all I know for certain is that I've had a couple of fairly powerful experiences of the numinous in connection with Anansi, with the Undertale "Spider Dance" and The Cure's "Lullaby" as evocative music. The experiences have lacked the closeness of my interactions with Loki; more strongly do I feel (if you'll pardon the expression) like a spider under a magnifying glass being scrutinized by a power I don't understand. With Loki, and with the Undertale pantheon, I feel like I'm on more even, conversational terms.

So, I've thought and reflected about this some more today, and I think I know the right way to think about it. I can still getting something out of my experience without running to the somewhat dodgy extreme of saying, "OK, I'm working magic with Anansi now," which I think is a somewhat questionable thing for an off-white (my mom's from Chile but I was basically socialized white) and comfortably privileged person to say. But I _can_ say, "I'm working with a deity who seems strongly associated with spiders and who reminds me of Anansi, what little I know about them." There must be other spider gods too, right?

Some of what happened to me yesterday, the curious feeling of trickster activity that nevertheless felt rather different from what I'm used to from Loki, seemed rather in line with the lessons that quasi-Anansi had for me last night. "Step patiently, step patiently, build and traverse webs with care, and you'll be better off than you are now, your mind more on your goal than on your surroundings—and your footing." And I remember how the culminating "trick" of that scrambled trip around Renton was my putting my foot in an unexpected hole and tumbling painfully to the ground, scraping myself rather badly on the way.

Back when I first started my turbulent relationship with Loki, I felt like it made sense in my chaotic life to have even the occasional support of a deity who knew something about chaos. I felt like one of Loki's intents was to get me more used to life not going to plan, to getting slapped about by the unexpected. And I daresay that I've had some _massive_ bombshells dropped on me over the past year that somehow I've managed steer through the worst of.

But maybe now I need a different sort of help from a gentler sort of trickster. Someone less...melodramatic, and more attuned to everyday life and everyday worries. Enter the spider.

I have to worry a lot more about being mindful of my surroundings, now, than I have ever been in the past. I'm working a job that could literally get me killed if I'm careless with my footing, and I've had a few slips and bangs already. I've come home aching from bruised knees and torqued wrists.

I've accused myself of being a big lumbering horse, in the past, back when Monoceros / Monophylos the Unicorn was my main fursona. Being ill-matched to, and ill at ease with, his human surroundings was practically baked into him. Then I went for the dragonsona, which was scarcely any more graceful.

Yeah, I could learn from spiders.