One breath

The spider has repaired its web in the upper corner of the back door. Four mosquitoes are caught, one moves to free itself. I want to intervene and help but in another moment, I'd kill it if I could. Compassion arises when the suffering is seen; what is it in me that wants to free the caught and kill the free?

I'm surprised there are mosquitoes in October, that this is the only creature trapped. I watch the spider every day. Watch it re-weave the web every morning after being obliterated by the night, starting with only a few lines connected to the frame. I think this has to be a poor place for a web, but the spider doesn't seem to mind the daily task. Now complete, symmetrical, cyclical, squared, the spider sits full-bodied and still in the center. My friend, I call it.

I want to save the mosquito and I don't. I revere the spider and yet would brush it off of me. Pondering life at this moment, revering, leaving alone, and killing, I also must tell you that right beside the door on the kitchen counter is a fruit fly trap, a cone of paper stuck in a mason jar to lure them into the fermented smell of smashed fruit soaked in apple cider vinegar. They can't get out once they go in.

Just yesterday a bird ran into the back door window, stunned, damaged, it didn't move. I stayed with it for forty minutes, gave it Reiki and talked sweet until it flew away.

There is only one cycle? It's not a cycle? A vibration? A dimension? When did we start calling it all "life" and "death"?