I had a dream about snakes last night—about snakes living in our house. This herpetological state of affairs was just fine with us. A psychologist would have a field day with my dream. But for every culture and religion, and in every era, snakes have captured the imagination of humans. Beyond the obvious phallic symbol, the serpent has represented the underworld, temptation, fertility, wisdom, healing, and creation.
Tea With Snakes
In the dream, I opened our front door to a friend and said, “Come in. Oops, mind the snake.” She entered and also was unperturbed by our slithering housemates. As we sat in the living room and drank tea, pythons glided past and into the kitchen. We observed them with benevolence. In an early REM gear, my powers of reasoning were such that our dog Oscar did not figure in the dream—a terrier, he would have given chase and worry, ruining the ethereal and pleasant nature of the dream—the dreaminess, if you will.
When Irish Eyes See Snakes
Why were snakes on my mind? We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day last Sunday, and St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. Is the story true? I think St. Patrick himself would tell you that it is not, but it was a good choice. There were no snakes in Ireland to begin with, so his success was guaranteed. In those days the Irish drank a fermented mash, a kind of beer, but one so strong that the imbibers hallucinated—St. Brigid was always at it—so the banishment of the non-existent snakes became legend.
Super Snakes
On March 20th we celebrated the spring equinox and the rising of a spring full moon, a worm moon and a supermoon. This is the first time the spring equinox and a full moon coincided so closely since 2000, and it will be the last time until 2030. With spring showers come the worms, out of the softening soil. That explains the worm part of the appellation. The super bit is due to the fact that the moon was making its closest pass to us on that night. It was brighter and even seemed larger. The emergence of the worms attracts robins, and indeed I saw my first robins in a field on March 20th.
Snakes and Worms
Here in our hill town Brigadoon, we have snakes and worms. In fact, I’ve never seen earthworms as large as ours. They’re more like small snakes than worms, and use their muscular bodies to aerate our rocky soil. The snakes are plentiful, too, but I’ve only seen small ones. They cross the roads in the spring and lie in the glorious sunshine on the warm asphalt. Unfortunately, they are not speedy enough to escape traffic—the salamanders and red efts meet this fate also. It’s very sad to find them squashed on the roads, their beautiful hides split. I herd them over to the side of the road if I find them alive in the middle, a stupid exercise, according to Oscar, who strains to get a really good look, sniff and taste.
New England is home to species of large and venomous snakes, such as the copperhead and timber rattlesnake. I’ve never seen either, which is fine, although I wouldn’t mind seeing one from a safe distance.
Speedy Snakes
Coming upon a snake can be startling. Walking along our country roads, all seems still—I have the measure of the world and the sounds around me—and then there’s a burst of energy and sound as the snake hurries away into hiding. And how they move! They manage a very speedy locomotion with no limbs, gathering themselves up and propelling themselves forward, their tube of muscles designed to escape danger or attack prey with stunning speed.
Stacking fire wood in the woodshed this summer we came upon evidence of the snake life in the wood pile. We found quite a few discarded snake skins, their owners somewhere else in their new finery. I also met one live snake, curled up on a log, in a hole between two rows of stacked wood. We looked at one another for a moment before it disappeared—puff.
Snakey
Humans are funny about snakes, and while I wouldn’t want to live with them, not in reality, I tend not to mind them. My neighbor likes to weed gardens and when I happily offered our garden to her ministrations, she declined, saying that our garden looked “snakey.”
I’ve run into that description before, at a wedding in western North Carolina. Not at the wedding itself, which was a lovely, snake-free affair, but at an event for the guests the day before. We were on a boating expedition down a large, roiling and scary brown river, as only North Carolinian rivers can be. The leader of the expedition told his charges to watch out for “snakey” areas in the water. Nobody wants to be in the water with snakes—we’re at a severe disadvantage. The truth is though—and it’s true of most animals—snakes want to get away from us and our flailing limbs, our loud voices.
It is spring, but snowing as I write, covering the garden with poor man’s fertilizer. Soon it will rain though—real rain—the kind of rain that floods the burrows of the sleeping giant earthworms, bringing them out to the paths and roads. The snakes need heat and will take longer to emerge, but soon enough Oscar and I will encounter them and their salamander cousins on the roads. I look forward to these “snakey” encounters.