Sexual Alchemy: Female Blue Water Snake Year 2013

In China, the Snake is traditionally a kind of “baby dragon”. The dragon is mythic, often depicted as the parts of other animals combined. By contrast, the snake is real, it’s physically accessible. There are over 2000 species of snakes on the planet.

Studies suggest that one-third of the global population has a deep fear of these snakes. Ophidiophobia is one of the most common phobias known to man, along with spiders and heights. This is true even in Asia. Modern Hong Kong merchants complain that they cannot easily “cutify” the Snake to sell stuffed animals and other Snake Year paraphernalia. There is too much latent fear of snakes. This 2013 Snake Year is also unpopular because it has no “eyes”, meaning it starts after Feb. 4, 2013 and ends before Feb. 4, 2014. It’s considered a “blind snake” that is not around for the first day of spring. Many are getting married before or after this year.

I believe snake fear is actually a sexual fear of what the Snake embodies: a spiritual awakening in a sexed body. Snakes have a psycho-sexual, undulating kundalini force that can explode at any moment. Humans often repress a similar “rising serpent” force, that is internally sexual in nature.

I accidentally triggered a powerful kundalini awakening in 1978. It felt like a whole body orgasm, my testicles pulsating 24 hours a day, with sexual energy undulating up my spine like a snake. While searching global literature for explanations for my (then) bizarre condition, I found only one useful book: The Serpent Power, by Gopi Krishna. He explained this force was coiled like a serpent in the base of the spine. That led me to study Tantra and teach kundalini yoga for some years, until I graduated to Taoist internal alchemy, which offered safer management of my kundalini.

Freud correctly opined (and as a Taoist alchemist I would agree) that sexual repression is the deepest potential force for change in Humanity’s psyche. Sexual repression, alas, locks up the creative power of our psyche. Much of Freud’s work came from investigating female patients with hysteria — the sudden release of sexual repression. Men channel repressed sexuality into war and violence. It’s why gun control is tantamount to penis control in America — and thus unlikely to ever happen.

We fear our own repressed sexual energy as if it were a snake that wants to suddenly bite us. Our sexual energy wants to evolve us spiritually, but it needs a safe path. Taoist alchemy teaches us to manage our sexual energy BEFORE we start messing around with our psychic infrastructure and releasing the kundalini serpent force.

Snake medicinal wine as a sexual tonic is common in Asia.

This topic is too deep to cover in this newsletter. Please read my FAQs on Tao & Sexual Practice: https://healingtaousa.com/faq_taoist_sexual_practice.html

Or just get the homestudy course that updates the book I wrote with Mantak Chia 28 years ago (Taoists Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy, or its female sequel, Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy). Books, jade eggs, homestudy courses at: https://healingtaousa.com/sexualqigong.html

This is not just about having better sex, or medical sexology; it’s about the fundamental split in the male-female soul, the cosmology of how we got into this split state, that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

SEXUAL COSMOLOGY & QIGONG ARTICLES: If you want to go deeper into the connection between cultivating sexual Qi and spiritual development, consider reading some of my articles:

1. Sexual Qigong: Secret Tao Path to Completing our Human Identity https://healingtaousa.com/healinglove.html#slt  (short read)

2. The Quest for Spiritual Orgasm: Daoist and Tantric Sexual Cultivation in the West  https://healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode2&articleid=35  (40 pages – long but good)

3. Transforming Sexual Energy with Water-and-Fire Alchemy: Book Chapter excerpt, “Daoist Body Cultivation” Livia Kohn, ed.  https://healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode2&articleid=103

1. DVD ORDER INFO: Sexual Vitality Qigong DVD. Full retail is $45. Special price for my readers is $29.95, plus s/h. Save $15!  See detailed list of 26 Qigong Movements on this DVD below.

2. HOMESTUDY INFO: Healing Love/ Tao of Sex  Audio courses are highly recommended as they go much deeper than the DVD, which is movement practice only. If you buy the DVD + the home study Audio, you receive 35% off retail.  Save $54 to $100 !!!

