It is the year of the wood snake and I am smiling as I chose to write about this theme. While I am generally open and impacted by the many astrological systems we humans have access to, I am far from an expert. However this year of the snake strikes me as worthy of a mention as we begin the year.
The snake seems to me to be one of the most villainized animals in our history, especially in many spiritual traditions who oftentimes pit the snake as a deceiver and seducer.
But there are just as many uses of the snake as a symbol of health and liberation, like the American medical association adopting the ‘rod of Asclepius’ as its symbol. Asclepius is the Greek god of medicine. This along with Caduceus, the symbol of Hermes, is worth a trip down YouTube to learn more of you are inclined.
The snake is also used as a symbol of the rising of energy through the spine, like kundalini, which has a transformative quality that unleashes a power that sits there ready to be awakened. These are only two prominent examples.
I remember years ago purchasing the book, Beyond Fear by Don Miguel Ruiz. Carrying it in my suitcase in 2004 for an overseas trip to England I can remember the felt sense of the book. The focus was all about how to live an empowered life, and true to the name identifies the negative agreements we make with ourselves based out of fear as the primary culprit robbing us of joy. I had set the book on my nightstand, and not yet opened it to read, but that night I had wild dreams of a snake. The dream scared me so much that I put the book away without even reading it! Later in life the book called to me and I discovered within it the Toltec process of shedding fear and the cosmic reality that is represented by the snake in my dreams, the snake is the movement through fear into wild freedom.
The diverse and conflictive use of snake piques my curiosity. How or why is a snake a symbol for such different ends? I started to wonder, what do all the viewpoints have in common about the snake?
The first answer was that the snake represents power, whether that power leads to bondage or that power leads to liberation. And this power being referenced goes beyond the three dimensional world, evocative of subtle energy and even transcendental reality. That is pretty amazing yes?
Snakes also represent to me the imperative of shedding and releasing in order to usher in new life, and also the quality of attentive waiting, eyes unflinchingly on the goal. In one Chinese astrology article I read that the year of the snake in their cosmology invites us to time focuses upon growing in or recognizing wisdom, embracing transformation, exercising or experiencing calmness and acting on creativity.
So I leave you with a few interesting questions, What is your relationship to snake as a symbol? What is the first idea that arises in your mind? Adn how might the symbol of snake be a good one for your life, or our world, in this moment?
