The Free Radical

It’s been a snaky year already.

Snake energy creeps up on you. It slithers in among the cracks and crevices, where first it’s not noticed. It’s not hiding, for it needs the warm sunlight in order to function. No, snake just very easily limbos under the radar, until opportunity finds him out.

The snakes have been surveying the ruins. So many “civilized” structures, built on shoddy premises, are crumbling down now. The irony is that it was Snake, the third character in the Garden of Eden, who goaded us into this civilizing enterprise in the first place. And now Snake’s return dryly asks “And how’s that working out for you?”

My daily adventures had brought me to a place where three snakes laid coiled in the sun. I had never encountered more than one snake at a time before. This was highly significant.

Three is primarily a creative number; it adds the third dynamic to otherwise simplistic relationships. As already mentioned, Snake was the third character in the Garden, shaking things up… with unpredictable consequences. Three is a sexual energy, the raw power of new physical creation. On that front, Snake is most obviously phallic in nature– identifying with the male creative impulse.

In the ever-pristine realm of new creation, it is the feminine who holds the connection to raw, undifferentiated creative energy. She is the one plugged into the unquantifiable Source. It is the responsibility of the masculine to shape and define how the raw energy will be expressed. The masculine role is to bring structure and detail. As many of the old structures crumble to ruin, Snake challenges us to shape something completely new, and to be prepared to work out the details as our new creations come to life and demand a better refinement.

Finally, Snake speaks of rebirth, even in adulthood, as it is required to shed its skin. The old is stifling and restrictive, and it may be safely discarded. Nature will quickly recycle the old worn-out skin. But this time, as three strike out together, a new collaboration promises a brand new journey of unprecedented growth.