1 DVD  + 17 Audio CDs 23 hr (4 hrs. w/Joyce Gayheart on female practice):  reg. $295. Special: $195.  Save $100!

1 DVD  + 7 Audio CD 9 hr (Michael only)   reg. $154.  Special: $99.   Save $55!

For fuller description of these courses: https://healingtaousa.com/healinglove.html#nmb

Other Tao of Sex products (jade eggs, books): https://healingtaousa.com/sexualqigong.html

TO ORDER Tao Cultivation Special savings, please email Jan, my office manager: info@healingtaousa.com or call at 828-505-1444 (in USA toll free is 888-999-0555).

3. HEALING LOVE RETREAT INFO:  June 28 to July 3, 2013 in Asheville, N.C. The Sexual Vitality Qigong DVD or Tao of Sex Audio CD are a great start. But if you really want to go deep, and get hands on help from two Senior Instructors with over 55 years experience between them, attend the Taoist Sexual Secrets/Healing Love summer retreat taught by Michael Winn and Minke de Vos: http://www.healingtaoretreats.com/cgi-bin/prod_list.pl?rpage=DM13-2A

Or Contact: Julia Considine, Retreats Registrar. info@healingtaoretreats.com 828-575-3825

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Taoist Secrets of Sex Homestudy Audio Testimonial:

I Got Profound Healing of Sexual Relation Issues from Your Tapes

Dear Michael,

Thank you with all my Heart for your beautiful Taoist work. I experienced profound healing listening to your weekend recordings of “Healing Love” tapes.

The healing was particularly poignant to me because your audio course had for a few years contained a somewhat painful “charge” for me. Your course given to my boyfriend Bill by Jane, his erstwhile lover — someone with whom, from what I perceived, Bill had maintained a deeper love and greater emotional intimacy than he seemed capable or willing to bring to his relationship with me. Until about a year ago, anything that represented Bill and Jane’s deep connection triggered in me irritation or pissiness (at best), or resentment, anger, jealousy and hurtful sadness (at worst).

I had thought I had resolved all of that, and that I was finally at peace with the whole Jane dynamic. That is, until I recently found your course in a drawer after Bill moved out a few months ago. Up welled some of the same feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, envy, jealousy. Not comfortable things to confront for someone who likes to consider herself pretty spiritual evolved! 🙂 Especially when I thought I had healed these types of feelings where Jane and Bill were concerned. But there it was, plain as day — another unhealed layer.

Rather than throw away your recordings (my first impulse), send them back to Jane unheard (my second impulse), or even send them back to Bill unheard (my third impulse), I decided to give them a listen before mailing them off to Bill. Part of me maintained the fantasy that I would listen to them and then feel superior — “Oh, I already know all of this from my many years of deep pranayam practice based on principles of Kundalini yoga and tantra, with Rudi’s double breathing technique, from my own inner work through years of celibacy, from my own Tantric tutelage and practices, through my work with Master Zhou, through being a tantrika before I even knew what that word meant, etc. etc. etc.”

The small mind ego just jumped right on board, spinning out an elaborate and detailed fantasy of arrogant dismissal. And then I breathed deeply again, drew all of this into my dantian, burned it up and allowed it to quiet my mind, open my heart, open my third eye and crown, and allow myself a chance to learn or receive something.

Only after I committed to listening openly and without judgment did I pop the first tape in — and I then was able to begin to receive fully the healing energy that came through, so softly, sweetly. I was bathed in a beautiful healing blanket, inspiring me to go further with my QiGong explorations . . . and reminding me that as I return to doing these practices deeply in loving myself, only that same unconditional love, support and Love Essence will come forward to meet me, too. In all relationships — including the next one to which I choose to bring the priceless flower gift of my Divine Goddess Sexuality.

Thank you for the inspiration of your work, and for inspiring me further on my own inner path working with the profound energies that help us integrate spirit and body and energy fully.

Light and love,  Kathleen, California

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DVD INFO: Sexual Vitality Qigong by Michael Winn

It took me many years to gather these qigong sexercises from various Taoist masters I’ve met around the world. Some I had to create myself, to get the exact Qi-building effect I wanted. You won’t find other DVDs on this topic, as it is a rather rare and specialized study not commonly available.  List of the 26  “Sexercises” on this DVD:

A. Top 3 Sexual Energy Building Qigong forms

1. Left & Right Kidney Pumping, a.k.a. Deep Earth Pulsing.
2. Cosmic Swimming Dragon
   (spiral pink sexual chi around sun, moon, stars).
3. Sexual Marriage of Heaven & Earth
   (Audio course integrates Empty Force Breathing, not taught on video)

