The Snake

I just finished a wonderful book by Alice Walker, “Now is the time to open your heart”. In it she tells a quaint tale about a snake who is nearly frozen on a cold, dirt trail. A man hiking along the trail discovers the snake and muses over the sight since the cold had immobilized the body. The snake asks the man to help him by warming his body against the mans chest. The man, wanting to be good but leery of the snake asks why he should do such a thing when the snake could bite him at any moment. The snake assures the man that he would not bite because the man would have saved him and the snake would not wish to harm someone that is so good. So, the man takes the snake and tucks him in his chest pouch letting him warm against the mans body. The man feels proud that he could do such a good deed for such a creature and smiles to himself. Awhile down the trail the man feels a pinch and realizes the snake has bitten him. He asks the snake why since he had saved the poor, frozen body would the he bite him. The snake replies, “because it is my nature.” And the man falls to the trail and awaits death while the snake slithers away. Sadly, the snake will eventually find himself in the same predicament since it is still cold on the trail and may not be so fortunate as to find another man hiking along the path.

Since I was very little I have identified with the snake as an animal and am told is my totem animal. It is said that the snake is a powerful totem in that it is the symbol of transformation and healing. The energy of the snake is of wholeness, cosmic consciousness and the ability to experience anything willingly and without resistance. The snake on an emotional level encompasses ambition and dreams while on a mental level harnesses intellect, power, spiritual wisdom, understanding and wholeness. I, of course can identify with all of these good blessings as I feel I have something to share with this world. But i keep coming back to the story that Alice Walker wrote about the snake. That the true nature of the snake is reactive without thought to its future.
I sit here on my cold trail looking at the man who is willing to save me and wonder why I keep biting at him. While my bites don’t seem to immobilize him or kill our symbiotic relationship, they slow him down little by little, whittling away at the heart of his proud stature. I am not thinking of how cold the trail will be without him, I am simply reacting in my true nature. I am whole without the man, willing to experience anything openly and without resistance even my eventual death should I end up on the trail cold and alone without a warm body to save me.

Grieving Flowers

Down the street, a couple blocks from here is a tree that is quite peculiar. Out of this tree grows branches of beautiful cherry blossoms. The strange thing is that the flowers are not of uniform color, shape or smell. One set of flowers are white and sparse while the others are full and pink. The trunk is entirely one type of tree but it flowers as two separate entities. Both beautiful, both individual and both growing from the same trunk.

Dueling flowers are growing from my heart. One is blue and free while the other is dark and flat. I tried making a bouquet but the flowers ate each other. So I gather them separately and just appreciate their loveliness individually. I pet them and adore them. I water them and give them light. But they will not cooperate with each other being stubborn flowers and I become resentimental. I love them and hate them for making me choose.

Yes, they want me to choose. So I make my choice and become even more resentimental. Because I will miss the other as it grew from the same trunk, my heart. Like cutting off an arm. It bleeds.

Magic

Its something that you know to be true but cannot immediately grasp. You are searching for it but are not sure of what it really is. There is an issue that is blurred by the heart. It gnaws at you as you try to move. Slowly eating away at your inner peace until you are left standing there staring at it not understanding the vision that sits before you.

I went to the farmers market in Portland yesterday after having some much needed time with some amazing friends. We were there for hours perusing the vendors, eating elephant ears and warming our souls in the occasional sun break. I was nearly ready to head out but something felt unfinished. Some part of me was lingering waiting for resolution. I saw a palm reader off to the left and went to find some answers.

It was like some strange sci-fi movie. I sat down and asked the price for a reading. Those were my only words. Then she proceeded to read my soul. She was so exacting and meticulous. She saw into my heart. I was speechless and profoundly moved to tears. They were tears of sadness, yes but also relief that someone could see exactly me.

Liquid

Water trickles toward zero entropy.  Glass is like water except exponentially slower in its movement.  Human movement however, is unlike liquid.  The dynamic life of human development is entropy.  Moving within the chaos humans create meaning from patterns that arise over time.  Moments are linked together by creative thinking and reflection.  If human development was liquid it would stall out eventually and very slowly come to a complete stop.

Moments that feel like stalling are in fact rest points for reflection.  Pause and look in the glass, watch the slow liquid match your energy.  Meditate on the quiet.  Feel how you squirm in your skin as you try to maintain the stillness.

Once the reflection period is over, you blast full force into your beloved entropy looking for the next moment which will fulfill your quest of allusions that will complete your story.

Balancing Physics

I was walking the tightrope of my mind watching both sides very carefully. Maybe too carefully. Constantly aware of each possibility as situations rose and flew by.

I recently spoke of a precipice knowing that I do not know how to climb but falling comes easy.. Flying, however is what I really wanted to try. A situation flew at me and I grabbed at it with all my might as it forced me off my tightrope, off my precipice. It moved me all the way to one side of the graph in an exponential pattern. Like someone put a magnet to my cathode ray. My electrons moved sharply to the left. I thought for a moment that I was flying but falling is what it was actually. I fell and fell but the ground never came. I kept waiting for the slap of the earth against my body but instead I was free falling with no consequence.

A rope appeared to me and I pushed at it not wanting to acknowledge. It danced around me as my hair whipped around my face in the wind of the free fall but I didn’t look at that rope. I wanted to fly on my own. I didn’t want a stupid rope. I wanted wings.

I’ve read emotions that make your soul sing are good and emotions that pull at you in a distorted fashion are bad. But what if they are both? My soul sang in union with my heart but I was exponentially pulled from my perfectly formed perch of balance.

After twirling in the wind, getting tossed around and around I got tangled up into the rope. I pulled at it as it twisted around me. I tried to shake it but it was now part of me. it embedded itself into me. it wrapped all around me in a strangely comfortable way. It offered strength and support. I found myself standing a slight distance off my precipice, just standing there with no real substance under me but held firmly in place.

I stand here between happy and sad, grief and relief, resentment and appreciation in a little place which is at coordinate (1, -1) not (0, 0).