The Snake Priestess and the Bone Dancers

I

I recently received a scholarship to participate in an online course, “Shamanic Approaches to Death, Dying and the Afterlife” with dream teacher and author Robert Moss. In our opening session, we journeyed through a favorite portal tree to the great mother to see what she had to teach us about death and dying.

Robert advised us that we might meet a new spirit animal on this journey, but as I am no stranger to this topic (I am an end-of-life doula and hospice volunteer as well as a shamanic practitioner), I imagined my usual “death walking” guides would be on hand to accompany me into the lower or upper realms for this next phase of my death studies.

So it was with some surprise that I found myself face to face with an animal medicine that has heretofore not been connected to my death work — and invited in to a dark ritual honoring the power of death and rebirth.

My journey begins as I am led by a white rabbit to the foot of mature and wide-armed oak tree that makes it home on the great lawn of the historic site where I live. Fully leafed and generously shaped, it is one of my favorite trees on the property: its location not only offers ample shade and the respite of a sturdy wooden bench but also affords me a magnificent view of the Hudson River and the escarpment below the lawn, where I can frequently catch a glimpse of our resident bald eagles hunting.

As I arrive at the tree, I see the rabbit waiting patiently at its base. I look up to see a murder of crows roosting in the tree’s branches. They are uncharacteristically quiet. I walk up to the oak and place my hands on its trunk, my feet on its roots; immediately, I begin to sink down into the ground. Like quick sand, the earth pulls me down and in, creating a tunnel below my feet for a passageway. Down, down, and through I travel, slowly sliding, the layers of earth pressing against me  like the walls of a birth canal.

I find myself at the entrance to an underground chamber. The domed roof is arched; the earth walls and floor black. The room appears lit from below with a fiery glow, but there is no hearth flame or heat source I can see. In the center of the room, a bowl  at least 20 feet in circumference has been hollowed out of the dirt floor.  I have no sense of its depth, but it sits like a velvet pitch shadow in the navel of the room, and I feel reluctant to get too close to it.

I become aware that someone is in the room — a woman. She is facing me with her back to the far wall. Without walking toward her, I am suddenly before her. Her face and body are painted, her liquid bark-colored eyes enormous. She wears a headdress that resembles dreadlocks, but the room is too dim to make it out. Everything about her feels dark, earthy and primal. She is a priestess, in service to a goddess, and the power she emanates is ancient.

The Priestess is holding a snake in each hand and swaying gently back and fort. There are snakes writhing around our feet, winding across the floor in all directions. Despite the fiery back-lighting in the room, it is too dark to make out what kinds of snakes these are; I presume the worst and freeze where I am standing. I feel my stomach clench. In answer, the Priestess closes in on me, her undulating dance intensifying. She is standing too close to me — she is in my personal space, chanting words I do not understand. Suddenly, she thrusts a snake into my face and motions for me to take it in both hands. It is large, about five feet in length, a constrictor of some kind. Intimidated and fearful, I understand that I am to “handle” the snake. I focus intently on the snake, allowing it to spiral up my arm and guiding it with my hand across my body and onto my other arm.

The press of the Priestess’s energy pulls me away from my task, and I realize that she is painting my face with something red (ochre? blood?). Unexpectedly, the pulse of many drums fills the room. Animated skeletons are positioning themselves around the earth-bowl in the center of the room. As the skeletons begin to dance, I hear the click-click-click of their bony feet syncopating to the pounding beat of the drum.

Energy is building within me, coming up from the floor and moving through my core. The drumming gets louder. Horrified, I join the Bone Dancers in their manic revelry, making the rounds through the circle with reckless exhilaration, partnering with each one. The rhythm and pace accelerate; the rattle of bones and the thumping drum commanding all the air in the room. Each Bone Dancer spins me in circles while the group cycles about the pit in the center of the room. Looking at my skeleton partners, I see snakes winding between their bones. Giddy, overheated, and breathless, I am momentarily no longer afraid. I am one with the dance, the drum, the rattle of bones.

As swiftly as it all began, the dance it over. I do not see the Bone Dancers depart but my eyes are drawn to the earth-bowl. It contains a pile of bones.

The Priestess gestures to me to approach the far wall where, under an arch, I see an square opening that appears to have been cut into the dirt wall. The hole is entirely black. Sensing some new trial or test, my stomach again clenches with apprehension, but I dare not disobey. The Priestess guides me to the hole and points within; I understand that I am to crawl into the opening on all fours, head first, and then lie down inside on my back with my feet facing toward the opening.

I make my way in, my back nearly rubbing against the roof of the crawl-space. Instead of earth beneath me, I feel metal or some kind of hard surface. As soon as I flip onto my back, the surface on which I am lying begins move away from the hole, and I realize that I am on some kind of moveable tray which the Priestess has pushed deep into a catacomb-like tunnel. The faint rosy glow from the cave room has disappeared. In its place is a blackness so complete I have no sense of space.