B. Fire & Water Qigong Ceremony
(Facing South for Heart & North for Kidney Harmony)

C. Lying Sexual Qigong forms

1. pelvic rocking and circling sacrum
2. psoas release
3. belly and groin massage (with laughing practice also)
4. inhale outer universe into dantian; exhale inner body universe to mingmen

D. Sitting & Kneeling Sexual Qigong

1. Rubbing kidneys according to Taoist numerology
2. Rubbing ears to stimulate kidneys
3. Stroke inside leg/kidney meridians; slap kidney-1 point
4. Hands over ears, with kidney rotations
5. Knee walking
6. Kneel with pelvic lifting & pumping

E. Standing Sexual Qigong to Circulate Kidney Chi

1. Walking Knee lifts
2. Knee slapping on Bladder-40 point
3. Arm and leg swings to open psoas
4. Grab ankles, breathe into kidney meridian
5. Breathe testicle/ovary pink chi to heart, eyes

F. Standing Lung – Kidney Sexual Qigong

1. Arms/palms open lungs; close fists over mingmen, kidney sound.
2. short arm swings, movement originates from pelvis.
3. large arm scoops: activates lung meridian to expand kidney chi.
4. Fast out-of-sync circles with palms scooping chi into kidneys.
5. Waist circling with hands on kidneys.
6. Belt channel circling, palms gather chi around waist.

G. Sexual Qigong to Concentrate Kidney Chi in Dantian

1. Slow moving Chi Ball front-back, left-right, up-down.

Before we get into Adam and Eve, let’s consider the serpent element in China’s creation myth. Parallels with other near Eastern myths, such as the Biblical flood and Genesis creation myths, are clear.  Serpents are found in ancient Egyptian culture as well.
       

L: Fuxi and Nuwa as first humans, brother-sister with serpent legs in caduceus pattern. Found in China’s western desert, Xinjiang. R: All Egyptian pharoahs wore a serpent uraeus on their crown, derived from a female goddess.

According to ancient Chinese legend, the land was swept by a great flood and only Fu Xi and his sister Nuwa survived. They retired to Kunlun Mountain, where they prayed for a sign. The Ruler of Heaven approved their union and the siblings set about procreating the human race. In order to speed up the process, Fu Xi and Nüwa used clay to create human figures, using divine power to make the clay figures come alive.

The Genesis 3 Bible serpent myth is widely misunderstood by Christian fundamentalists. They see serpents as the Devil for tempting Adam and Eve to eat forbidden fruit from the Tree of Self-Knowledge, thus causing humanity’s fall into mortality. Adam is from the root Hebrew word Adamus, or earth, signifying Humanity. Eve means Life. The Bible says they were “of one flesh”.

It’s not really being paternalistic here — Eve coming out of the rib of Adam is just a poetic way to show their unity. Humanity and Life wanted to understand their sexual nature, and so they bit into the apple of sexuality that gave them divine self-knowledge. This is really just a parable about Humanity shifting from an androgynous (merged male-female) “astral” body into separated male and female physical bodies on earth that can die.

Genesis is just another version of the Fall, common to most ancient cultural myths. In Taoism, the “fall” from a Golden Age is the shift from Early Heaven to Later Heaven. But during this 2013 Snake Year, let’s get the story right, and not let unconscious cultural-religious programming about snakes in the Bible control us.

Genesis 1 is written by a priest describing the Primal Creator myth, the first seven days of creation. A clean, simple cosmology story. Scholars agree that Genesis 2-4 is written by a different priest, focused on human relationships with secondary aspects of God (lesser creator god/desses) that manage creation.

Humanity’s decision to divide into male and female bodies is NOT the fault of an evil Serpent. What’s interesting about Genesis is that the Serpent CAN TALK to Adam and Eve, and is assuring them that self-knowledge is a good thing. This serpent is the only animal in the Old Testament that can talk!

This ability to talk suggests the Snake in the Garden of Eden was a Snake Immortal (possibly an androgynous pre-human in snake form) with deep wisdom and a connection to God/dess. The serpent is not an outside evil force. We’re just eavesdropping on a struggle between the second tier creator gods-goddesses who were re-writing the DNA programs of Humanity. Some wanted humans to become physical, others opposed it.

