This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
Incandescence Rising Above Darkness Chapter #10 Speaking Rock’s Unspoken Secret
On the drive up the dirt road to the Canyon de Chelly overlook, my father told us the Navajo legend about Spider-Woman. He began with, “Speaking Rock tells Spider-Woman when a child is bad, and then Spider-Woman comes down off her high rock and takes the bad child to the top of Spider Rock where she devours them.” Then he pointed out the car window to the top of the monolithic stone and said, “See the white at the top of Spider Rock? That is the bad children’s bones, bleached by the sun.” He looked at my older sister and said, “Spider-Woman will certainly feast on your fat body.” My father seldom passed up an opportunity to frighten or insult. Though I did not know what devour meant, I knew it was not good. I barely spoke, sensing it was safer not to let my father know how I thought.
I heard Speaking Rock say, “There are no bad children, only sad children.” Speaking Rock knows this, it stands so high it can see everything, even the inside of things. It can see into the children’s hearts. It sees the hurt cause them to be sad and act badly. Speaking Rock tells Spider-Woman which children are sad. Then Spider-Woman climbs down and takes the unfortunate ones up to the top of her high rock. There the children have Spider-Woman’s many other children to play with, and they are happy again. Up there, the air is so pure it makes them giddy. Up there, the birds teach them how to grow their own beautiful wings. The story I heard was that the white at the top of the high rock was their lovely feathers.
Clare Cooley
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