Dragon lady

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

In this country’s consciousness, snakes are cast in the villain’s role (a British actor made a similar complaint about Brits in American movies). Why? The entire U.S. has only about 20 venomous snakes, and none of the huge constrictors. Generally our native snakes, like wolves, cougars and other slandered beasts, avoid people; they bother us only when we’ve startled or threatened them. People have slaughtered all — snakes, wolves, mountain lions — yet there’s something more; people fear, loathe, abhor snakes.

Now, I could understand this attitude in a chipmunk; lots of chipmunks are eaten by snakes. But most of us have never met, and will never meet, a venomous snake in the wild; considering where these snakes live, we’d have to go really out of our way to meet one — climb a mountain or rocky ridge, hang out in a southern river, walk around in a southwestern desert — and then mess with the snake we (literally) stumble upon. Doesn’t it seem the snakes should fear, loathe, abhor us?

So this revulsion isn’t based on our experience. What, then? How about that often-quoted source of mindless hatred, the old testament? In its very first section, we’ve got a snake talking a woman into causing nothing less than the fall from paradise. Neither snakes nor women have been treated well since.

But in that same neck of the woods, in the oldest stories of the oldest civilizations — Mycenaean, Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian — the ancient creator goddess was a serpent or cobra. Later goddesses retained snake symbolism — her scepter entwined with serpents, snakes coiled around her body, a snake looking out from behind her shield. The serpent was the wisest of animals, the Gnostic Testimony of Truth tells us.

These snakes symbolize wisdom and prophecy, mystic insights, dream interpretation. The sites where holy women — priestesses, oracles — received and interpreted divine revelations were dedicated to goddesses, and snakes were present at these centers of divination, of prophecy. The oracle Pythia at Delphi is said to have sat on a stool encircled by a snake known as the Python. Initially known as female, Python became male in later Greek writings. It seems clear that the murders of Python by Apollo and of Gaia’s serpent by Zeus represent the confiscation of these shrines, and of the godhead, by men.

And snakes have been paying for it ever since. The symbol of divine wisdom became the symbol of evil. One of the most recent goddess depictions, the Virgin Mary, is a testament to both the twists of stolen iconography and the endurance of subconscious images. In a common image, Mary stands on a crescent moon, and a snake.

Something always seemed wrong to me about this image; the whole thing is passive. Mary’s eyes are not looking inward, like the Kwan Yin’s. Although the palms are facing forward, Mary’s hands are not active, like Tara’s. Mary’s head is turned to the side but tilted down, not strong like Isis. And Mary’s foot is closing the mouth of the snake, making us deaf to the wisdom of the divine.

How can we open our ears to the pythoness within?