Even more fantastical, Genesis predicts the children of the Serpent and the children of Adam and Eve will be bitter enemies forever. Is this Biblical support for modern super-conspiracy theorist David Ickes, who holds that alien reptilians are secretly shape-shifting into human form? That the serpents are finally getting their Biblically predicted revenge, by posing as leading politicians and bankers to control Humanity? (note: I accept there are many ET species, including reptilians, but don’t believe they can control human destiny nor do I accept Ickes paranoid vision. The serpent got her way in the Garden of Eden, why should she be angry?)

Here’s my short re-write of Genesis:

Adam-Eve, or integrated (androgynous) Humanity-Life, wanted to evolve their free will and claim their god/dess hood within physicality. In Genesis 3 Yahweh is trying to stop Adam-Eve from using their free-will to choose male and female physical bodies, which would make them mortal. Yahweh has an argument with a wise serpent speaking on behalf of Mother Earth, and Yahweh loses. If Yahweh had won, we Humans would not exist today.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is symbolized by the caduceus, two serpents (male and female) entwined around the staff of the Prime Creator God. It is exactly what Mother Earth’s energy body looks like: an axis between North and South Pole, with a spiral geo-magnetic helix flowing around it that is well documented by scientists.

    
L: caduceus image of kundalini rising, two male-female currents around a third neutral core.
R: DNA double-helix is living caduceus in every one of our cells. Its axis is an invisible 3rd force.

The significance of the staff/core channel within the Caduceus: Free will and the sexual power of procreation can only come from the Primary Creator god of Love and Harmony. Yahweh is the jealous second-tier (local) God of the old Testament and Genesis 3. Scholars say Yahweh was a Divine Warrior God to the Canaanites who 600 years later got upgraded to cosmic rulership over all Gods. He was always angry, vengeful, and bloodthirsty. He pushed ignorant humans (who confused him with Prime Creator God) into killing their enemies in God’s Name. This is possibly Lucifer in disguise. Yahweh-Lucifer was influenced by Dark Forces (from outside this Cosmos) that want to sabotage the human experiment.

Yahweh was trying to stop Adam and Eve from realizing their soul’s Highest Destiny, which was to bring Prime Creator’s love and harmony into the physical plane. Humanity’s destiny was to bring personal love (stepped down from field of impersonal divine love) into physicality. Splitting the human soul into male and female was definitely a risky experiment, and created a lot of suffering. It is ultimately an evolutionary triumph that will redeem all the suffering caused by the separation (Fall), when more split humans are able to restore their original (androgynous) immortality.

Every religion has its own version of salvation. Christians call this process “redemption”, but most seem to be waiting around for it to happen from on High, rather than individually creating it. Taoists view the self-cultivation of our sexual energy into immortal self-realization as the highest destiny or virtue (de) of any human.

Eve in Garden of Eden, having heart-to-heart talk with Wise Serpent. Original Photo: ©Adam

In my interpretation, the fantastical talking Serpent in the Garden of Eden is an aspect of Mother Earth that supports Humanity in cultivating a higher level of free will and self-knowledge. Mother Earth is willing to be the root of that Tree of Good and Evil..

Fundamentalists (and their second tier Yahweh-Lucifer God) are pissed off that the Mother Earth-Serpent won, and have been laying a heavy Original Sin guilt trip on humans ever since. They try to split modern men and women by paternalistically blaming Eve for convincing Adam to bite into the forbidden fruit. They are bitter losers who have created a lot of self-destructive religious beliefs. They have put out tons of unfair bad PR for snakes (and dragons), supported widespread sexual repression resulting in woman-hating (the Inquisition was 90% sexual torture of women; Salem witch trials), body-hating (sex is bad) and planet-earth hating (polluting technologies).

So let’s hear it for the Female Water Snake, an aspect of the Great Earth Mother who wants to help us evolve! Even Jesus recognized Snake virtue: Jesus exhorted his disciples, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Moses turned his staff into a serpent to prove his power. Both clear acknowledgements of Snake wisdom and power.

I’ve recounted the details of this Genesis talking snake so that Westerners can compare it to Chinese fantastical tales of another talking, shape-shifting snake (see section on White Snake Lady).

Lots of Chinese soothsayers are offering up the classic profile: Water Snake is very internal, wise, and contemplative, but is prone to jealousy. Those born in the Year of the Snake are said to desire material wealth. They are also vibrant, creative, enchanting, introspective, refined and kind, all qualities absent from the reptile’s reputation.

