YELLOW BELLIED SEA SNAKE
The Power Animal for this November, hands down, is Pelamis platurus, the Yellow Bellied Sea Snake. (It would have been the Power Animal for October, perfect for All Hollows Eve, but this slippery serpent had not yet arrived on our Southern California shores by the date of last publication!) And what a Halloween Horror story this visitation has been, the headlines tell us: “Deadly!” “Poisonous!”, “Venomous!”
This Asian monster (think Godzilla!) whose slimy, life-threatening presence is a side effect of El Nino and is as rare a sighting as the Lockness Monster or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, was discovered by a surfer at high tide at the Silverstrand Beach in Ventura on October 16. Since then, the Sea Snake continues to slither around the evening news, our office water coolers and anywhere imaginations take a dip in the global warming waters of our local beaches.
So, should we throw-out our surf boards, our speedos and our floaties, and take cover in the mountains? Or should we perhaps take a second look at this exotic animal, get curious and ask ourselves, “Why has the presence of this one snake [repeat, ONE], whose species have never actually caused a human death, invoke so much fear and fascination?”
And then we might take the question to an even deeper level and ask, “Who is visiting?” This is a question Stephen Aizenstat, Chancellor of Pacifica Graduate Institute and Dream Tending expert, encourages us to ask about sleeping or waking dream figures who make unexpected appearances. One alternative, indigenous way to perceive reality is to consider that that World is always dreaming, and we are characters in that dream, along with all of Nature’s other life or forms, like Snake or Ocean, or even Shoreline or City Streets. So who is this slippery, slithery, salt-watery Presence?!
The zoologists inform us that the Yellow Bellied is 18-45 inches long, spends 87% of it’s life under water, can swim backward or forward, is often aware of others and can dive into the depths, but also is easily catchable at the surface. According to Californiaherps, they are “not known to be very aggressive, usually is reluctant to strike, and often strikes without injecting venom.” Their territory is wide spread, across the Indian Oceans and the tropical parts of the Pacific.
While these are interesting facts to Herpetologists, none of this is enough to make the evening news. So why all the hullabaloo? It’s not that unusual for late summer storms to bring all sorts of exotic, aquatic visitors to our shores. The answer stirs in serpentine fashion and awakens our imaginations.
According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, the sinuous, legless reptile is the ultimate symbol of life and death. In his famous interview with Bill Moyer, he explained,
The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.
Furthermore, the serpent represents the primary function of life, mainly eating. Life consists in eating other creatures. You don’t think about that very much when you make a nice-looking meal. But what you’re doing is eating something that was recently alive. And when you look at the beauty of nature, and you see the birds picking around—they’re shock, of life in its most primal quality. There is no arguing with that animal at all. Life lives by killing and eating itself, casting off death and being reborn, like the moon. This is one of the mysteries that these symbolic, paradoxical forms try to represent.
Snake, like most mysteries, shocks us awake and entrances us into a Dream Time, or Faery-tale, awareness. A once upon a time-like poem, by the Sufi poet Rumi, tells us that these slithering beings are guardians to that which is most coveted: "Whenever there is a strong lock used, there is something extremely precious hidden. The thicker the Veil, the more valuable the jewel. A hoard of treasure is guarded by a large snake; do not dwell on the hideousness of the snake, contemplate the dazzling and the priceless things you'll discover in the treasure."
This motif of Snake as Guardian extends to collective treasures, as in the “Well of Souls” scene in the film, Indiana Jones. Here, the deadly asps and cobras protect the sacred Ark. In Greek mythology, snakes are worn around the necks of Goddesses as Talisman. In a recent dream by a member of one of my dream groups (we call ourselves the “Hummingbird Dream Clan”) a woman carries a secret bag with a bloody life form in it and with the help of female companions, hides it in a den of snakes, who will protect it. Here we glimpse how a living being also becomes an archetype: a repeated, universal symbol that endures across time and space. In this case, it is a form that entrances us into paying attention to it’s unblinking eyes, it’s somatic movement, it’s flickering tongue, and venomous fangs. It beckons us closer and makes us turn away at the same time. Luckily, the tension of these opposing forces gives birth to greater consciousness: the essential function of Snake.
On top of Snake as archetype for transforming awareness, life and death and guardianship—and all images of them evoking similar attraction and repulsion—the Yellow Bellied Snake being of the sea in particular adds a whole other dimension of magic and fear to tales of their scales and fierceness. Chinese mythology has for millennium associated Snake with Dragon—the great sea serpent who spouts water and breathes fire; who is at home as much in the depths as in the air, and represents the alchemical marriage of the elements. The Water Dragon’s power is so great that kingdoms can be lost or won by those that harness it. (They even make an appearance in the Harry Potter series... they MUST be important!) Sea Snakes are also only a step removed from the imagined or real monsters that lurked in the misty depths of lakes and rivers of our Celtic, Amazonian, Pacific Northwestern and Scandinavian ancestors. Is it any wonder that today a little, foreign snake washing up on our normally consistent shores would evoke both terror and wonder?
The ocean itself is perhaps the Earth’s most mysterious landscape. It’s movement is directed by the phases of the moon, that strange and ever-changing, feminine presence who taunts us with her beauty and light every night when our eyes are drawn up to the infinite sky. The waves are her minions, and they themselves move like a billion undulating snakes; they can wrap around us and carry us downward and out of control at any given moment. The ocean is a symbol for all that is unknown and beyond the rational mind: the deep Psyche, haunted by leviathans, mermaids and the souls of sailors drowned by storms or sirens. It is also a place of delightful childhood memories, sunshine vacations and summer loves. Sea snakes evoke our most passionate longings and remind us of the trouble such longings can get us attract. They remind us that we are infinite spirits in the finite form of the human being.
The next time you are being dull, feeling bored, depressed, weak or unimpressed with life, go down to the seashore, and give a shout out to the Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake. Make an offering to her: a splash of water, a loving prayer, or the warmth of your own body as you bravely dive into the surf. Welcome her power into you. Shed your skin, die to your former self, and let the new you be reborn in the salty brine of Mother Earth.
Feel the power of the serpent move within your being. Open to intuition, and merge with the primordial Sea Gods. The gift of the Snake will become yours.
