April 08, 2008

Serpentine

I've been waking up with nightmares again, the recurring snake dreams I've had my whole life. So it's not surprising, perhaps, that when I took a walk in my own woods, I kept seeing serpentine shapes everywhere. The Scotch pines in my woods have branches that curve and curl, and the branches that have fallen to the floor of the forest, draped across old stumps or half-submerged in puddles, look like snakes. The thick vines of the wild grapes slither down from the bare branches of trees.

I wore my tall boots because this time of year the woods are filled with deep puddles of murky water. I didn't see any real snakes, of course — it's still too cold. I won't see a real snake until the end of the month, until we get enough warm weather to make the green burst. Yet, even as I walked, sometimes striding over dry ground, sometimes plowing through the murky water edged with bumps of green moss, I still kept thinking about the snakes in my dreams and what they might mean.

Serpentine

8 comments:

Busymomma66 said...

Something good this way comes!

Zhoen said...

Ever had a chance to actually touch a snake? Meet snake handlers who could help you see past their frightening image, to their benign reality?

Just a thought.

jo(e) said...

Zhoen: Oh, I've had many chances in real life to touch snakes, hold them, look at them. A friend of mine used to work at a museum of science, and she'd bring me into the room where they kept a big snake and she'd drape the snake all over me. And I'm very used to garter snakes and common water snakes. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes in real life.

It's only in dreams that snakes terrify me.

Liz Miller said...

Is there some sort of change lurking ahead? An unknown uncertainty? Campus politics?

concretegodmother said...

aren't snakes representative of healing and medicine? i like that particular interp, though i know you have find the correct application for you. enjoy the process of getting there.

concretegodmother said...

oops. 'have to find,' is what i meant.

niobe said...

I love the photo and the mystery that goes with it.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

In spite of the fact that I LOVE snakes in real life (most of the time), I've also had nightmares about them! Really scary ones!

The fact that your snake dream occurred in water indicates that it is probably grounded in the un- or subconscious.

I had a terrifying nightmare last night that I was being attacked by a mountain lion. I screamed for help over and over until I woke myself up screaming in the "real" world.

It was my second nightmare in about a week of being attacked by a large predator.

Grape vines and sticks and other things int he woods often do look like snakes!