Timing is key to understanding the 2013 Snake. Consider the collective psychic power  invested in the Milky Way’s Galactic Dark Rift during Winter Solstice 2012. Has that Super Yang Male Water Dragon energy been spent yet? Not at all. There was a big silent THUD immediately after the much hyped Solstice – until the Snake Year slithered in with a bang.

The psychological human snake qualities may be true, but early omens say WATCH OUT! This Water Snake has real FORCE in it, and can strike suddenly, without warning. Water is the symbol for DANGER, it’s the untamed force of Nature as floods and hurricanes. Alchemical reactions between water & fire can be quite volatile in certain astrological periods. Is 2013, with its Snake Fire mating a Water Year, a time when the collective culture is ready to shed its old skin?

The lunar Snake New Year was on Feb. 10.  On Feb. 11, the Pope resigned, for the first time in 600 years — a huge unexpected shock as one of the planet’s largest religions suddenly shed its old skin.

On Feb. 15, there was a double planetary whammy. A large meteor DA-14 had a “close encounter” with striking the earth, passing as close as the moon. The same day another meteor exploded over Russia, shattering 3000 windows and flattening up to 100,000 trees.

Alchemical reactions between yin & yang can be quite volatile in certain astrological periods. Is 2013, with Snake Fire mating a Water Year, one of those?

The previous meteoric explosion in Siberia in 1908 flattened 80 MILLION trees: its shock waves felt like a trigger to a century of incredible change. Why is Russia so significant in the global psyche? It is the meeting place of east and west, Asia and Europe. So it’s a good proxy to send a shockwave into humanity.

Let’s look to the past (thanks, wikipedia!) for clues. What Snake-like events happened in the 20th century’s only water snake year, 1953?

– The US exploded the first hydrogen bomb, giving it powerful surprise strike force. Hydrogen is the main component of water, H2O.

– Watson & Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA, revealing that the deepest secret power in our biology matched precisely the famous archetype of a double serpent caduceus.

– The first transsexual surgery: a watershed event for humanity, the literal shedding of our old skin of having a fixed sexual identity. Adam can now become Eve, fulfilling the Biblical proclamation that they “were of one flesh”. More on that below.

– Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest. This is conquering a hidden zone, and snow as frozen water element. Water Snakes are profiled in China as one of the most determined and ambitious signs, lying in hiding until they choose to reveal themselves.

– Over 6000 people are killed by floods & rains in Europe and Asia, tens of thousands injured; a typical Water Snake natural strike.

– Hugh Hefner published the first issue of Playboy magazine, featuring centerfold nude Marilyn Monroe. It sold out immediately, launching a whole genre of seductive magazines. Snakes are considered irresistibly seductive – a tradition that goes back to the Serpent in Genesis tempting Eve to take the first bite of the forbidden fruit.

– Aldous Huxley tries mescaline, a psychedelic hallucinogen. His book “The Doors of Perception” breaks open a new interior horizon to exploration, previously reserved for shamans.

– REM sleep is first discovered. This is mankind penetrating into the Snake’s magical underworld realm.

– I have 4 brothers and 2 sisters. My brother Steven, born in 1953, is a poster child Chinese Water Snake. Charming, wily, and full of hidden ambitions, he’s found eventual success against all odds and early failures. We called him boo-boo when he was young….but never underestimate a Snake person. It took him 10 years to graduate from college, but he was just carefully slithering around to survey the territory.

He’s reinvented himself many times, and each time after shedding his old skin, always becomes financially successful. Deeply spiritual, his devotion to Indian guru Meher Baba so antagonized me (as an overly intellectual college student) that I decided to investigate Eastern spirituality more deeply to see why he had gone astray. While reading one of his books, I fell into a mid-afternoon trance. I had a fully lucid vision – I walked the gang plank of a ship, fell into the ocean, and discovered that I could breathe blissfully underwater. A classic Water Snake initiation. 40 years later, we’re still working it out – his inner snake is curious about Taoist inner alchemy…. 🙂

Other Snake Years with “sudden strike” or “shedding skin” traits:

1905: wood snake year: 100,000 Russian soldiers die in 3 days in Russo-Japanese War, changing the course of East-West history.

1917: fire snake year: WW1 turning point battles.

1929: earth snake year with stock market crash, depression.

