Middle-age Medicine: Snake-and-Bird Goddess

By Mut Danu

At age forty-five, I was finally ready to admit that I might be heading into "middle-age." The first minutes after waking my joints felt like rusty things left out in the rain. Suddenly the fine print was blurry. I worried about being misunderstood or worse, my opinions thought worthless by younger people. "Please Goddess," I prayed, "send me an aspect of You who will cure me of all this!"

She came; in dreams, at the tip of a watercolor brush and finally sculpted from white clay by my own hands. Her lush bottom sat firmly on the earth like a yogi, though instead of twisting her legs into a tight lotus, they curled in relaxed spirals. The energy rose visibly through her sinuous torso and her arms floated lightly towards the sky. Her hands fluttered like little birds and on her head flowed long curling tresses, or were they snakes? I poked tiny holes in her back, knowing that she needed feathers. Holding her up for examination, electric goose bumps went zinging down to my toes. We were off to a good start.

Researching, I found that this goddess was already known to our Paleolithic mothers, 10,000 years ago. Late archeologist Marija Gimbutas had seen her image throughout Europe; as a bird goddess, "a beak-shaped nose the body of a human female with small holes in the shoulders that may have been used to attach bird feathers," and in her snake form, "sitting yogi-like or squatting, with snake-shaped limbs her head, human or snake-like." The similarities between the Paleolithic woman's image of her and the same goddess seen though my modern eyes, were startling. My little goddess image was both; She was a snake, a bird, a Snake-giving-birth-to-Bird Goddess. Historically, we know her cult was spread throughout Europe, her image gently adapting to each culture she was known by Paleolithic, Neolithic, Minoan, classical antiquity. Our knowledge of her pre-literate worship is confined to stone and clay images, but we modern women can find answers in the meanings of her symbolism, and through drawing and sculpting her; and through meditation, movement and observation.

Not particularly close to snakes, I decided to begin right there. I discovered her as the serpent whose body forms the eternal spiral of Endings, Beginnings and Right Now, Fearsome and Sexual. She is regenerative, offering the priestess power of transmuting poison into healing. Her Snake self rises, connecting Earth and Sky and waking up our inner self.

Then, I spent time with her Bird aspect. Late August and early September is the season when the birds let go of unwanted feathers. Every day, I came in from walks having found a few silky plumes from pearl gray and white doves, occasionally a blue-black feather of crow. Every bird has its own symbolic meaning. In "Animal Speak", I read that doves represent energies of peace, the mother and prophecy. The mourning dove, "tells you to mourn what has passed, but to awaken to the promise of the future". It is sad to realize that no matter how wonderful today is, we can only be young again in our dreams. We can take great care of our bodies, and feed our minds with lots of wonderful knowledge, but like mountains and powerful civilizations, eventually we too will crumble, disappear and return to the Mother. Snake and Bird Goddess has helped me feel more part of the continuum: that life gives birth to a new phase and that what is important is letting that energy flow instead of trying to trap it and hold it too tightly. Have you ever tried to catch and hold still a snake or a bird?

For working with the energies of middle-age, the mourning dove is a creature that exists at the twilight edge of completion, while the serpent is found at the dawn, opening her great mouth to give birth to the egg of new beginnings. This combined image is curative Snake and Bird Medicine. Though we may take in poisonous messages every day about our middle-aged bodies, our silvering hair, our widening hips and feeling crazy because we are feeling the wisdom and power that comes with a few extra turns around the sun Snake and Bird Goddess can help us sing new messages to our spirits.

I realized that spending time with the Snake and Bird aspect of the Goddess was not going to return my youth, or even lessen natural aging. Instead, she offers the possibility to transmute the poison messages into healing. She helps to look at the world in a new way, in which our lives, thoughts, bodies, acts have value. I immediately felt more alive, more energetic and full of ideas and projects when I began to listen to her (and actually, sometimes I did feel like a kid again, rediscovering old pleasures). She will coo in our ears, and if we aren't listening, she will start to HISSS. "Go for it! It's time to let your intelligence shine, show off those wonderful skills you have acquired over a half a lifetime of learning, and speak up!"

It is not as easy to see a trail through the sky as clearly as a path that has been trod by many feet on the ground. But like the Snake, we can bring knowledge up from the hidden, dark places out into the light. There is a high hill to be climbed and from there we have the panoramic view of where we have been and where we are today even if tomorrow is a bit hazy on the horizon. We can look at our middle-aged life so far and know that we own it. Regardless of whether it has been sad, happy, successful or not too, this life is ours as are all of it's lessons and experiences. The power to create and rewrite our life is ours as well.

Call her image into your mind, and become like the Snake coiled to strike, but instead of striking, stretch yourself out full length, quivering, snake nose to the sky. Sniff the world, become aware of possibility. Now at your full length, open your mouth as the egg of new beginnings hatches Bird. Goddess Snake-and-Bird opens her wings. Her-Your wings unfold and push off from the edge where you stand. Feel that glorious breeze adding lift to your effort and soar even higher. Remember your life is only half-full and it wants to be overflowing. Go on! Fly!

By Mut Danu, HPS

Reading and learning more:
Andrews, Ted "Animal Speak" 3rd edition, 2006.
Blair, Nancy. "Amulets of the Goddess" 1993.
Gimbutas, Marija "Goddesses and Gods of Europe" 1974.
Gimbutas, Marija."The Living Goddesses". 1999. Edited/supplemented by Miriam Roberts Dexter. 
Noble, Vicki. "Shakti Woman: Feeling our fire, Healing our World- The New Female Shamanism". 1991.

Mut Danu is a High Priestess of the Apple Branch Dianic Tradition of Bendis and of the Feminist Dianic Witchcraft tradition of Zsuzsanna Budapest
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