Alone and entombed, I hear the rush of silence in my ears as my breathing capitulates to my rising terror. I reach out with my arms to feel the dimensions of the tunnel and find an arched roof of dirt just inches from my face and rounded side walls that leave barely enough room for my body. This is a crypt or crematorium. Trapped and overwhelmed by a mounting sense of panic, I am certain I will not be rescued or saved. In my head, I begin to scream; at some point I am screaming aloud. My breath is shallow, and tears run down my face.

Eventually, like an infant, I tire of the effort to make sound. Whimpering and shaking, I lay quietly and consider my fate. I quickly recognize that there is only one reasonable option: surrender.  As I digest this truth, my body begins to relax, a tentative peace comes over me. And that’s when it hits me. I can escape by leaving my body.

Almost like magic, I am able to will myself up and out of my corporal form and find I am floating up though the layers of earth like a cloud. I rise up and up, out of the earth, reaching air. I am hovering nearby the oak I journeyed through, above the great lawn where it makes its home. Delighted to be free, I begin exploring the property, traveling across and through familiar landscapes, testing my liberty and unlimited mobility. I traverse the tree canopies, spying on our resident eagles’ nest, buzz over the house roof, and swoop down by the river. Like a fledgling, I am awkward, not yet moving with ease or grace. But boy am I enjoying myself!

Circling back to the lawn, I notice a squirrel on the ground by the tree. Instantly, I feel compelled to merge with it to experience its animal form; I easily overtake its body through a kind of intuitive merging with it. It is an amazing experience, but I am quickly overcome with conscience. This “take over” doesn’t feel ethical somehow, since I really don’t know what I am doing.I figure I can try this again another time, after I learn the ropes of spirit walking.

The encounter with the squirrel reminds me of my own corporeality, and I feel called to return to my body below. I float back down through the layers of earth and merge with myself to incorporate. I am rather impressed with how easily I accomplished this feat.

No sooner have I landed back in body than I feel the tray moving back toward the crypt’s opening. The Priestess immediately helps me out of the tunnel and gently walks me over to a giant round tub of water; it appears to be made of burnished metal but when I place my hand on the rim of the tub, I feel clay. The Priestess baths me, her touch kindly. Her energy is maternal and tender. She helps me out of the tub, dries me off, and walks me back to a chair that now sits with its back to the catacomb entrance. I stand before her. She robes me in white, stroking and plaiting my hair.

Just as she is placing a necklace with large stone centerpiece around my neck, I hear the call back of the journey drum. I am now an initiate, though our ceremony is not quite complete. I bow low to thank her and let her know I need to depart but will return. On my way out, I notice that the bone pit in the center of the room is again empty.

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Making Connections:

Minoan Snake Goddess Figurines

Minoan Snake Goddess

Pythia: Oracle Priestess

Symbols of the Minoan Goddess Religion

Danse Macabre

Tibetan Skeleton Dance

Same Story; New Eyes to See

One of most wonderful aspects of working with the medicine of symbol, imagery, and nature is the ways in which the message can speak to the heart of multiple issues across time and space, offering information and healing to everyone who shares the encounter.

Case in point: in my initial blog entry of about a year ago, I described a medicine walk and the healing message I received from an upended piece of moss. What I didn’t share at the time was how timely that message also was for my husband.

About a year before that hike my husband had experienced a professional sea-change that had upended him — just like our Moss Friend. With no advance warning, at the end of an annual review, he was informed that his position was being down-sized and repackaged as a seasonal role. Then he was handed a new job description (which included a list of his “new” old duties) and with a warm smile his supervisor expressed her sincerest expectation that he would continue on in the department.

Unable to afford the pay cut, he had no choice but to resign. After nearly 10 years with an organization he called home, he suddenly found himself — like that little piece of moss — dislodged and parted from a beloved community and work for which he had a great passion and commitment.

This was a blow to his heart, to have to walk away from a place he loved and to which he felt so connected and had contributed so much value. Grieving the loss, he pulled together several part-time jobs while he searched for a full-time position in his field. We prayed for guidance on this path of change, and he opened himself to a larger mission, guided by the divine. And that’s where he was still living on that chilly February day when we encountered the Moss Man.

In the moment, my focus was on my experience, for the story of its upending and re-rooting felt so resonant to me. But the wisdom of that narrative also had a message for my husband, who himself had connected with its synchronicity and lesson — albeit less consciously: he, too, would soon have a new home.

And about three months after rescuing that little moss person on that winter hike, my husband was unexpectedly offered a full-time position with one of the organizations where he had been working part-time. This was a newly created role; the company had literally made space for him — much as we were able to make space for the little Moss Man under the tree’s toes. And like our Moss Man, my husband joined a new community were he was not only welcome but could also put down roots — in a neighborhood close to the old one.

I received a teaching that day about the power of narrative. The aspects of a story line or account to which we attach help reveal the themes that can guide our individual experiences. The Moss Man narrative could be read for the threads that applied to each of us. Further, its narrative would have held medicine for anyone who had been on that walk that day: some part of the Moss Man’s story would have spoken to that person, helping to cast light on an issue in, or aspect of, hir life.

Every narrative contains a healing message for the person who encounters it. One just needs the eyes to see it — and a heart to open to it.