1941: metal snake year when Pearl Harbour erupted.

1989: wood snake year when Berlin Wall fell, major shedding of skin for Soviet empire. There is a buzz in China every Snake Year since 1989, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square over the bodies of protesting students and workers.

2001: metal snake year with September 11 as surprise strike using metal planes as weapons. There is credible speculation this attack was planned by the Chinese military, using Pakistani intelligence and Moslems to execute their strategy of “murder by borrowed sword”. The Chinese were admitted to the World Trade Organization on Sept. 13, two days later. This may have been a classic snake war tactic – strike when least expected, from hidden vantage point. The message sent to US military intelligence: you’re bigger than us, but we have snake strategies that can defeat you.

2013: water snake year when ??????  ??????   ???????

                  Double spiral Ourobouros, sign of conscious coupling of male and female.

What am I doing to shed my old skin, to manifeset my  “new Snake year resolutions”?

I’m radically re-doing my website. It will be much easier to navigate, more spacious and less overwhelming. I will be introducing a shorter weekly blog (concession to the generation that has been force-fed a sound bite diet, and suffer from ADHD, but still have souls worthy of alchemical cultivation….more videos for them :).

    China Dream Trip 2010 at Temple of Heaven, Beijing. My full scale version will be adapted for retreat use, set in the mountains of North Carolina.

I’m asking the billionaire who owns 200 acres of land next to me to donate it to my non-profit as the seed for a Taoist Temple of Heaven and Earth retreat center. I have sources of funding that may be coming in the next two years in any case. If you want to have a powerful place to meditate in an inter-dimensional portal, please support this request in your meditation.

More importantly, I’m hoping to bite into that same apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, and explore the power of sexuality as divine power of creation. Adam and Eve did not get kicked out of the Garden because they sinned; it says right in the bible that it was because they ate the fruit of self-knowledge. I want to taste that fruit.

We’re planning to invite Emerald, the female child spirit who has been hovering patiently for many years, to co-consciously conceive herself. We asked, but she told us she didn’t want to come in riding a Male Yang Black Water Dragon. Her spirit was hopefully hitching a ride on that emerald dodecahedron crystal bursting out of the earth at Solstice.

Waiting a bit for Emerald is fine with us. It’s more time to get our ancestors and her future guide-immortals into alignment, so Emerald will have a clearer destiny. We’re ASKing for the Change we want to create. It won’t be a surprise if we get a totally telepathic baby Water Snake kicking our parental butts. Or maybe a headstrong Wood Horse the following year. The timing cannot be controlled.

I’m more concerned about having the right guardians show up. I’ve invited Lao Tzu (needs no introduction), Isis (female immortal from sinking Atlantis who migrated to Egypt), and Doumu (Taoist Primordial Star Mother) to watch over her cradle. I know Emerald is my next spiritual teacher….Jem is more focused on whether I’m ready to Change diapers. It’s all about Change…at all levels. 🙂

It seems that planet Earth is also ready to have its diapers changed. It’s made a bit of a mess and has been wallowing in it for some time, crying for Change, and lying there helplessly waiting for SOMEONE to clean up the tail end of the Piscean Age. Will Aquarius clean up its diapers? We can hope so, but the reality is that we have to grow up and change our own diapers.

Snakes often appear in myth, religion, legend, or tales as fantastic beings unlike any possible real snake, often having a mix of snake with other body parts, such as having a human head, or magical shape-shifting abilities.

One famous snake able to transform back and forth between snake and human form was Lady White Snake in the Legend of the White Snake. Other snakes or snakelike beings sometimes include deities, such as Fuxi (creator of I Ching) and Nüwa (first human). Sometimes Fuxi and Nuwa are described as snakes with human heads and sometimes as humans with dragon or serpent tails.

Chinese folklore and zodiac traditions acknowledge snakes as seducers and charmers throughout history, and are held in a mix of fear and admiration by the masses. There is a common (likely male-dominated) perception that Wu Zetian, the only female empress in Chinese history, thrust herself into power using serpent qualities. The parallels between the story of Lady White Snake and Wu Zetian are easy to draw.

                             Legend of Lady White Snake

source: Wikipedia (edited by me)

Madame White Snake was a Chinese oral legend long before it was re-popularized in Chinese operas, films and TV series. The earliest fiction story was in the Ming Dynasty (600 years ago), titled The White Maiden Locked for Eternity in the Leifeng Pagoda.

