Baalabog
In a flash of insight I knew where my friend the spider first came to me. It was a day that was burned into my memory. I was at my babysitter’s house, playing out in the woods as I often did. There was a field that separated the woods from the laneway and I’d walk through it to get to and from the small cedar forest there. After some time spent playing and exploring I crossed the field to return to the farmhouse. As I did the grass that had grown tall and brown in the late summer brushed against my legs as I walked. I felt a webby resistance then. It stretched across my shins as strong as yarn. Like woven cotton. Tearing a little bit but holding remarkably strong. I looked down to see the trademark swingle of an orb-weaver’s web. I saw the black and yellow... or did not need to. At that moment I must have been imbued by the sheer terror that spider must have felt. Being disturbed by accident by a creature monumentally bigger than itself. Maybe it’s nearer to say that we shared that terror. I ran - sprinted - as fast as I could possibly sprint, crying the whole while. When I got back to the house I complained of having been bitten by the orb-weaver, and, although in no physical sense had I been bitten I was still somehow telling the truth.
The spirit of the orb-weaver has been with me ever since. At first in the profound fear I felt at night thinking that spiders would descend on me in my sleep. Nights like this were sleepless and disturbed. Then later as an adult experimenting with magic mushrooms I felt the spider yet again. Looking upwards I felt the supermassive presence of the arachnid. Baalabog, as I later named him. I felt a profound friendliness in him. I felt a superb, otherworldly sensitivity. I felt us dancing between fear and familial warmth. When I felt afraid he would recoil, when I felt love he would come forward with the most radiant, pleasant friendliness.
Those were my first conscious encounters with the mad divine, the twofold mix of powerful emotion that I have labelled the insane... something. I forget, really, but you catch my drift. Hysterical laughter and sadness all at once. It has evolved in recent months. I feel strangely more at home in that mix of emotion. That mushroom trip I speak of was based around a question… an attempt to reconcile myself on this earth. Seeing my humanity and my search for reconciliation the spider came to me. It does not surprise me given the kindness he possesses. I would see Baalabog again and again in my use of psychedelics. I would sense the arachnid nature and the massiveness of the spirit above me. He would always seem earthbound but I would have to look straight up to greet him. It occurred to me only much later, again in a flash, that our roles had been exactly reversed from our first meeting. I was now the tiny being at the mercy of the huge spider. I was feeling myself as a child from the spider’s perspective. My own friendly nature and curiosity - those times where I would stare in awe at the yellow and black predator, the white swiggle in the middle of its web. And my own sheer panic at the prospect of touching or being touched by the alien beings.
My friend’s lesson is about angels and demons. Yin and Yang. The dual. Later when Baalabog would come through in my automatic writing I was leery of him. The mad poet. Madness would seem to come from him and there seemed to be a hostility that he would extend to the other spirit beings in what I called my “Spirit Council”. His name being part black god Chernabog and half biblical demon, Baal, also raised alarm in me. But since then, we have found ground together and I am profoundly grateful to have the cradler of divine madness in my life. Black mixed with yellow. The predatory and sensitive spirit of the arachnid. Sometimes I try to forget about my friend… I get scared. In those moments I lose myself as well, the world becomes dreary and tiresome. A grey slog through the dirt and the mud. When I push away from my own darkness I begin the process of annihilating myself. It’s okay though… I’m getting to where I’m going. But, I won’t get there without my demons.
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