The Secret Language of Symbols: The Snake

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

The snake is not always the most popular guest at the symbolic table.

For many of us, it arrives with a certain reputation: danger, temptation, poison, something lurking in the grass that we would rather not meet while wearing sandals.

And yet, symbolically, the snake is one of the great images of transformation.

It sheds its skin. It knows when an old covering has become too tight, too dry, too small for the life moving underneath. There is something deeply powerful in that. The snake does not attend a weekend workshop on personal growth, buy a new notebook, and make a list of intentions. It simply sheds what it can no longer live inside.

In dreams, myths and the inner life, the snake may speak of instinct, sexuality, healing, fear, wisdom, danger or renewal. It belongs close to the earth, to the body, to what is felt before it is explained. It may appear when something old is being outgrown, or when a more instinctive part of the self is asking to be acknowledged.

Of course, not every snake should be stroked. Some symbols come with both a warning and a message. The snake may ask us to notice toxicity, deception, or other aspects of life that need careful handling.

In therapy, I might wonder:

What old skin am I ready to shed?

What instinct have I ignored?

What frightens me, and what might it be trying to show me?

Where is healing trying to happen, even if it arrives in a form I did not expect?

The snake reminds us that change is not always pretty. Sometimes growth looks like discomfort, exposure, and the awkward business of becoming someone we have not yet fully met.

This theme of growth through difficulty is also at the heart of my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth.

As with all symbols, the snake does not have one fixed meaning. For one person, it may feel threatening. For another, sacred. For another, powerfully alive.

So perhaps the question is not, what does the snake mean?

But:

What is stirring close to the ground of my being?

What am I afraid to feel?

And what must I shed in order to feel renewed? 

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