In the past few days, I have seen a suspicious number of snakes.
To begin this saga, my friend brought up Adam and Eve, and we discussed the symbolic significance of the snake.
Then, the next day, two black snakes were aligned perfectly with my path as I was run-skipping down the American Tobacco Trail.
(Yes, run-skipping. It’s where you run, then skip, then run, then if you’re me, walk and bird watch, stretch, talk to a butterfly, run, skip…)
Then yesterday my significant other had this crazy snake shirt on, which reminded me of a soccer trophy, which reminded me of a sob story about me winning a Senior Award of Excellence at NC State and not being there to receive it, cause I was miles deep into the woods on a self-care walk, although my Dad drove 3 hours to come see the ceremony. How did that happen? Because it was supposed to be a S U R P R I S E (!)
-_____-
One can only guess how I feel about surprises now.
Finally, as my buddy and I descend the Hills of the Haw River, there is a beautiful dead snake on the ground, hardly injured. That’s good eat’n.
Just kidding. But we did pick it up, and for the time being it lives in the freezer like any happy dead snake would want for itself.
Until I get some ethanol and store him in a jar for all to see, of course.
In indigenous cultures, including Native American and Peruvian, the snake represents the process of slow transformation; of shedding one’s skin, and moving into the next phase of life born anew.
Skin shedding is a relatively time-consuming process, and indeed, snakes are vulnerable when they are transforming … but not all change can happen quickly. Nor should it, for that matter.
It takes time for life events, personalities, traumas, misperceptions to disappear from our lives. And more often than not, these ailments still show up again down the line, because their roots run deeper than we previously realized.
Revisiting our wounds is the essence of personal work. Healing is a constant practice of shedding away dead skin one layer at a time, living life in your new digs for a while, learning, growing, then shedding again, allowing the cycle of life and death to bear fruit of your hard work. It is in the revolving Medicine Wheel that we find the secrets to evolving into the best versions of our Selves.
Quite simply, we are layers of memory and experience, and love and joy and despair and grief and stardust and dark matter. We possess mysteries on soulful levels, and perhaps solely exist for the sweet satisfaction of uncovering some of those secrets.
Life is hard, but we keep fighting for improvements because … well, why not? It certainly beats suffering in stagnation, holding onto that which no longer serves.
So grow we shall, quick in some ways, slow — like the snake — in others.
And remember — once snake is done shedding, she’s even more fast and powerful than before, ready to strike at the goal of her desire with admirable accuracy and surprising strength.
So slither forth, my scaly friends.
Slither forth.
Ethereal Ecology 