Lu Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals and the patron of internal alchemy, disguises himself as a man selling riceballs at the Broken Bridge near West Lake in Hangzhou. A boy Xu Xian buys some, not knowing they are actually immortal pills. He does not feel hungry for the next three days and is so puzzled that he goes back to ask the seller. Lü Dongbin laughs and carries Xu Xian to the bridge and flips him upside down, causing Xu to vomit out the pills into the lake.

There is a white snake spirit in the lake, who was practising Taoist magical arts in the hope of becoming an immortal after centuries of training and cultivation. The white snake eats the pills vomited out by Xu Xian and she gains 500 years worth of magic powers. The white snake is grateful to Xu Xian and their fates became intertwined.

A tortoise spirit also training inside the lake becomes very jealous of the white snake. One day, white snake sees a beggar on the bridge with a green snake who wants to dig out the snake’s gall and sell it. The white snake transforms into a woman and buys the green snake from the beggar, saving the green snake’s life. The green snake is grateful to the white snake and she regards the white snake as an older sister.

18 years later, the white and green snakes transform themselves into two young women, called Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing. They travel to Hangzhou and meet Xu Xian at the Broken Bridge. Xu lends them his umbrella because it is raining. Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen gradually fall in love with each other and are eventually married. They open a medicine shop there.

Meantime, the tortoise spirit has accumulated enough powers to take human form, and he transforms into a Buddhist monk called Fahai. Fahai is still angry with Bai Suzhen and he plots to break up her relationship with Xu Xian. He approaches Xu Xian and tells Xu to let his wife drink realgar wine. Bai Suzhen unsuspectingly reveals her true form as a large white snake after drinking the wine and Xu Xian dies of shock after seeing that his wife is not human. Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing travel to Mount Emei, where they brave danger to steal a magical herb that restores Xu Xian to life.

After coming back to life, Xu Xian still maintains his love for Bai Suzhen despite knowing her true identity. Fahai tries to separate them again so he captures Xu Xian and imprisons him in Jinshan Temple. Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing fight with Fahai to rescue Xu Xian, and Bai uses her powers to flood the temple, drowning many innocent people in the process as well. However, Bai Suzhen’s powers are limited because she is already pregnant with Xu Xian’s child so she fails to save her husband. Xu Xian later manages to escape from Jinshan Temple and he reunites with his wife in Hangzhou, where Bai Suzhen gives birth to their son, Xu Mengjiao. Fahai soon tracks them down and he defeats Bai Suzhen and imprisons her in Leifeng Pagoda.

20 years later, Xu Mengjiao tops the imperial examination and returns home in glory to visit his parents. At the same time,  Xiaoqing, who escaped when Bai Suzhen was captured by Fahai, goes to Jinshan Temple to confront Fahai and succeeds in defeating him. Bai Suzhen is freed from Leifeng Pagoda and reunites with her husband and son, while Fahai flees and hides inside the stomach of a crab.

There is a saying that a crab’s internal fat is orange because it resembles the colour of Fahai’s buddhist robe. This is a subtle dig at Buddhism by the more powerful Taoist magical powers, embodied in the snake ladies.

                       
I like snakes. I love handling their sensuous skin, love wrestling with their powerful coiling energy. I have a snake in my hour pillar of my Chinese chart, so it may bias me. I feel if folks knew more about snakes, they wouldn’t be so afraid. They rarely attack anyone unless provoked or injured. I used to catch rattlesnakes in the Grand Canyon (if they were in my camp). We’d grab them behind the head and toss them into the river. They would swim with their heads almost a foot up in the air above the water.

I found out a lot of fascinating info about snakes which I think is useful for reducing fear of them. I extracted much of this from: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories

1. Snakes’ paired organs, like kidneys, are front-and-back rather than side-by-side. The heart is adjustable, allowing it to move around in the absence of a diaphragm. This protects it from getting squished when large one-piece meals are ingested and squeezed tightly through the body-long esophagus. Pythons have been known to eat crocodiles. In a recent Florida case, the snake’s belly burst open after eating only half a crocodile.

If you ate a whole sheep, your belly would feel bloated, and some organs squished.

