By Seth Kopald
This is the year of the Snake in Chinese astrology, the wood snake actually. The Chinese Lunar New Year began January 29th, two days after my mother died. The year of the snake is a time of personal growth, transformation, and adaptability.
I’m curious what comes up for you when I say it’s the year of the snake. Many of us fear snakes and think they are somehow evil or malicious. I’ve always felt they got a bad rap. I think snakes are love, like any other animal. They are animals trying to survive like the rest of us. In Shamanism, related to the four directions, the snake resides in the South and guides us to shed and clear limiting beliefs. We all have seen the medical symbol of snakes coiled around a winged staff. The snake represents healing.
Upon hearing that this is the year of the snake, I thought to myself, perhaps this is an opportunity to shed my skin and to step into a new level of being, and this year, the snake has been knocking on my door.
For instance, I invited Rav Gav to say blessings with our family at my mothers bedside, a few days before she died. We all gathered around my mother as she moved about in a dreamlike state. I looked down and saw Rav Gav was wearing a snake bracelet, and it fit the moment as
she explained how we were cleansing and elevating my mother’s soul. I was like, “Ok Shaman Rabbi.”
My mom was the root of much of my suffering in life. Her own suffering made her unavailable and even vicious at times. I truly never had the mom I needed and deserved. And during Ravs ceremony, she said we were offering my mother forgiveness and forgiveness for ourselves. Everyone in the family felt what happened there, and when days later my mother died, something in me released. The preparation for shedding my skin had begun.
Prior to my mother’s rapid decline, I started my own forgiveness process. I read a forgiveness prayer for 32 days, as instructed. I learned in that time that forgiveness is not forgetting, or making it somehow ok that someone hurt you. It’s about releasing the charge of it all. It was the charge that caused me to hurt myself through anger, resentment, and even spite. Letting all that energy go, allowed me to stand next to my mother’s dying body and hold her hand.
Since then, this year has been a year of healing. So much so, I started to outgrow my skin. I joined many healing circles and practices, and last June I went to Oregon and gave some of my grief to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think you need to do all that to shed old skin, but for me, it was necessary.
Snake has followed me throughout all of this. Of course there was Rav Gav’s bracelet. When I was in Oregon I went to a Tibetan shop and bought a few things and when I got home, I found
an earring at the bottom of the bag. It was a golden snake. And just last month while I was at my cranial sacral appointment I noticed my practitioner had a new tattoo on her arm. Can you guess? A snake. I see snake imagery everywhere. Over the last month it felt like my old skin started to flake off bit by bit and just a few weeks ago, while at authentic movement I laid on the ground and wiggled my body out of my old skin.
So what does it mean to shed your skin? Is it Tshuvah? Returning to Self? This answer came through: in Tshuvah we are shedding old versions of ourselves that block access to our light, to our soul, to our essence, to our true Self. It feels like expansion because we release what doesn’t serve us, and there is more room for me, more room for you, to shine our natural light. When we release the negative thoughts about ourselves and our negative thoughts about others: we forgive and we can expand.
Our skin holds our current belief system of who we are. If we think we are small, our skin stays small. So, if you feel comfortable doing so, please repeat after me:
○ I am not what my thoughts tell me I am
○ I am not what others have said I am
○ I am not what I assume people think I am
When we realize this, we start to expand, and our skin begins to notice. Then, it’s time to start to shed.
Our false beliefs about ourselves and others, our hiding, our protection, our fighting, usually come from drops of bad experiences – over and over – filling our bucket with burdens. And luckily, healing can happen drop by drop too, at your pace. As you continue to empty that bucket, there’s more room for you, and as you emerge, your skin will be ready and will naturally shed. And perhaps, on this Yom Kippur – we can start by stepping into forgiveness.
Thus, I would like to read The Forgiveness Prayer I mentioned above for all of us. So feel free to take this in if desired.
If there is anyone or anything that has hurt me in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it.
If I have hurt anyone or anything in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it.
If I have hurt myself in the past knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it.
Source: Akashic Records Consultants International (ARCI)
May you Return to Your Self and have a healthy and easeful year.
Shanah Tovah
