“The thunder rolls
And the lightnin’ strikes
Another love grows cold
On a sleepless night
As the storm blows on
Out of control
Deep in her heart
The thunder rolls”

Garth Brooks / Pat Alger

A storm rolled in quick, and poof; it was gone. As I sat on the balcony taking it in, I noticed an insect hopping weirdly. I wasn’t wearing glasses and did not know that there before me was a life-and-death struggle.

I used the magnifying powers of my phone to investigate. And there it was.

The flying ant and the spider.

It reminded me of a vision I had meditating the other day and which I have expanded upon to include the Ant Queen.

The spider queen visited me.
She built a web in my heart and my mind.
It was wonderful. She was sustained and happy.
She had babies, and they spread themselves around.
Her web grew, and as her babies grew, they wove their webs.
Light dimmed.
Food and drink dried up as they wove their own tomb.
She became frightened. And she wove.
She became frantic. And she wove.
She became angry. And she wove.
She wove so much that the light could penetrate no more.
The Spider Queen knew her reign was soon to end.
And she died.
The babies who stayed died with her while others escaped to build in foreign hearts and minds.
For a long time, the web remained hiding the skeletal remains of the Spider Queen and her family until the web itself became ghostly.

It was summer, and a newly born Ant Queen with her lovely gleaming wings searched for an ideal location for her new colony.

She had been caught in a wild storm and looked for a haven.
She landed unknowingly near the spider queen’s final resting spot.
She felt uneasy.
She felt on edge.
A sudden final gust of wind and clap of thunder disintegrated the cobwebs, and there was the Spider Queen.
Acting on instinct, the Ant Queen fought the skeleton. She sunk her fangs into what was left and found something hard. They rolled upon the ground as the Ant Queen had not yet realized her enemy had already passed on. When she finally came still confident her enemy was dead, she cleaned her wings and contemplated.
She saw that Spider Queen was long dead, but there, in her belly, was something hard, and it glowed.
She tore the Spider Queens skeleton apart and grabbed a golden nugget that pulsed.

The Ant Queen swallowed it.
She had no choice, it seemed.
She swallowed it whole.
She soon realized what she had done as the Spider Queens wisdom infused her body and soul.
She stayed still for some time to understand what was.
When it was done,
When she knew what it was about,
It was time for her to move on.
She was about to fly when she noticed something odd. She saw better, her wings glowed, and she felt stronger than ten thousand ants.

She did not know where her journey would take her, but she knew she was blessed, and it was going to be exciting.