- SAILLE WILLOW
For the fear of Snakes
Inspired by;
“ Most people fear snakes and they're rightly justified in that some snakes are poisonous and can kill."
B.J. Klein
As a child I had a phobia of snakes. It was so bad that I could not even look at a picture of a snake.
I was brought up in an Orthodox Christian environment. Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk. [Dutch reformed] In that conservative environment, the snake was the symbol of evil. The first thing you become aware of as a girl-child is that you as a female are somehow responsible for the suffering of mankind. For just being a woman I was lumped with the quilt of bringing sin and death to humanity.
Genesis 3:15-16 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed…
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"
With those words I was condemned to a life of quilt, sorrow and subjugation. This was my bedtime story. When I was in a rebellious mood against my fate, my mother told me sadly; " 'n Vrou moet alteid die mindere wees." (A Women must always be the lesser.)" I shall never get married, never have children and never die, that will be my revenge." I promised myself. Why did God ever make snakes if he knew women were so easily seduced? Everything in me shouted at the unfairness of my sentence and somehow the snake was to blame for my fate, my mortal enemy. The only good snake is a dead snake.
To have a phobia of snakes in Africa is not comfortable, as you attract what you fear. Wherever you go, you are likely to come across a snake. Very likely poisonous ones too. Often as children we used to listen wide-eyed to horror stories about snakes. One such story that made the biggest impact on me was the snake that crawled into a woman's bed. When she climbed in, it leaped out and bit her in the lip. Very likely it was a Rinkals (Spitting Cobra). The farmers called them naughty snakes, because they were the ones that liked coming inside the house.
After that story, going to bed at night was a painful routine. First I looked under my bed then I smoothed the bedding from top to bottom to make sure there was no strange lump there. I would turn the light off and with one mighty leap, jump straight into bed so that I could not step on a snake in the dark on my way to bed.
Then the dreaming would begin. Night after night, I had dreams of a barren world covered in nothing but mud and snakes. (Like the Indiana Jones' snake pit.) Even the trees had snakes instead of leaves. I had to walk across the snakes and often as I started to walk, I would sink between the snakes and the mud to a world below. This world of red mud was inhabited by beings, half snake/half human. I was very scared.
These snake nightmares continued until one night I had a different dream that I was standing in a field of tall dry wintergrass. The environment I most feared walking in, for you cannot see the snake in the grass. I could feel the presence of a snake. A man appeared, the classic image of the sage, white robed with a long white beard and hair. “Fear not the snake, for he is as much part of nature as you are, become one with nature and he will not harm you." he said.
I felt a warm breeze on my skin, and in its caress I felt my fear drain away. I could walk fearlessly through the grass, experiencing the freedom in the touch of the grass, the warmth of the sun, the breath of the wind. The snake slithered away to find a comfortable spot on a sun-warmed rock.
Step one in dealing with fear is to realise there is no evil over which you have no control, helplessly at the mercy of.
Know thy enemy, know thyself.
Soon after the snake in the grass dream, I was presented with the opportunity to stroke a python. No longer did I have the snake dreams; no longer was the snake the symbol of the devil incarnated, but part of nature. I was ready to stroke the python. I was still afraid of snakes, but I was determined to break the curse I was born with.
I expected the touch of the snake's skin to be slimy and smooth, instead it was dry and rough. I stroked it and could feel the immense strength that lay latent under the scales. Ironic it should have been a Striper's dance partner.
"… Eve wanted to know, and in order to do that she first had to experience."
Caitlin Matthews; Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom
" In the legends of Troy and the Trojan women, Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba, was gifted with prophecy. She gained her gift as a child at Delphi when she stroked the Pythons of Gaea's temple. Gaea, the Python, was the Goddess of oracles and mother/creator of the Earth… The python/serpent is a metaphor for the Goddess of creation in cultures world-wide."
Diane Stein; Stroking the Python.
If the snake is not the Satan incarnated, then what is it? I wanted to know the truth about the snake. I was surprised to learn that in most other cultures the snake did not embody sin and death, but rather the creative and transformative forces; sexuality, psychic, reproduction, alchemy and immortality. Thoth/Hermes was the father of Alchemy. He used the symbology of two snakes intertwining around a sword to represent healing. Complete understanding and acceptance of the male and female within each organism creates fusion of the two into one, thereby producing a transmuting energy.
" The mythological god associated with this stage (regeneration) is Pluto, husband to Persephone, who rules the underworld. During this stage we make the descent into our unconscious, where the rejected and denied parts of ourselves reside. It is these contents, called the 'shadow' in Jungian psychology, that take on the forms of demons who seem to take possession of us and incite us to create a reality that is terrifying and destructive. Our shadow has a reservoir of tightly coiled, focused, and concentrated energy at its disposal, which can be used either to harm others or transform ourselves. This god penetrates to our core in order to reveal our deepest root issues; he destroys in order to renew, and he holds the power to transform and effect change. "
Demetra George; Mysteries of the Dark Moon.
At this time I became aware of a deep yearning inside myself. My dreams of snakes were replaced by dreams of haunting and it was dark. Some nights the moon shone bright and full and at other times it was dark. What is life in a world where death and suffering reigns?
Becoming a woman was a traumatic experience for me. Now the 'curse' has well and truly struck. I had to accept that I was a woman, with the traditions attached to living in a conservative Christian environment. I had to except my fate. I cried the whole day, my life was over. The snake became a personal symbol for my fears. The deep yearnings I felt I kept to myself and told no one. I was not like other children and I knew not to speak of what I could feel and knew that others could not.
