Australia, home to 9 of the top 10 deadliest spiders in the world. Also, the biggest f'ing spiders I've ever seen in my whole life. You can probably assume where this post is going (it has nothing to do with yoga in an outright sense, but if you suppose everything is yoga, then it's related by a thread). This morning on my way to Ashtanga practice (6:30am) ok fine yoga snuck in...
I turned the corner out of the bedroom to head down the stairs and what do I see...the LARGEST, SCARIEST, HAS FANGS, SPIDER, at the end of the staircase on the wall (no seriously, it was the size of my freaking hand). The only spider I've seen that's bigger was in Bryon Bay in a public toilet and I thought I'd just walk into the toilet and he'd scamper away, but no he actually came towards me ready to attack. Back to this bada**, he was just sitting there on the wall, staring at me, as if to say "good morning, oh sorry were you thinking of going downstairs, think again".
FEAR. I screamed, turned around and ran back into the bedroom. If there's one person in my house more afraid of spiders, it's, how lucky of me, my male partner. I forced him to come have a look and then we started panicking amid the problem solving. It sounded something like this "OMG it's SOOO BIG, no way am I killing that". "Ok, I"ll just go downstairs really fast and grab the broom". "BE CAREFUL! It's viscous, what if it attacks you". "IT"S MOVING!!!". The darn thing ran sooo fast across the stair case and into the spare room. "go, go now, go get the kill spray". I ran like lightening.
How quickly our household items transform themselves in the face of fear...the innocent broom, became a weapon of mass spider destruction, the paper towels transformed into the hopeful spider clean up crew, my hiking boot became a stealth killing machine. I never knew I had so much potential for the desire of such sheer destruction in me.
Back upstairs, armed with my weapons of choice, my partner was jumping up and down and asking our dog why she wasn't being more helpful as she cowered in the corner wondering what on earth we were freaking out over. Weapons at the ready, my partner at my back, me as his shield (again, I'm so lucky), we entered the spare bedroom. The battlefield. "THERE HE IS!!!!"
"ok, I'm going to open the window". "stand over here, together, in the corner." "spray him" "more, spray him more". "he's dropping to the floor" "quick, keep spraying". "oohh noooo he's in the bedroom" "Allie dog look out!!". "I think you might have wounded him, he's moving slower". "step on him!" "NOO way, I'm not going near him" "I'm barefoot, I can't do it". Deeeepp breathe "ok, here I go." STOMP. "I GOT HIM!!!"
Throwing the paper towels at my partner, "you pick him up." "no way, I do cockroaches, you do spiders." Well at least there's a fair division of labour in our house. Half the roll of paper towels in my hand to work as a barrier between me and the now very well squished and very very dead monstrous villein, I run downstairs and outside to the bin to dispose of him forever.
Now on to yoga to practice ahimsa (non-harming)...