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POINT ONE: MT. KAILAS
 Point Two: Spider Rock Spider Rock is honored by both Hopis and Navajos as the sacred home of Spider Woman, an earth deity whose importance cannot be over-estimated. Spider Woman embodies the dynamic, powerful link between the human world and the world of the divine, the silken web from earth to sky, the bridge spanning past and future. In most of the Ways, she is a beneficent female, a mother figure who guides us children and can be trusted to stand up to coyote when he practices witchcraft or commits misdeeds. Integral to the creation stories of both Hopis and Navajos, Spider Woman facilitates movement From one World to the next. When the waters of the First World rose, she wove a web that served as a lifesaving raft. In the second World, she stole Water Monster’s baby, capturing it with her web. When the Pueblo peoples emerged from the Third World into the Fourth and found monsters who roamed the land and killed many people, she gave power for Monster-Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water to find Sun-God, their father. On finding him, Sun-God showed them how to destroy all the monsters, In yet another Fourth World ledged, The Twins came upon Spider Woman on the way to their father’s home. They saw smoke rising from an underground house on which a four-rung ladder formed the entrance. There were many seats in the house. Firstborn chose to sit on one of flint, his brother on one of turquoise. In the room sat an old woman who was very pessimistic about their venture, to the point where they fought over the issue, According to the Shooting Chant myth, when the old woman (Spider Woman) had been overcome by the Twins, she gave them the bundled prayersticks, sometimes called “life feathers”. She also provided them with a formula that could quiet the anger of enemies. Spider Woman was thus instrumental in fixing the flint and turquoise men within the Twins to make them invincible. Spider Woman chose Spider Rock for her home. Taught to weave by a spider, she passed on the art to the Navajos, once again heloing to ensure their survival. In acknowledgement of the gift, Navajo weavers always left a hole in the center of every blanket, like that of a spider’s web, until traders in the early part of the last century refused to buy such blankets. To this day, most Navajo weavers continue to leave a “spirit outlet” in their designs. In Point One we are entering the Fifth World. Once again, Spider Woman reveals herself to help guide and direct us. |