Moss Man Prophesy

 

Recently, my husband and I took a gentle hike at a local park. Because it was rather late in the afternoon — and quite cool for what had been a rather balmy El Nino February — we had the park to ourselves. As often happens when I am out in nature, a medicine walk ensued.

It unfolded quite naturally as we wound our way, off-path, around a the shoreline of a pond. Our easy conversation ranged across current projects and inner work, dreams and hopes, plans for the upcoming weeks. When we arrived at a small clearing by the edge of the water, a stick spoke to us, and we carved and spoke our blessing into it, setting it free in the water, the trees bearing witness.

From the pond edge we charted a trail through the trees and up a hill. As we crossed a road, finding our course, I felt the familiar altered state that comes over me as I prepare to receive medicine. My eye-gaze softens and opens, feeling across and into the landscape like an antenna. My senses heighten and now-time drops away as I plug into the matrices of energy grid lines and earth waves, stalking a message — a knowing waiting just for me. I enter my Earth Church.

My husband had already moved into this state of sacred grace, having found a piece of lightning wood that spoke to him with the power of the skies. We paused for a momentary ritual, during which he anointed his treasure with the waning sun rays and snow-water, cold earth and chilly air. Then we began to climb, again, up into a hilly grove and onto a new trail.

I was in the lead, and within a few steps, I felt the call of something waiting for me, close by. I could hear my husband talking behind me but had already merged with the silence of the woods. Look down.  My eyes lightly scanned the ground, noting the pine needle beds among the leaves. Then I noticed a small oval of emerald moss upended. Who or what was so careless as to kick that little round bed of green off its spot? I felt sorry for that moss, with no place to grow. A moment later, there was another green mound laying upside down. I picked it up. It was so very soft, it’s green almost too bright for a winter’s day. I searched the ground nearby for its family so I could replace it, but found no other mosses in the area.

Petting its springy coat, I carried my new green friend up the hill as we hiked deeper into a stand of pines, wondering what to do. Could it live somewhere in my home? But how how would I feed it, water it? I wondered about adopting it and worried it would die without a moss community. I was pulled from these considerations by my husband’s voice. He had been talking to me all the while,  though I had had no ears to hear.

“Did you just say something about Robert Moss?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, and repeated his comment about dream work.

I laughed to myself at the serendipity of it (so common when we are receiving a teaching from the Earth), and I made a mental note to dip back into Moss’s Sidewalk Oracles, a recent Christmas gift. Then I turned to to him to let him in on the joke.

“Want to see what I found?” I showed him the mossy pillow I was lovingly holding in my cupped hand.

As Little Moss and I companionably continued down the path together, I considered his dilemma. He had been uprooted and upended. He needed a village that could make room for him, adopt him, and this new home needed to be in nature — not on my alter or a window ledge in my kitchen.

Just then, I noticed the multiple moss colonies that evidently were thriving under the evergreens at the top of the ridge. I knew that I was charged with finding just the right spot for Little Moss — and that this relocation site was near.

Shortly, nearing a turning place on the trail, a tree drew my attention. Looking down, I noticed mosses of the same ethnicity as the one I was carrying clustered around the tree’s rooty feet. This must be the place. But a second look revealed no empty lots…. Crouching down to admire the velvety clusters of green, my hand followed its own wisdom and began to weed a pile of dead leaves and twigs between two knotted tree toes, magically uncovering a small hollow of dirt. Delighted, I placed my Moss Man into the depression and carefully pressed him into place, noticing how perfectly he fit among his companions. I prayed over him a blessing to re-root and grow strong under the protection of that tree, surrounded by a new circle of mossy friends. I offered him and the tree my water.

Then I opened to the lesson and listened for the homily.

The moss was me. And like my Moss Friend, my life had also been upended.

Three years ago I left my teaching career with the goal of down-sizing my professional responsibilities to make room for my work as a healer. This change included a relocation and being jobless for a portion of the transition. When I landed a small job in a nonprofit, it seemed the ideal position for someone who wanted work-life balance and the space to grow a new career after hours. However, once in the role, a burden of additional responsibilities quickly piled up, and the demands were far beyond what I was willing to accommodate.

Now, a year and a half in, I was not only overworking but had also been compelled by circumstance (a story for another time) to accept a promotion that would expand my role. My plan was no longer on course, and I felt like that Little Moss: off-trail, upside down and on my back.

As I considered the Moth Man’s narrative of restoration, my heart grew light. A path opened before me — though it was too soon to know how I would walk it. A new professional home was waiting for me — one that would support my goals and intentions as I had originally intended. And that abode was likely just a little way down the trail, and perhaps not far from my current occupational home.

I let the truth of this prediction resonate throughout my body and felt a deep tension ease. The timeline would take care of itself, I knew. All I needed to do was remain open and listen for the call. Someone or something was coming to my rescue.

 

 

CODA: April 8, 2017

Just about a year after my encounter with the Moss Man, I transferred to a new position within my organization, a down-sized role with significantly less responsibility and well-established boundaries around work hours. Now, two months into my new job, I am not only finding the spaciousness to explore my calling and build my practice, but also to write this blog and to attend to my self-care. Best of all, I have found a new professional home where I can put down roots — and it’s just down the road a piece from the old one.