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A Black Snake on Mabon by Summer Fey Foovay So, it's Mabon. But I still have to clean house, do some laundry, and get a bit of work done. Even so, I took off early on my bike ride - to be home early to start the feast cooking. I rode against the wind down to a sandy/gravel beach I know well and sat down on a dead tree trunk that was just barely in the edge of the water, dangling my bare feet into the cold river and reading. Rodent screams, a whole gang of them from the sounds of it, caused me to turn my head just in time to see a black snake in a ball, coiled around his dinner, roll through the tall grass and down the bank to the beach. I stood and walked over to my shoes; ready to bolt if this snake was the notorious Water Moccasin we have been known to have here. There I stopped and watched him. He was a sleek black, without the keeled scales that would have identified him as the Moccasin. I quietly reached down and pulled my binoculars out of my bag, and put the book in. I got him focused just in time to see a pair of hind feet and tail disappear down his throat. But, wait…he was still coiled in a spring shape, around something that appeared to be considerably larger than the little legs I saw disappearing. So, curious, I waited. He unwrapped a coil and did some maneuvering until I could see he was preparing to swallow something else. There was, indeed, a much larger rat suffocated in his muscled coils. Large enough that I was grateful that I only knew it was that close to me, because it was being killed and eaten! The rodent screams were continuing, though fewer, and as the snake loosened his coils I saw a series of small lumps along his considerable length. I concluded that it was likely the big mama rat had returned home to find him methodically consuming her half-grown litter, and fallen prey to him herself in the end. As he shifted to swallow the big female, I sat and quietly slipped on my shoes. Something about his movements made me believe he had finally seen me, and I didn't wish to disturb his meal. Even as I began to slip quietly up the bank - he managed even with his mouth full to begin moving back into the tall grasses he had fallen from. Perhaps he saw my movement - although I had backed away from him so as not to disturb him (after all, I had the binoculars) - or he may have just realized he was sprawled on the sunny, sandy bank, black against its soft tan shades, a perfect target for the great blue herons who also frequent this river. I like snakes; I like snakes very much, even to having had them as pets. This big fellow deserves a nod for pure skill and talent to have captured two rats in one go. The usual method among the rat snakes (and I think now he was a black rat snake) is to snatch the prey by the head and, if it is small enough, proceed to the swallowing without messing about with killing it first! I think this guy had the young rat by the head and perhaps even partially swallowed when the mother arrived - and he managed to throw his thick, coils around her, subdue and kill her, and then calmly finished swallowing her babe (after a tumble down the bank). I owe my knowledge to a yearling rat snake that was given to me after a little adventure owing to his showing up in a public area of the zoo. Solomon, as I named him, was in the habit of gulping pinkie (baby) mice down live. I still shudder to remember the sight of the bulges in his neck as their tiny legs still flailed on the way down! Solly, unperturbed, would be swallowing the next one. He was a swift killer when the need arose, however, and able to adapt to any circumstance. I once watched him just PILE coils on top of a mouse and crush it against the side of his enclosure when he couldn't get a coil completely around it because of its position. Solomon was apt to biting the hand that fed him, and never adapted well to captivity, thus I released him after only a few months of his company, into an area near his former misadventure, but a bit less trafficked by humankind. The snake is a symbol, in Paganism, of the Goddess' unending and unconditional love, wrapped around us, as the coils of a constrictor wrap gently around a friend, strong yet gentle. The potential of violence exists but is not exercised. This incident decides me that I am not going to continue reading this book. For I disagree with it. I disagreed from the first page where the author stated (not opinioned, but stated) that the world and our life in it is one of misery and suffering, but these teachings might allow you a glimpse of happiness. Before the Lady distracted me by tossing something far more fascinating in my path, the black snake, I was reading about how, according to the Dalai Lama, reincarnation works. Yes, the Dalai Lama, and the book is The Open Heart. This view of reincarnation is that if you were a killer in a past life, this life will be short and full of illness, if you stole, you will live in lack and be stolen from, and tend to solve your problems by stealing again. Your only hope is to purge your mind of thoughts of stealing and replace them with acceptance and virtuous thoughts. If you commit an unvirtuous act you may return as an animal, without the will or ability to improve through virtue. I can understand, reading this, why some eastern cultures might then consider it all right to abuse an animal. My thoughts flashed to a memory I have of a past life, which convinced me I was one of Attila's Huns. Most of the world considered us thieves on a grand scale. I have had lack in this life. Does that therefore mean I am doomed to lack and misery? Okay…I'm sorry. I have great respect for the Dalai Lama. I think it is wrong for China to have taken his country and I believe Tibet ought to be returned to the Tibetans and the Lama restored to his homeland and position. BUT… I believe you can use your free will and your mind to change your life. To create abundance where there is lack, to find love, or fulfill whatever your needs may be. I simply cannot believe that this life is by law one of misery and you must work for happiness. If anyone in this world has a right to believe that life is misery, considering the start I got on life, I should be the one. But I don't. I always found a spark of beauty and joy in the deepest dark - and mostly it was in nature. The flight of a butterfly is beautiful no matter how desperate your pain. Or at least this is true for me. I believe that there is no religion that is right for everyone in the world all the time. For me, in this life, this form of Buddhism is not right. The Lady just had to remind me, that I am one with a world that is beautiful, in which joy is the natural state, and where misery and fear may exist to serve a purpose but are not the sum of reality. This book is promised to another bookcrosser, and will be packed up and shipped away Friday, perhaps to a person for whom this will be the revelation of truth, and a path of virtue that will make her life perfect. While I get up, cook up our feast, and find time tonight to research the totem meanings of the black snake and immortalize him in a drawing… ~Blessedbe~ ~Summer~

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