I excepted Christianity and became a model Christian, excelling in bible study. But I was not exactly an orthodox Christian. Christians did not believe in a goddess, Christians did not remember they lived before. But I kept it absolutely hidden. I really tried to be a good Christian in every sense that included remaining a virgin. (Partly because I feared the subjugation that having children would mean.) But inside I was tormented and it reflected in my dreams. I became obsessed with death and longed for the oblivion I hoped it would bring, so that life would no longer torment me.
I was comfortable in the dark, since I no longer feared snakes lurking in the dark. Where I lived there was only the Golden Cobra and the Puff Adder to worry about and they kept to the mountain. Maybe I was comfortable with the dark because I am from the Dark Continent. I was exposed to death from an early age, through my father being a Doctor. I had no fear of death itself, since I was the cause of it.
My Christian phase came to an abrupt end when I went for our churches confirmation camp. I was seventeen. I went there expecting spiritual illumination, but was shocked to find that was the furthest thing from everyone else's mind. Smoking and drinking behind the dunes, couples disappearing into the night. I then saw the hypocrisy that existed and rejected Christianity there and then. I went to my confirmation dressed in white, just to get the certificate and to please my parents. But I never went to church again, except for funerals and weddings of others.
I began my journey to find alternative believes, that did not need fear to keep their believers in tow. To find the root of my fear. That which will fulfil my yearning.
Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Alliane advises; " If we feed our demon anger and frustration it will continue to bother us; if we feed it love and compassion, it will evolve. By loving the demon, it melts. The tension is in the duality and pushing the demons, away makes more suffering…Eventually through love and compassion, the demons evolve and are liberated."
The snake that I feared most, was the Puff Adder, not because it was an aggressive snake, but rather sluggish, it relies on immobility to escape detection and thus is easily trodden on. It is very poisonous. One day I came across a Puff Adder, of all the places when I was walking in my own garden with my baby in my arms. I would not have been more surprised to see a lion in my garden. At that moment a cat arrived. The cat and the snake were transfixed in each other's gaze. I was afraid that the Puffy might strike the cat, so I called a neighbour to ask whether it was his cat. It wasn't but he arrived with a shotgun, ready to blow the snake to bits. I knew that Puff Adders were a protected specie, and I asked him to wait, I'll call some snake catchers. All the snake catchers were out for the day and someone recommended that I call the police. Here it is hard to get police to come to your house, unless you are holding someone at gunpoint. They just have to do the arresting. But that day, two police vans arrived, four cops. I could not believe my eyes, one lethal snake VS a cat, a man with a shotgun and four armed policemen.
The joke was that the Puff Adder, with one flick of the tail still got away. I still have to watch my every step in my own garden.
Kissinger was right, it is not testosterone, it is all about fear. It is with humour that we survive in Africa. There is a bumper sticker; "Africa is not for sissies" Anger cannot exist without muscle tension, and neither can fear. Just try it. Humour is a great way to help relax the tension.
That which is denied wrecks havoc.
" We believe that a perceptual experience must be subject to consensual evaluation to be genuine, Which means the source of the stimulus must be in the physical reality, else it must be a hallucination and a threat to our orientation. This distrust of the brains creativity and its ability to furnish spontaneous sensory perceptions sharply reduces the range of our intelligence and is one of the reasons we use only a portion of our brain capacity."
Joseph Chilion Pearce; Magical Child
I stood on the ledge, looking down into the volcanic lake. In the blackness of its depths, I knew was a monstrous serpent. I had to jump into the lake for my initiation. But I was very afraid. If I wanted to progress, I have to jump. So I jumped. From deep below I could feel the surges of something huge moving through the water. My fear grew as I could feel it coming closer, until it felt as if my heart would burst. I felt its immense power as it touched me and in that instant my fear dissolved into love. An all-consuming love, a love, I could never have imagined. I wrapped myself around its body and loved.
Fear is perceived to come from an external threat. To be merciful and gentle is considered a weakness, but only those who are secure in their own strength can truly be merciful.
I only came to terms with my fear of snakes, the day I had to rescue a snake out of a pit. It was raining heavily and I was just on my way in when I saw the snake struggling to get out. The pit was filling up fast with water. If I left it, it would drown. How am I going to get it out without getting bitten? My mortal enemy's life was in my hands. But I was not sure whether that particular snake was the poisonous one or not. I just could not walk away knowing I am leaving it to drown. Love dissolves fear. I found a very long stick. I let it curl around the stick and swiftly launched it out of the hole, then I ran just in case it strikes at me in its fear.
Once the pounding in my heart stopped, I felt joy. I embraced my fear. To love unconditionally is to be fearless.
Siegfried the Hero had no fear of dragons or another's sword. He longed to know what fear was. The following is from the moment he gazed upon Brunnhilde, after removing her helmet and breastplate.
"That is no man!
Magical rapture
Pierces my heart;
Fixed is my gaze,
Burning with terror;
I reel, my heart feels faint and fails!
On whom shall I call,
For aid imploring?
Mother! Mother!
Remember me!
How waken the maid,
Causing her eyelids to open?
Her eyelids to open?
What if her gaze strike me blind!
How shall I dare
To look on their light?
All rocks and sways
And swirls and revolves;
Uttermost longing
Burns and consumes me;
My hand on my heart,
Trembles and shakes!
What ails thee, coward?
Is this what fear means?
O mother! Mother!
Thy dauntless child!
A woman lying asleep
Has taught him what fear is at last!
How conquer my fear?
How brace my heart"
From Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods; Richard Wagner.
Ironic that the very thing that dissolves fear, causes such fear in the hearts of so many. I want to live forever not because I fear but because I love.
In Love, In Sunshine and in Africa.
The African Symbol for Immortal
- SAILLE WILLOW
