Serpent: A Personal Odyssey Poem by Joan Woodbridge

Serpent: A Personal Odyssey

To the winds of the South
Sachamama
Mother Sister Serpent
Wrap your coils of light around us
Teach us to shed the past the way you shed your skin
Teach us to walk softly on the Earth
Teach us the beauty way.
Shaman Alberto Villoldo,
The Four Winds Society

First Encounter,1934
Woodbridge Farm, Michigan
Sacred Serpent... No!
Shameless coiled-to-kill-stalker!
Tell us, if you please,
why choose this small girl
who knows not enough
even to fear your beauty?
But for that miraculous
door-in-your face-rescue
our auspicious meeting
could not have risen to the level of story

Second Encounter,1937
Commerce, Michigan
This sighting finds you
ragged and bloody
mercilessly hacked
by mother's rigorously religious hoe --
an appropriate genesis
of my 50-year snake phobia. A phobia is a shameful thing
displaying to all
one's unmitigated terror
and complete lack of control.

Third Manifestation 1941
Commerce, Michigan Meanwhile, back in dream time,
you wrap your graceful coils
about my shoulders
and affectionately rub your 'chin'
upon my forearm
with what I can only call a smile,
I am fascinated
Unafraid!

Fourth Encounter 1986
New York City
Again, back in dream time:
severe back pain moves me
to an inconvenient afternoon nap
You, golden serpent, coiled beneath my back
say to me, 'Relax! '
'I can't, ' I reply, 'I'll hurt you.'
'Relax! ', you say.
I do, and when I wake
all pain has vanished

What Didn't Work
• several exceptional hypnotherapy sessions
• a beautiful film about desert snakes
• many reptile exhibits at several zoos
• touching my friend's boa constrictor
• wishing

What Worked:
Fifth Amazement,1987
Ormond Beach, Florida
30 days now since my first Medicine Wheel teaching:
The South: Sachamama, Mother-Sister Serpent
Now it is time for a fire ceremony to honor Serpent.

A fire ceremony is both elaborate and simple
Here, we have only simple—
a cast-iron skillet, some hard-to-light twigs,
my twin grand children, Erika and Jamie,
barely eight years old....
An unremarkable ceremony
Not once do I think of the phobia
nor ask for its release.

Morning follows our makeshift ritual
We all see it--
the black flash high on the wooden fence
and it stays!
'That looks like a snake, ' I say to my gathered family,
Fearlessly walking toward it.
turning back to them,
'It is a snake! ' I say,
Triumphantly!