I think I’ve shed an exoskeleton.

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I recognize that the image of a chrysalis is more attractive to people when they are envisioning transformation, but I recently saw a video of a tarantula molt and I was like, “Yeah, that’s how it feels”. Maybe it’s because I’m a scorpio, or maybe it’s that the idea of a chrysalis is both too dramatic and too ‘beautiful’. This isn’t a caterpillar-to-butterfly situation. This is a, “Fuck, I don’t fit in here anymore” situation and I probably won’t appear much different to anyone but DAMN! I sure feel strange. It’s subtle…

When a tarantula molts there’s a tensing up into the body and then an internal force that pushes away out of the old. That internal force is fluid (since, our little spidey friends don’t have muscles and actually move using hydraulics) and they use this to escape from the confines of their former exoskeleton. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the image, although quite simple, that their fluids and blood help them escape the stiff and too small bodysuit they’d been wearing. Elementally, blood makes me think of water and fire together. Emotion and action. Propelled forward through time and space, our blood connects us across a web of history and experience. Sometimes, you just have to get a little emotional, curl up into a ball, and then wriggle yourself out of that old bullshit you’ve been dragging around. 

Spiders are quite fragile after they shed their skin and this is typically the time for their growth–in the tender post-molt moments. So, in relating to the fuzzy and oft-times misunderstood tarantula, I don’t quite know what the growth is going to produce, but it was darn-tootin’ time to unzip and joggle my way out. And also, that I feel very tender and it’s probably best if you don’t prod at me right now. 

Returning to this idea about BLOOD, it’s exciting to consider how this pulsing element inside us is intrinsically united with our heart, both as a muscle and as an energetic epicenter. We all know how essential blood is so I don’t need to say much about it scientifically, but what is it as something that moors us to a creative force? As an acting element in our bodies intertwined with emotional, physio- and psychological response, it becomes a unique rhythm with which we coordinate around. If your pulse becomes a metronome for interacting with both the inside- and outside-the-body world, what sort of a creative force do you become?

Let me suggest a simple movement exercise: the Molting Tarantula.
First, stop whatever you’re doing and take 3 controlled, deep breaths in through the nose out through the mouth.
Then, inhale once more as deep as you can while tensing your whole body up and inwards and hold it as long as you can.
On the exhale, let any movement that wants to happen escape and wiggle yourself into a dance of your own tempo. Use kinesthetic delight (a term coined by Barbara Dilley) to find yourself in a place of enjoyment balanced somewhere between effort and relaxation.
Take as much time as you want to play here and when you’re ready, find a clear ending for yourself in stillness. This is a great time to linger, breathe, and just reflect. 

We are using the momentum of our own literal life-force to manifest something in the world. It’s really that simple. And yet, it’s not. We are emotional, changing organisms that are tied up in some pretty complicated systems, some that are indisputably sabotaging our future while simultaneously causing a lot of unnecessary pain to each other (other including the more-than-human). When we are doing our own personal work, the work that’s not shackled to the social or cultural constructs of the world around us, we are doing wyrd work–work tied to our own fate and destiny (etymologically this is an anglo-saxon term–if you don’t like it and it doesn’t resonate with you, please, find one that does and let me know, cause I’m curious). This type of effort in the world can feel pretty strange and some moments can become so intense that we don’t feel like we fit into this world or even our own bodies any more. And this, my dear friend, is when it’s time to shed another exoskeleton and do some more growing.

We can’t shed everything of course. This is the beauty of blood and genetics (and reality), we are tied to our ancestors, to a vibrant history of humanity, and to our own short stories. It’s not all war, bad science, and conquerers. The past, as a whole, is good to remember and to understand, but we create history/herstory/theirstory too, so let’s write something the future will read that we can be proud of. And when you’re feeling lost or confused or frustrated, do the Molting Tarantula and reconnect to your own wild self. Do something creative. Do something relaxing. Do NOTHING. This idea that we have to be ‘productive’ is a myth. Productivity is not a measure of worth. Find the balance. Search for your truth.

Remember we all have our own molting cycles when we need to be left alone so we can reemerge in our own time in our right bodies. Be gentle. Let go of shit. Keep dancing.

Out with the old, in with the new. 
Happy New Moon! Happy Molting!

P.S. I’d love to hear about your experience with the Molting Tarantula movement exercise if it’s something you so choose to try out. 

P.P.S. Since, we are talking about tarantulas and dancing, we can’t avoid bringing up Tarantism–a psychotic-induced impulse to dance supposedly caused by the bite of a specific wolf spider in Italy around the 16th century. There’s no hard evidence to link the spider and the behavior. But, what an interesting image!