Snake Medicine: Sensuality + Earth Connection

As I softly made my way through the duff of the forest floor, I see a quick movement accompanied by a gentle sound over to my left.

I pause and scan the ground to find a snake who is slithering to escape my path.

I stop.

She stops.

And we take one another in.

I am immediately flooded with all the ways in which snakes used to be revered.

Often representing the Goddess herself, they symbolize healing, fertility, wisdom, rebirth, guardianship, and their intimate relationship with the Earth.

Snakes were once held in high regard all across the globe, and considered powerful allies and messengers, and show up as guardians of the Underworld, those who awaken our connection to the spiritual plane, or even the energy that helps us weave together Sky and Earth, spirit and body.

The energy that reminds us that the Spiritual lives within our very skin.

As I stand in awe, I am transported into the snake’s body, and feel the closeness of the earth against me, the texture of the decaying leaves, the loamy sweet scent of the soil, the energetic pulsation of the earth-body against my own.

I feel the very sensual experience of communing skin-to-skin with the Earth through Snake’s body. I feel the serpentine motions move up my spine, which soothe me immediately, soften my constricted muscles, and open my awareness to my embodied relationship with all of life.

I begin to send praise and thanks to the snake.

I begin to send prayers that humanity will once again revere these creatures and what they teach us about deep intimacy with Earth, with our bodies and their sensuality, and the feminine (or yin) way of being in relationship with life.

As I do this, the snake shifts their body towards me, away from its original trajectory to escape.

Their eyes locked with mine, tongue flickering at me, sensing me.

And she begins to move towards me.

And I step towards her.

Slowly. Slowly. We move our bodies closer.

We sit in mutual admiration and togetherness for quite some time, taking one another fully in, feeling the energy build between us, and seep into us, before we eventually each saunter off in our respective directions.

What an impactful moment, having Snake turn towards me. As if she was helping me find remembrance of her medicine, and how honored these creatures once were.

It felt like a blessing from the Goddess herself, from the cosmic serpent, from the Earth Mother. It felt like communion with The Sacred.

Snake wanted to remind me how much they have to teach us about being in sensual presence with our bodies. How much they have to show us about sinuous flow and outgrowing old skin. How much they know about rapturous intimacy with the Earth body.

How much they can share about deeply listening to our surroundings through our feeling body, and growing relationship between body and Earth.

When we remember that we, too, are Snake, gliding over and through the textures of Earth throughout our days, we remember our animal body. We remember our eco-somatic nature.

As we approach the midpoint of Spring, or Beltane, we are fully invited into this sacred intimacy with Earth, and with the pleasure that’s available to us within our bodies, within our sensual experience of relationship with the living world around us.

So slither forth with your day, flickering your tongue, tasting the air, inviting your full body to encounter each moment of this intimate, precious life.