ABSTRACT
I am sitting in my room, thinking about the way Native-American women have been taught from their mothers to think about themselves, based on the legend of Spider Woman.
I draw on several resources to tell this story, which is not my story but which has much to teach me. I think of my hard chair as a rock at the outermost point of my house; of the gray computer screen as the void about to be filled; of the stirrings of uneasy agitation in my gut as the thread waits to spin out. As I imagine these four things-rock, void, gut, threadperhaps I can articulate this story, which is not my story, but about which I am drawn to speak-write. Spider Woman’s legend offers much to women brought up in a culture that has been formed by classical Western (not Native-American) myths, legends, and Bibles. Spider Woman teaches women many things, not the least of which is a different meaning of beauty and power. Spider Woman is as much a figure for woman power as Zeus or Jehovah is for male power; the difference, however, is absolute.
