Serpents and Celtic Serpent Power
Searles O'Dubhain

Fri Jan 19 10:29:53 2001
Serpents and Celtic Serpent Power*p*This is a posting I once made in reply to a question about snakes and kundalini.  Some of you were present then and I'd like to continue that discussion now in a search for our own snakes and pathways.*p*When the Goddess Brighid stepped forth from the flames towards me in a dream, she had a serpent entwined on either arm.  They were coiled in the appropriate directions, sunwise for the right hand and landwise for the left.  Their heads were facing outward.  One could bite and the other could swallow.  They amplified her power and they symbolized it at the same time and they also left no doubt for me that they were the tools of wisdom and knowledge: teaching and learning, experimenting and analyzing, creating and destroying.*p*The coiling of these snakes have many associated meanings that also describe certain abilities.  One of their meanings is found in the ability to spring from a coil.  Another meaning is the ability to form new shapes.  Yet another ability, is the ability to reinforce itself through supporting itself.  The coils also serve to make it a smaller target.  The shedding of the snake's skin is definitely symbolic of new birth and learning.  In life and learning, we grow to fit the size of our containers.  When these containers are filled, we either quit growing or we get larger containers.  The snake sheds its skin.  There are other more sensual and suggestive meanings of this shedding of skin as well, but I leave that to the power of your imagination to manifest. *p*Snakes go into the earth and return again.  Snakes sleep through the long winter and re-emerge in spring.  Snakes enjoy the sun and derive their inner warmth from it.  In this they are much like the fires of the mind, which is one of the meanings of kundalini.  The "Daughter of Ivor" is the snake, is Brighid.  Ivor is The Dagda.  Wisdom is the daughter of Excellence in doing. *p*Her two snakes are symbols of the latent and dynamic power of an individual's spiritual wisdom.  They coil about our three centers of wisdom: our pathway to the present, our *now,* and our ability to create a future.  If they battle, we will suffer.  It is better to let one of them teach while the other snake learns.  In this way, the Moon may be swallowed (and even the Sun) but each may also be digested for growth of the self rather than in contention one with the other. In Vedic teachings, these coiling serpents are called Nadis.  Their names are Ida and Pingala (one is white and the Moon, while the other is re and the Sun).  The lunar nadi connects to the left nostril and the solar nadi connects to the right.  A Yogic exercise in breath control alternates the usage of each nostril in patterns to bring balance back to these two forces.  Observe the nature of your breathing and you will see whether the Sun or the Moon is running yourself at any particular time.  Is it the Red Bull of the Sun (Ruadh Rofessa) or the White Cow of the Moon (Bóann), or is it both in balance and an ever-changing harmony of differences? *p*If they are viewed as contending, then I would say that there is a lesson in the contention.  Perhaps one should watch the contention and face it to learn its teaching, or have it learn whatever lesson it is that you *will* teach to it?  It is time to be as Merlin was when he was to be the sacrifice at Vortigern's Tower.  One can be the offerings or one can become the revelation and the solution.  Reveal the dragons and let their lessons be those that are learned by the many, when freed of their enclosure. *p*Searles*br*