On Finding a Snakeskin

Thursday evening I found a small snakeskin just the length of a pencil.  I had gone outside late in the evening just before dusk to water the plants and change the birdbath water.  The snakeskin was left by the spigot as if it was meant to be found.  I left it alone and made a quick inventory of my surroundings to see if a snake was nearby although I suspected the snake had left days before.  I went about my watering all the time thinking about that skin and the symbolism contained therein.  What had I shed this past year, what was I still in the process of shedding, and what was I still clinging tightly to that needed to be shed?

Over the past 10 months I have given up (shed) smoking cigarettes, and shed about 90% of the desire for those cigarettes.  I left (shed) a career that I once loved that had become all to consuming and no longer enjoyable for me and shed the guilt and shame that I had for leaving it.  I have thrown away, given away, and thrifted (shed) years of possessions and clutter from clothing, books, baskets, boxes, cups, and mugs, to old magazines, college papers and travel guides that no longer fit or had meaning in my life. 

While I still have more to be shed, just like the snake it was necessary for me to shed in order to develop. And just like the snake, I felt vulnerable and needed quiet and inactivity during and after the shedding process.

The snake passes through rough areas that can trap and hold the skin so the snake can slide out and leave old the skin behind.  My old skin was caught on the pavement and between sharp blades of grass during my daily walks, between the nap of the paper and the tip of the pen as I wrote in my journal, pressed between lips and teeth and pink gums as I shared my truth with those around me, between the circular rings of fine lines on the pads of my fingertips and the black and white keys of the keyboard, and on the rigid surface as paint and brush glided across the canvas.  I did not lose the skin in one continuous and definite piece, but more like a sanding away, scale by scale.

And while I am currently 38 (fastly dawning upon 39) and not what one would call young, I feel brand new and shiny in ways I never have before.

Birds lose feathers in order to gain new ones.  Animals shed their pelt and furs as the seasons change. Cicadas leave behind amber shells of their former selves.  Blue crabs go through a phase known as teneral when they are fresh and pale and soft bodied just before their body hardens and it is during this phase that they grow. 

Maybe you too will be led to think of what you have lost (shed) and of what you have gained (grown) this past year.  I think nature is an ever-present gift providing us prompts for living if only we will listen and see and smell and hear her call.