With the sap we rise,
Touch the light returning
Equal with the Night…
It’s Spring Equinox and the Year is waxing- nights now become shorter than daylight!
Is it time to emerge from our holes, enlivened by the sun, like the cold-blooded serpent?
Is it time to get out and experience some bursting buds, some daffodils and primroses… sweet Spring.
It’s been a wearying old time recently for me, with some health problems going on. Like many others, I have been worrying too, with all that’s going on in this crazy mixed up world, but now- the Spring. Totally lush!
I feel this time of year reminds us to look after ourselves, to feel the sun on our skin, leave aside the woes of the World and find, whenever we can, the Joy of the Light...
I mean here in Britain- with our clouded skies- we need it- so much!
I recently read confirmation that Vitamin D is one of the best supplements to reduce inflammation, which explains all of those aches and pains this Winter.
Note to self: always take a Vitamin D supplement, when I’m sun-starved in Winter.
And, if you fancy a forage, eating Primroses as part of a salad- or just a petalled snack- can give you a lift in mood, help you find the joy of Spring, and so, maybe, worry less…
(Best to pick from high enough up that they won’t be pee-ed on.)
Early on Bride's morn
The serpent shall come from the hole,
I will not harm the serpent,
Nor will the serpent harm me.
From the Carmina Gadelica.
All through the Winter those cold-blooded snakes hibernate, unable to move in the cold months. Now they also emerge, moving slowly with their sluggish blood, then laying heir scaly bodies out in those warming rays. They are seen among the ancient stones on the moors, seeking the luxury of a hot rock to coil upon.
Of course they bring fear- because they are so “other”. Reptiles- I mean, a totally different category from us and they don’t even have legs like lizards.
But they are vertebrates like us...
In fact, as they wind through the grass, they appear to be ALL SPINE! I find it fascinating how their undulations resemble our human spines- particularly as we dance.
The picture above, is of an Altar I made for the conscious dance group I go to. I chose the snake because it was near to Chinese New Year and the start of the Year of the Snake; also because of this link with our spines. It is there at the core of our movement and our ability to be upright while we’re doing it.
Let’s be snaky- free and un-freeze our spines- put on some music, gently flex and wriggle… Let’s play at snakes, lie down and wriggle across the floor. It feels good.
Joy is in the Body.
Before they were quite so widely demonised by Christian belief, snakes appear as symbols of life-force and vital connection with our Earth. They appear of course, in Kundalina Energy in Vedic practice, and in many shamanic stories of the World Serpent, winding like the DNA of our cells.
Sure it is right to be cautious, if you meet one; like anyone they can be mean, if they feel threatened. Some have a bite or have the power to squeeze, but they never deserved being named agents of the Evil one and distrusted for their links with Pagan beliefs.
William Crossing, chronicler of Dartmoor Folklore, says that, in Dartmoor, the locals were deeply superstitious of snakes. These hardy folk of the moors didn’t fear much, but they really didn’t like snakes. A rambling moorland herder might carry an ash stick, to ward off snakes or to catch and neutralise them if they met one. But in fact, says Crossing, the snakes of Dartmoor are shy creatures who seldom would be seen, unless it is basking upon the stones harmlessly. In speaking to the Dartmoor farm folk, he realised the fear comes more from the Christian superstition that snakes are of the Devil, than from fear of a bite from a diamond backed adder.
There’s that old Irish Legend that tells of Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. BUT there never were any snakes in Ireland; these reptiles didn’t make it over the Land bridge, when they re-emerged after the last ice age.
So the story is a metaphor. Patrick is driving out what the snake symbolises: the devilish beliefs of the “Pagan” Celts.
The Irish Celts brought the memory of serpent with them in story and art. Snake was an emblem of connection with the Earth, which was so important to their shamanic/ druidic culture.
They saw how the serpent’s whole body touches the Earth and so believed them utterly attuned to the Earth Mother and able wriggle into the magical Other-world beneath the ground. When they emerged from among roots or out from between rocks they were seen as messengers between the realms.
So even among the Celtic Christians people, beyond this propaganda about Patrick driving out the snakes, there seems to be a deep respect for the magical potency of the snake- as agents of Earth, rather than the Evil One in serpent form…
And so the serpent will slither into my Brigid story in the Podcast next week. To Brigid, the magical serpent that slides up from between the roots of the Sacred Oak and whispers in her ear, is an ally who guides and assures her of her path. Stories tell of her loving music, merriment, good food and beer. Brigid’s serpent guide, resembles a witch’s familiar and, surely she felt that tingle in her spine, that magical enlivening to the joy of an earthly life. So the link to the animistic origins of pre-christian Celtic spirituality remains alive and well in a story of a Christian Saint..
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
This picture from the Book of Kells is drawn perhaps by one who has not seen a real snake; knows them only from a Celtic torc or ornament and from their imaginings of the myths and stories they have heard.
The image is imbued with Power which does not suggest a lowly or evil beast…
The serpent comes…
And sloughs their skin to bring the Spring.
The tingle in the Spine,
Belly on the warming Earth.
Diamond-backed Queen
Slithers from shadowed mound
Into the glow of the Life-giver.
Sun ray and serpent scale.
Circling through time.
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