Spider lessons: Calling on the vibrational knowledge of the web
with Ceda Parkinson
Tickets: https://ticketpass.org/event/EFGMWP/the-convivial-x-ceda-parkinson
"This is where the answers I seek will emerge… I would learn to read the air, to decode the vibrations it transmits.”
Franscois Dominique
Spider webs are complex instruments, capable of playing many roles. For a spider, a web can be an ear, a memory, a messenger, a nest, a net, a shield, a brain. How the spider relates to the world is dependent on the vibrations they receive from their web. It is a structure that is very easily overlooked, yet it contains intelligence that is vital for our times. It speaks to the idea that nothing exists in isolation, everything is interwoven, influenced and shaped by its connections to everything else.
For this session of The Convivial, Ceda Parkinson will invite us to re-imagine our relationship to the spider as we map a web of cultural mythologies. We will delve deep into the many functions of a spider’s web, walking the tight, delicate threads that contain some of the strongest elements on the planet.
We will explore the many sizes and shapes webs can be, and also how the symbol of the spider web has been used in human culture, inspiring myth, art and activism. We will ask the question: what lessons from the spiderweb can we bring into our own fragile and interrelated world? What if we were as attuned to the vibrations in our environment as spiders are to the vibrations in their web?
Speaker
Ceda Parkinson is a writer based in Cornwall, whose work moves between the porous boundaries of human and other-than-human worlds. Her writing has appeared in The Dark Mountain Project and Letterpress Magazine, and she has held residencies at the Jan Michalski Foundation and The Writer’s Block. Her first book, Threadworks, was published by Guillemot Press in 2024. She is currently a PhD candidate at Falmouth University, exploring the concept of ecological imaginaries through experimental nonfiction.
Tickets: https://ticketpass.org/event/EFGMWP/the-convivial-x-ceda-parkinson