Awakening the Snake

Clare Dubois, founder of Tree Sisters, is currently in Ecuador doing ceremony with the Kogi elders. The Kogi elders are an indigenous people from Colombia who see themselves as "Elder Brothers". They have been working to keep the energy of the Earth in balance. After centuries of seclusion, they came out in a BBC film in 1992, From the Heart of the World to warn us, "Younger Brothers", that we need to care for the Earth before it is too late.

Clare has invited those of us involved with Tree Sisters to hold her in prayer while she is with the Kogi. In that spirit, I sat beneath a huge redwood tree to meditate. In the spacious peace, I felt a request to pray again the next day at 2 pm and help anchor some of the energy the Kogi were raising here in northern CA. Of course, my intellect invalidated this -- why would the Kogi need me for anything? But, I said yes.

The next day, I headed back to the same tree, but the road was closed. Instead, my friend and I went out to the remote and wild South Fork of the Smith River. We were the only ones parked down the dirt road. I warned her to watch out for cliffs, poison oak, ticks, and rattlesnakes and off we went down the trail.

At precisely 2 pm, I was praying for Clare and the Kogi, when I stepped on a rock in the middle of the trail. Right behind me, my friend watched the rattler under the rock instantly coil and rattle. My friend froze. With cliffs on both sides, there was no way for either of us to get around the now very awake and alert snake.

We both went to meditate, hoping that we could at least calm ourselves down and figure out what to do. In my meditation, I felt grounded in a way I never am, like a huge, loving boulder. Golden light filled me. Then I mentally "saw" a gossamer tendril of energy float up the river canyon from the south and go straight into the rattlesnake. I sensed she was connecting in some unfathomable way to the Kogi energy.

After that the snake calmed down and I was able to skirt around her to my friend. As we hiked out, I felt a mix of emotions: relief, accomplishment (although I was unsure of exactly what had been accomplished), and a sense that this situation was completely out of my depth. Maybe it was all coincidence and my own imagination, and it had nothing to do with the Kogi.

I'm left wondering just how conscious the snake was? Did she know of changes in the Earth energies, even when they were happening far away? Was I supposed to wake her up? Or was the 2 pm wake-a-snake situation just a coincidence? One thing I do know, we are certainly living in a vast mystery.