A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
– Walt Whitman

This poem gives me pause.

When did I learn to stop or slow my casting for connection? It is not that I don’t launch filaments to others very frequently. In fact, I am fairly sure that some might see me as quite a spider in that regard. It’s just that I know that I am slow at it. I sort of give up, too, when my filaments do not catch.

I mostly wonder about this because I think that these filaments among us form the web we call community. We stick to the filaments cast among ourselves. Even big winds will not blow us off the web; it is that secure. Still, we can readily walk over it, even away from it, if we know the filaments as our own creation.