Wild Arachnid Encounters

Arachnids are some of the most humbling and enchanting creatures. There are few forms that seem to induce such a consistent universal human reaction, it seems their unique potentially threatening potency has etched a deep instinctual reaction in us. I know for me, when I catch sight of anything that appears to have eight legs, I get a spike of adrenaline, my skin crawls, and every tiny sensation on the surface of the skin feels like a full scale attack by creepy crawlies. I manage to remain calm and address the situation with deliberate and compassion action, usually just maintaining safe distance when outside, or figuring out a way to escort them to mutual safety if inside. Of course, I do my best to keep an eye on it once I've spotted it, as it can be very nerve wracking to lock in on one, then while you're going to get something to transport it with, it disappears and leaves you to decide whether to pursue it, whether it bore signs of lethality, and so on.

To date, while I've had many bites with a variety of degrees of pain and sizes of welts, I've never had a medical emergency, though I'm always weary and on guard. The rapidly compounding dangers of secondary effects of being incapacitated for any amount of time or intensity can result in deadly consequences. What otherwise in a city, be a simple 911 call, where I am now, far beyond the so-called golden hour of emergency response time, I'm in a precarious situation. Therefore, my tactics and strategies to remain in constant vigilance with arachnids are heightened.

So far where I am now, I've seen these amazing bejeweled nocturnal ground hunting spiders that are quite large, up to the span of about 3 inches, also the very otherworldly and often mistaken as scorpions, the "camel spider", these are also very large. Then I've seen a number of a assorted small and tiny species.

The king of the arid jungle though, is the scorpion. So far I've encountered several, all seemingling of the same species, though a different stages of maturity. Based on my researched, I'm lucky so far, not to have encountered the species that's very adept at climbing and hence infiltrating human dwellings.

The main species that I've encountered is larger and generally more preferential to burrowing and ground hunting, however I'm trying to be too complacent. My first encounter was when one was uncharacteristically above ground in the daylight. It turns out somehow over the night it got itself trapped inside an empty soup can and could climb back out. It was exactly the feat of getting into the can that made me want to not underestimate them. I carefully devised a way to scale up and back the extra large can and shovel I'd need to give it an air lift to a far away point without getting too close. Needless to say, it got my hairs raised, even typing this right now, thinking about it, I've got those same reactions.

I'd later find them again hunting on the warm summer night sand, while I feel relatively safe and secure with hiking/combat boots, I'd rather not take chances nor accidentally crush one, so I do my best to allow them to own the night for the summer months. If I weren't alone, I might be more bold, but the trade off of solitude is that if you have to be your own first responder, it's for real. So risk minimization is the name of the game.

This year, I was surprised quite early in the cycle of seasons, some time in May, a few hours into the dark of the night I spotted a shadowy figure crawl quickly across the ground. I was feeling quite well within the dormant times and temperatures so was care free in being barefoot, walking, sitting, crouching, etc. with no mind paid to the potential of scorpion presence. Though after that sighting, grabbing the nearest headlamp and shining the light, I positively identified it. Talk about bursting my bubble of cool season innocense.

I immediately got posted up on a deck, and had to contemplate on the fact that I had just been within feet and potentially inches of accidental catastrophe. It's always like that, every year I've found, you never know the time or context of the first encounter of the warm season, but everytime it induces an existential reconning. Some people look up to the stars to feel small, for me, it's looking down to the scorpions. This completely uncontrollable wild force of potential death and destruction, yet not an enemy. Few forces of nature are more humbling than such creatures. What is always so profound about these encounters is the way it feels like an evolutionary psychology time machine, instantly all of the social and political drama, emotional problems, hopes, dreams, desires, they all go poof in the neuro-chemistry of reaction to creatures like this. All of the sudden, it's back to the core primal deep animal mind state, escape, evasion, survival. Nothing else matters.

It puts in context how trivial so much of the modern psyche has become and makes me think that in terms of the therapeutic value of this kind of nature immersion versus or compared to that of talk therapy on a couch in an office, there's a lot of implications. If the neurotic imaginary psychological pests of the mind, the ceaseless attacks of mental angry hornets, can all disappear and go silent in the face of a primal threat, perhaps we've just lost balance with nature.

Not to trivialize the emotional and psychological problems that plague modern society, but in context, and in terms of helping people learn not to make mountains out of mole hills so to speak, perhaps a bit of nature immersion should be prescribed.

I'm not a professional, but I know eco-psychology has come a long way in recent years. And there has been a lot of advancement in the application of immersion therapies of all kinds.

For me, I'll always know to the core of my being, that the theater of the human neo-cortez, for all of it's glory, can be more of a liability than an asset. The humbling experience of being brought down to earth, recentered in the body, and repositioned tactically towards survival in the wild, helps to declutter the mind. To put it bluntly, wild nature will...for those who are lost in their distraught socially bloated minds...give you something to cry about...