Is It True?

Many years ago, long before I had ever heard of nature awareness, I started picking up spiders. For some reason, I had gotten it into my head that an effective way to form deeper connections to the natural world would be to touch the parts of nature that scared me. The thing that scared me was spiders, so I started touching them. Careful not to hurt or scare them, I would invite all manner of different species of spider to walk on my outstretched hand. I have now been doing this for almost three decades, and I have never been bitten. Let’s be clear here that many spiders definitely can bite you, and some of these bites can have medical implications, so be careful and don’t do this with black widows or brown recluses! As for my theory on fear and deeper connections, this worked wonders for me. My relationship with spiders in particular and the natural word in general has deepened immeasurably. Some of my students and friends even call me “Spiderman,” a name I happily embrace.

As a boy growing up in Missouri, I spent hours playing in the woods. During these forays into nature, my friends and I would sometimes let daddy longlegs walk on our hands and arms as a way to more closely observe these amazing and really odd creatures. Years later, I was teaching an ecology class, and apparently my childhood affinity for daddy longlegs converged with my determination to touch spiderlike creatures. I was out in a field lab with students, and I absentmindedly picked up a daddy longlegs. One of my students was shocked that I would undertake such a dangerous activity. He told me, with great authority, that daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders in the world. They just typically can’t hurt you because their fangs are too short to penetrate your skin.

I didn’t know that I had been taking my life in my hands all these years. I asked my class if this was true; a majority of them assured me that it was definitely true. I asked several colleagues, who also assured me that this was correct. Well now I was having some extreme cognitive dissonance. My childhood friends and I had been handling daddy longlegs since I was five or six years old, and no one had ever died. Moreover, no “wise” adult had ever indicated that we shouldn’t do this. In our world, daddy longlegs were completely safe.

Okay, the gauntlet had been thrown down! I had to get to the bottom of this. It was pre-internet, so instead of turning to Google I bought THE book on Opiliones (the taxonomic order of daddy longlegs).¹ After more than six hundred pages, I concluded that (1) daddy longlegs are not spiders, (2) they have no venom, and (3) they don’t have fangs. So, in fact, every single part of the statement “these are the most venomous spiders in the world, they just typically can’t poison you because their fangs are too short to penetrate your skin” is just completely false. Over the years, I have taken great delight in asking groups of folks about this myth. I have yet to find a group that doesn’t have more than fifty percent who swear to me that daddy longlegs are just disasters waiting to happen.

Which brings us back to the question: “What is true?” For everyone, there is a difference between the reality of the world outside of us and the reality of the world that we carry in our minds. Much of the time we can’t see what is actually right in front of us, because we are unconsciously superimposing our thoughts and feelings on the external world; the elements of past experiences or trauma can confuse us and distort our reality. To be able to see what is actually out there, we need to keep questioning what we “know.”

Try: Take a slow walk outside and practice getting up close and personal with various natural objects: trees, grass, dirt, a stick, a worm, a leaf, etc. For each object, scan your internal “memory banks” for several things you “know” to be true about the object. Then mentally step back and ask yourself if each little knowledge packet is true. Is it the whole story? How do you know? You’ll be amazed at how this opens you up to a whole new experience with the natural world. Let your own senses and experience in the moment add to what is true.

On another day, reflect on some situation where you “know” you are right or on a belief you hold dear and ask yourself, “Is it true?” and “Is it the whole story?” Allow yourself to be open to new perspectives and ask yourself how another might see or interpret the same thing. Could they have a different version of the story? Be gentle with yourself and these questions. They are not meant as an interrogation but a willingness to be curious. What might happen if we revisit our old stories or bring mindfulness to our lives as we are creating new ones?

You can also use these questions the next time you find yourself in conflict or in resistance to a situation. Try approaching the moment first with open observations and without interpretations. Instead of saying “It’s bad weather,” perhaps simply note that “It’s raining today.” Instead of “They don’t care about me,” turn your awareness to what you are experiencing in your own body and notice what you feel—perhaps noting something like “I feel sadness” or “I feel unsupported.”

This shift to making observations without interpretations is a practice that makes room for everything that is unfolding. It is not about covering up pain or injustices but rather about seeing the situation through a wider lens—taking in your own experience as well as others. It shifts things from black and white to a continuum of growth and learning. This is what I see, hear, feel, and understand just now and now and now. Balanced with kindness, this awareness begins to free us from running on autopilot, when we often lose the trail we had set out to follow. With this awareness you might ask yourself: What wise action could be taken now?