The gentler message of Snake is shedding what no longer belongs. What formerly served to shape us, no longer does. Snake’s more potent message is transmutation.
In the western world, especially in cities, snake bites are more often psychological. Venomous energy comes at us regularly, whether through news or in more direct ways.
Snake’s medicine offers the antidote necessary in transmuting our reactive energy into something life-giving. As long as we fight what we perceive as other, or bad, we invite toxicity. However, when we drop our defensiveness and need to change other people, we neutralize any harmful venom we are tempted to put out in the world.
I grew up and lived most of my life in the South of the United States. Sometimes people, from my past, ask me if I still believe in Jesus.
If Jesus is Love’s manifestation, and if the word believe means to put one’s full weight into, I have to ask myself, do I? How far would I go to love another?
Would I lay my life down for a friend? An enemy? If I say, “I believe,” yet consistently tear other people down, do I believe?
Are my actions consistent with my words?
Here’s a question: Am I more focused on going to my own cross of personal transformation, or nailing people who do not agree with me, to theirs?
Dying to the smaller self; however, does not have to be so dramatic. I see Love manifesting itself daily, through people (Christians and non) who:
Forfeit their need to control
Listen, when they could shut conversations down
Give to people in need
Live from True Self when it costs them a sense of belonging
Nurture the interconnectedness of everything
It is winter in my part of the world. Snakes are brumating. Still, they meet me, when I consider how to transmute my thoughts, words and actions into soul-feeding energy.
What can I do when frustration builds? I can transmute. And as I offer forgiveness to myself and others, perhaps I am a healing (saving) presence to the people around me.
Making Spirit Flesh*
How many forgiving people do you suppose it would it take to heal the world?