dragonsmeet

I have always has an ‘interesting’ relationship with snakes.

My initial difficulties stem from an early age. We lived in a street called ‘Adderbury’ and I was aware that in the summer there were lots of adders (the only poisonous snake native to the UK) at the bottom of our garden.

I can clearly remember walking down a narrow alley, near where I used to leave my bike whilst at school and having to jump over a small coiled snake. I was really scared and never used that short cut again. I know now that the snake I saw was a female adder, often more brown than the striking and classically marked male.

An episode at a Girl Guide camp in the New Forest did nothing to ease my fears. Whilst walking in the woods quite close to the camp I saw a huge grass snake (non-poisonous), with a body about 20cms diameter, curled up, sunning itself on a tree stump. I ran like hell!

My next significant encounter was during a visualisation/meditation as part of my yoga-teacher training in the late 1970s. Part of the visualisation was set beside a lake and we were asked to meet a creature that was to be your helper. Immediately a snake appeared. We were instructed to walk with the creature down to the water’s edge….. Yeah! Right!   The snake curled up my lower leg and I limped down to the lakeside, thinking to myself ‘this is stupid’! The next instruction was to pick up a bucket and full it with water. Then to let your creature carry the bucket back to the clearing……. Oh Yes! My imagination is now working overtime with various cartoon images of snakes carrying buckets with handles in their mouths; me limping away from the lake….. It was all too much and I started to giggle. At the end when the tutor checked with everyone he was at a loss to explain ‘why a snake?’ He had never encountered this before and I wasn’t the only person with a snake as a helper that day.

A short while later I had a lucid dream where I was bitten by a snake. I woke up sweating and in panic.

A year or two after that I had a similar dream. This time there was no panic. The thought was ‘no problem, there is a homeopathic remedy for that’.

Sometime later there was yet another similar lucid dream. By this time I had started to understand what the dreams meant for me.  This time the reaction was  “Oh b****r! That means another big spiritual transformation and shift! Damn!’.

The fear left over from my childhood has evaporated and replaced by fascination and curiosity – I even managed to touch a python about ten years ago at Paignton Zoo. I have seen snakes in the wild in the UK, Nepal and Japan,  in situations where they are seen as a blessing and signs of good fortune.

Dragons and nagas (serpent-like earth guardians) are now very close to my heart and are one of the main personal links I have to the subtle energies of Nature.