Tag: Grandmother Spider

The Triple Spiral and Cosmic Web

The Triple Spiral is said to be an ancient symbol from the Neolithic era, which means Earth, Sea and Sky, or Life, Death, and Rebirth, or Body, Mind, and Soul. The Yellow and Black Garden Spider is also known as the Writer Spider who can inscribe designs in the center of her massive web, that often appear in doorways. The triple spiral is also known to signify the triple Goddess. I have been drawing spirals since I can first recall as a child, a kind of soothing doodle, or perhaps ancestral memory. While it is well known as a symbol inside New Grange, this ancient symbol can be found in ancient designs across cultures. 

Writer Spider

Blowing In the Wind 4-21-26

In a recent dream, I saw a massive web in front of the door to the retreat center where I had just finished teaching this past weekend. 

The wind blew the web away from the door, as the bottom had come untethered and the web blew free in the wind. I became conscious in the dream. I noticed the doorway of the retreat center, where a rainbow unity flag had hung, but now held a triple spiral design in the center of the web that covered the doorway. The huge web blowing in the wind felt like an invitation from spirit to be guided on the next strand of my journey guided by the great weaver, Grandmother Spider, the old one who weaves the world into being, and leaves her invisible threads as paths to travel in dreams as a bridge between time and place, and between Earth, Sky and Sea. What is written in the center of her web becomes a spell of creation, or a mystery into the unknown.

Unity of Augusta

Cosmic Web

The first night of the retreat, I had a powerful dream journey with lots of energy coming through with the stellium of seven planets in Aries and the New Moon. A  cosmic web was shown in the stars, and a typical yellow and black garden spider sat in the middle of the web, waiting for me. The center of the web had a single thread, which out of that there was two other webs coming up from behind, and connected to this original web next to me. Three webs connected by a single strand. The energy these webs held were shimmering before me in rainbow colors.

Neolithic Dreaming with the Ancestors

The Dream web is interesting, and the energy intense. When I saw the web in my dream, strung before the door of the retreat, with the Triple Spiral woven into the center, it seemed connected to my journey guided by the drum, which opened the retreat where the spider first appeared in the center of a cosmic web that was strung across the galaxy by a single thread woven into two other giant star webs vibrating with energy. Three webs of galactic energy. 

The last guided journey of the retreat was tracking sacred sites on the Earth by way of ley lines, as a mode of dream travel. I first visited New Grange, Ireland in my dream travels, and saw the triple spiral inside the Neolithic tomb, guided there by strands of energy ley lines. Perhaps this is a favorable wind blowing the dreaming web in the direction of my Irish ancestors at the sacred site of New Grange, Ireland and the Neolithic tomb where the mysterious triple spiral rests. 

Triple Spiral at New Grange

Some of my Irish ancestors are traced back to New Castle in the Boyne Valley, not far from New Grange. I had recently told a friend in Ireland that I would like to visit New Grange next time I visit. We are planning for me to come to Ireland in the coming year to offer a retreat on Collaborative Dreaming with the Otherworld. 

Certainly we will delve into the mysteries of New Grange as a cosmic sanctuary of the Sun and the Seasons, and the energy ley lines that connect sacred sites together and the web of energies that exist in the land and the stars as maps to travel in dreaming to the in between and the Otherworldly places interwoven with the Earth, Sea, and Sky in Ireland. In my dream journey, I tracked many ley lines through Celtic lands, from New Grange, Ireland to Stonehenge, England to Chartres Cathedral, France and the Rose lines of Southern France. All ancestral territories in my blood lines. 

The invisible threads cast by Grandmother Spider are a wide web of collaboration in dreaming with the lands of my ancestors. 

By Valley Reed 2026 all rights reserved.

The Weaver

Since the Spring Equinox of 2021, I’ve been dreaming with the Weaver. She paid me a visit in my dreams on that night, and I’ve been tracking her wisdom in myth, stories and dreams.

The Weaver – 3-21-21

I woke this morning from a mysterious dream of an older woman who was tall and slender and learned as a weaver. She was there to teach me her skill at weaving, and told me it was time for me to learn what she had to teach me, I can no longer put it off. I knew it was true, but I did not feel a desire to learn from her, whose energy seemed harsh to me, and I felt weaving is not a skill I am prone to naturally. I could see by learning this skill, it would set my path to a crossroads where I would have to make a choice about the direction of my life, but without this skill, I would not make it to this crossroads. The deeper teachings being transmitted through the practice of weaving include connection, discernment and inclusion. The ability to see the threads of fate and destiny and make choices. I knew internally I need the teachings of the weaver, but I do not want these lessons to be harsh. The weaver teacher has a need to share her wisdom, and if the student does not choose to weave, then she cannot share her life’s work and her gifts go to waste. She carries both a sadness and resentment about this, that weighs on her slight frame. She is a Crone and guide, able to teach me about the strands of my life, that can be woven into a beautiful path and sacred container.

Waking – Aware of the struggles of being at the beginning of something, and learning something new that will affect my life journey, leading me to a crossroads.

Action – Invite the weaver into my dreams open to learning and practicing her gifts.

Spider Woman of Teotihuacan, Mexico

There are many stories and myths about the Weaver, she is the ancient wise woman who weaves the world. The Mayan Goddess Ix Chel brought weaving to women, was a midwife and psychopomp who oversaw all phases of life and death, fate and destiny as measured by the moon and the stars. The Spider Woman of Teotihuacan, Mexico predates the Aztec culture, and is also called the Great Mother Goddess. Similar stories of Grandmother Spider as Weaver can be found in by indigenous people of the Anasazi (Pueblo), Hopi, and Dine’ (Navajo) Southwestern Native Indian stories. Canyon de Chille, AZ in the four corners area holds a site sacred to Na’ashje’ii Asdzaa (Grandmother Spider). Spider Woman Rock is a red rock spire rising over 800 feet from the canyon floor like a giant needle. Spider Woman was said to have woven a web from this place that covers the vast area of the Navaho lands.

Spider Woman Rock in Canyon de Chille, AZ

Baba Yaga of Slavic origin, Athena and Arachne of the Greek Myths and Ariadne of the Labyrinth in Crete are all weavers. There is the well known western fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, who pricks her finger on a needle from a spinning wheel to fulfill her fate. There are the 3 Fates also called the Norns in Scandinavia, and the Moirai in Greek myth known as Clothos (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable). The Primordial Greek Serpent Goddess Ananke is said to have created herself, before weaving the world. The Egyptian Goddess Nuit is another Cosmic Weaver and one of the oldest weavers of the Universe. So many stories of weaver, so many webs to unfurl.

Web Walker 4-15-21

I am conscious in this dream, suddenly transported to a dark desert canyon, where a woman stands dressed in a sheer white cotton blouse and skirt. She has black hair with a few white streaks. She has a round sweet Native face. The narrow canyon she enters is in striated grey tones. She walks in her bare feet on a sandy path deeper into the narrows of the shadowy canyon. She steps into a circle of moonlight shining on the path. She makes eye contact with me, and looks down at her feet, showing me the layers, upon layers, of webs loosely wrapped around her ankles. The webs carry stories, and she walks with ease and keeps a slow and careful steady pace. They do not constrict her movement, but her stride is small, and she must walk with intention in every step she makes, to be sure and safely carry the many folds of webbing draped around her ankles. Deeper she goes into this ancient sacred place. She carries the dreams and stories of her people to awaken them in the deep womb of the Great Mother.

“Web Walker Canyon” by Valley Reed
in watercolors all rights reserved.
Valley Reed © 2021