Snake Wisdom

January 7th 2025

“Please y’all- don’t let me see any snakes while we’re out here. Let em do their thing…but…let it be…ya know…not on our property.”

This was a prayer I’d repeated many times before hiking out to set up camp in warmer weather.

And it had worked!

I couldn’t care less about the bear that had been ransacking our neighbor’s garbage all Spring.

Breaking through windows to get into one fella’s basement and peeling another one’s bear proof cage apart like a Werther’s wrapper to get to his trash bins.

Authors Photo

The neighborhood bear moseyin’ past our driveway. Probably went to check the mail.

I can hear black bears crunching through the brush.

And they can hear us hollerin’ about, “Babe did you pack the double A’s!?”

But snakes?

I can’t hear them so well and they can’t hear me so well either.

That’s the part that gets me.

The surprise bit.

Like when you’re alone in a normally unthreatening environment and then turn to see someone suddenly standing in the doorway and your spirit goes to be with Jesus.

Holy SHIT! You gotta make a noise or somethin’, announce yourself… Fuck sake…

And the thing is- I have had snakes cross my path enough times that I should know by now- I handle it alright!

It’s not that I’m not startled at all but I’ll just calmly let them pass and say something very non-snake lingo like, “Oh hey buddy, ‘scuse me-” or “Woops! Sorry bout that-”

Which is how most of our fears turn out right?

We usually handle the things we’re afraid of a lot better than we think we’re capable of.

We imagine them playing out far worse than when they actually happen.

IF they actually happen at all.

Authors Photo

Mentally saying, "Hey lil snakes, I'm gonna be cutting here now so please don't scare me ok? I got my snake boots on in case you get scared and try to nom nom..."

So when I popped the lid to our cache of camping supplies on this particular trip and was hit with a cloud of ammonia and mouse droppings atop mountains of chewed thread from what used to be our summer tent…I had to laugh when my first thought was-

Damn. We really could’a used a snake around here.

I always wanna get RID of my fears.

Completely.

Kindly annihilate them.

Thinking that THEN I will be free to take action and live my life larger!

But just like gravity holding us down, without it at all? Mayhem.

Things would become untethered and unbalanced real quick.

We’d be thinking, “Boy I know I wanted to be boundless but uh…I could use a lil grounding.”

We need snakes.

It’s the avoiding them. The unknown, that actually builds the terror and amplified mental images of rattlesnakes and angry copperheads striking at will. (Even typing that I’m like oh gaaaaaahd!)

Authors Photo

But looka this lil guy who was hangin' under a fallen oak later in November. He's not so scary right?

To my significant surprise while in meditation a few months ago, I saw a large snake tattoo stretching from my right hand and wrapping around my forearm and I thought, “Oh shit… Is that really what I’m getting next?”

And what I felt was-

It’s best to keep your fears right in front of you.

Hug them to you when you’re tempted to retreat from life.

Respect your fears. They’re teaching you to find harmony in a world of contrast.

Humility and respect for the things you fear turn arrogance and pride into confidence and compassion.

Nature is constantly showing you how to grow into that.

How to be truly you while others are truly themselves and not see either as a hindrance to the other.

Even if you see them as frightening and mean.

There’s a purpose.

There’s a balance.

And if they were removed completely- you’d see the ramifications and laugh hysterically when you prayed for them to come back.

A lot of what snakes are teaching me about myself is that I’m afraid of embodying my wisdom in so many situations for fear of seeming cold blooded or intimidating.

I’m afraid of being misunderstood and catching people offguard.

I have a way of turning people to face the things they fear and I feel real bad about it!

Because sometimes they really don’t like it, and I struggle not to take it personally.

Because even when I’ve moved around them as quietly as possible, doing my best to remain undetected…somehow it still happens.

They still jump and scream and run away from me and say I’m not supposed to be here.

So I play dumb or hide under rocks.

I act clueless or just… not like myself.

But that just makes things real weird for everyone…

I feel like a snake riding a bicycle through town in a pink fuzzy sweater holding a pinwheel in my tail-

“Hey I’m friendly! You don’t have to be afraid of me! I don’t wanna hurt anybody!”

But the townspeople just side eye one another-

“Reptilians man…they ain’t foolin’ nobody…”

What I know about snakes and wisdom is that they don’t announce themselves.

They don’t yell or demand to be seen or heard.

They also don’t make themselves approachable or cuddly.

They can frighten a lot of people to the point that they run from them their entire lives- avoiding every dark natural place within and outside of themselves for fear of crossing their path.

This theme of honoring our own wisdom even if it doesn’t go along with societal expectations has been coming up again and again and again in counseling sessions.

“I don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

“I don’t wanna be an arrogant asshole.”

“Is that mean to say that/see that/acknowledge that?”

So when I found out that this year is the year of the wood snake!?

Well aren’t we just right on time y’all ☺

I hope this year especially, we can slither out from under the rocks and leaves we’ve hidden ourselves under so many times so as not to startle anyone and let ourselves bask in the sun again.

I love you, thank you for reading!