THE SNAKE ROOM
The beauty of a ball python is not always immediately apparent. That most people have an inherent distaste for snakes fascinates me. My cousins think that spending a night in “the snake room” is a sensational and daring act. Let me clarify. “The snake room” referred to here is actually my room, which poses absolutely no threat to anyone’s safety. It hosts a terrarium (pictured above – this could be considered \”the snake room\”) but there are certainly no serpents roaming free! We all like it that way – even Ouroboros! He is shier than most people think, and the exemplar of gentility. Once you push through the initial discomfort, you gain confidence and learn a greater respect for the snake.
(Cousin\’s caption: the snake whose bedroom we all slept in.)
The following is an excerpt
from Caroline Casey\’s book
Making the Gods Work For You:
THE RETURN OF THE SNAKE GODDESSES
The association of the serpent goddess with Venus is pandemic in the ancient world. Anyone who was anyone in the ancient world was a snake. Everywhere you look, you find one. In southern Borneo, there is the story of Firewoman, wherein eating the snake brings a great deluge and drowns all but one woman. (Why doesn’t she have a comic book?) Lack of respect for serpents followed by floods is an ancient theme.
In Mesoamerica, Xochiquetzal is associated with Venus and the sensual eroticism symbolically with the serpent. “Especially was she honored by women who lived as they pleased, for they say it was Xochiquetzal who taught the goodness of woman’s sensuality and that when a woman felt the pleasures of her body, it brought special joy to Xochiquetzal.” And the prayers say, “From Xochiquetzal’s mouth came words like sweet flowers, from Xochiquetzal’s mouth came words as sharp as the blade of a knife.”…
In Egypt there is Isis; in Greece, Gaia; in Nigeria, Ala; and in Ireland, Brigid – all are goddesses associated with Venus and serpents in the waters. All teach loving compassion and respect for every element of creation. Astarte, like the Babylonian Ishtar, is called the Queen of Heaven, Serpent Lady, and the mother of Semetic people. Throughout the Semetic world she is pictured with the sacred serpent wrapped around her body and emerging from her forehead. She is also associated with the great flood.
Shakti is the serpent of kundalini in India. The Sumerian serpent goddess of wisdom is Numi. In Egypt, Hathor was celebrated in her ancient form as the great serpent. In Japan, Izanami is the ancient mother goddess.
Gaia’s shrines exist across ancient Greece and Crete. Priestesses of Venus were known as sibyls and pythias. The major shrine beneath the Temple of Delphi is associated with the sacred serpent known as the Delphina. The Greek Demeter is pictured with snakes. The earlier name for her daughter Persephone is Proserpina, meaning “first serpent.” The name Eve comes form the Hebrew word chava, which not only means “Mother of All Living Things,” but also “serpent.”
Ancient creation myths everywhere, especially in the Mediterranean, describe trees of life and knowledge, a serpent, a fall, and a flood. Sumerian writings documenting these stories from 2000 B.C. preceded the Bible by a thousand years. Originally there were three characters in the garden story: God, Man, and a serpent deity. How those characters were combined in the mythological narrative determined a culture’s outlook. In narratives predating the Old Testament, the snake was a sacred ally who promised women ease in childbirth. In later mythology, by contrast, Yahweh cursed the woman with pain in childbirth and said that henceforth she and the serpent would be enemies.
With that, the serpent was overthrown as a threat to future Western civilization. Alliegance to one male god of linear progress superseded cyclical regeneration. Wisdom would no longer be gleaned from the Venusian kinship rituals occuring to the rhythm of the solstices and the equinoxes. For the first time in mythological history, men believed in a god who created without a sexual partner. Previously it was understood that both a Venus and a Mars were required.
…Venus in Scorpio defines the task of the millenial artist, as poking holes in realism so that serpentine magic can once more reenter the world through these portals. We can be inspired by the ancient statues in which snakes whisper the secrets of the Underworld into Demeter’s ears (the most famous of which is “The Head of Demeter” in the Terme Museum in Rome). The snaky goddesses invite us all to be possessed by the new-ancient vital Venusian imagery.
christmas eve,
Space Case 