As I walked in the mountains I began to notice stones on the trail that had strange patterns in them. Although they appeared to be weathered, I could not imagine what might have created their markings. I wanted to understand if they were naturally occurring or man-made.
I felt called to them and began seeking them out. As more and more were revealed over time, I started to feel that they were reaching out to me in ways that I did not yet understand.
I tried photographing them, but the camera could not capture a sharp image. Although I was unsure about what I was experiencing, I felt certain that the stones were teaching me, and I opened myself to their messages.
Then once as I was treading up the stone path I saw a rattlesnake coiled in the trail. A big one. We both froze, and I watched it from a safe distance. The diamonds outlined on its back and its still silence left me unexpectedly moved. It was truly beautiful. I bowed and returned down the trail, back the way I had come in!
Another time, on All Souls Day, I felt called to a familiar trail. As I walked my usual route in the woods, I found a stone cairn had been knocked down. The cairn marked an energetically charged corner of the woods. I restored it, and left an offering behind. Although it was nearly freezing at the time, I walked right up on a snake sitting motionless in the trail. We each acknowledged the other, then we both continued on our way.
The snake is intimately tied to the land. It lives its life among stones, cooling in their shade in the summer heat, and warming within them in winter dens. In caves and darkness, it gives birth or lays its eggs among the stones.
As a symbol of transformation and healing, the snake transmutes the poisons within the body, freeing trapped energies, shedding one skin for another. Although I was working with the landscape, I was also healing myself in those highly charged places.
Snakes, dragons, and serpents are guardians of sacred places.
Protectors of creativity and wisdom, they lay coiled about their treasure in a spiral of growth. The Ouroboros, a symbolic snake with its tail in its mouth, forms a ring, the eternal circle. And in the staff of the Caduceus, the ancient symbol today represents modern medicine and the healing arts.
As I walked among the strange stones, I was being welcomed into their world of knowledge. Into another reality where rebirth and transition was inevitable. Sacred sites and ancient stones would open to me, and their sleeping secrets would shine again.
As currents wind down hidden paths, a column of smoke uncoils from a sacred fire.
Here, in white mountains, ancient chambers and stone doorways,
There be Dragons.
