A Samhain decoration that I love to make with my children is a Web of Life.
The idea of a web ties well into the ancestor elements of Samhain. A spider, like the Fates, is a spinner and their webs like wise a symbol of the thread of life, your fate line and a direct connection to your ancestral linage.
Spiders have important appearances in mythologies across the word. In Southwestern Native American faiths Grandmother Spider is the creator of the world and threw a dew filled web up into the heaven to create the stars. In the west of Africa Anansi the spider is a trickster God of all knowledge of stories and is one of the most important Gods in West African and Caribbean folklore. Even the interconnected aspects of nature are often referred to as the web of life.
Today spiders are still the stuff of nightmares and a source of fear to those the world over with arachnophobia like myself but they certainly deserve our respect.
To make a Web of Life you will need:
- 3 sticks of roughly equal length and width
- white or cream wool
They are made in much the same way as a brides cross. Secure the three sticks together in the middle with the wool then open them up to form points an equal distance apart. Start at the center and wrap wool around the sticks, over and around in the same pattern and work your way out to the edge of the sticks. Secure with a knot and create a loop to hang your web up with.
Moo-ther Earth 