2. Snakes sniff with their tongues and are deaf.
Snakes are known to hiss and flicker their forked tongue about. Hebrew for snake, nahash, means ‘the whisperer”. Why all the drama? Snakes smell by using their split tongue to collect airborne particles and then pass them to olfactory organs in the mouth. The two parts of the tongue gives the creatures a somewhat directional sense of smell and taste. By keeping their tongues constantly flicking about, they are able to sample chemicals in the air, ground and water and use them to determine the presence of prey or predators nearby.

3. Snakes are sensitive
Snakes have acute vibration sensitivity.They have no ears, are totally deaf, and rely on vibration only. The slithering part of the belly can detect even the faintest vibrations in the air and on the ground, allowing the reptile to sense the approach of other animals. Meanwhile, pit vipers, pythons and some boas have infrared-sensitive receptors in grooves along their snouts, which enable them to sense the radiated heat of any nearby warm-blooded animals.

4. They eat what they can fit
Snakes are exclusively carnivorous, eating everything from small lizards, other snakes, small mammals, birds, eggs, fish, snails or insects all the way up to larger mammals like jaguars and deer. Because snakes eat their prey in one big gulp, the size of the snake determines the size of the animal it can consume. A younger python may start with lizards or mice, moving up to small deer and antelopes as the snake increases in age and size. Snakes have more than 200 teeth, which they do not use to chew, since they point backwards, but bite and grip their prey securely. Snakes do not chew their food and have a very flexible lower jaw allowing them to open their mouths wide enough to swallow their prey whole, even if it is larger in diameter than the snake itself.

                                                   Python swallowing a deer whole.

5. They range from 4 inches to 30 feet
Most snakes are relatively small creatures, about 3 feet in length. Although extinct Titanoboa cerrejonensis snakes were almost 40 to 50 feet in length; the longest snake now, the reticulated python, measures 30 feet. At the other end of the ruler, the smallest snake is cutie-pie Leptotyphlops carlae, a wee 4 inches long.

6. The heaviest snakes can reach 550 pounds
South America’s green anaconda can grow to more than 29 feet in length and reach a weight of 550 pounds! But they only live 30 years, as far as we know.

                                                        Green anaconda in Souith America.

7. Snakes can Fly!

There are five species of venomous, tree-dwelling snakes that can fly. Found in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, they’re technically more gliders than fliers since they use the speed of free fall and the contortions of their bodies to catch air and create lift. Experts note that flying snakes soar with even more agility than their mammalian counterparts, flying squirrels.
It gets its snaky self to the end of a branch and hangs in the shape of a J, before propelling itself from the branch with the lower half of its body. It then contorts into an S form and flattens its body to twice its normal width, creating a concavity that traps air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns

8. How do Snakes move?

Snakes move by relaxing and contracting muscles lengthwise along the body. Sidewinding is a specialized form of motion that allows a snake to travel with speed and relatively little expenditure of energy along loose desert sand. The snake lifts a loop of its body from the surface, using its head and tail. The loop is moved sideways and then back to the ground. This creates the typical series of unconnected parallel tracks.

Serpent art by Joan Pancoe (talented psychic-astrologer in NYC)

Two of the most famous Water Snake people were Chairman Mao Tse-tung, who helped China shed its skin, and Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, an explosive strike force. One of my readers in the UK, Brian Lowry (martha1950@hotmail.com) sent me his SnakeYear description of some other famous snake people, which I will share here (abbreviated):

Snakes often seem quiet and deep in thought or daydream.  Water snakes go deeper even more so as water is the element of withdrawing inwards. They say Lincoln had the ‘deeps’ and he was a snake. This tends to generate an aura of mystery, a definitive fascination about them.  They make the best of themselves and like good quality clothes, books, art, food, music, wine.  They are very cultured. 

Picasso and James Joyce were snakes. It is regarded as a compliment in Japan to be called a snake. They also have a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge. They think things through for a long time before making a decision, and because of their wisdom, self control and security, they make great negotiators and leaders of a team. The paired snake Caduceus was once an ancient symbol of negotiation as well as healing. 

Snakes are interested in people, especially if they can learn something new, and you can become their next best friend, as they find out everything about you, yet are quite secretive about their own affairs. Snakes have charisma but would never flirt around much.  If the opportunity arose, then yes, they might seduce you, if that’s what they wanted to do.  With charm and good looks, the snake has no need to impress. They would hate to be thought of as a flamboyant or ostentatious person — just wish to be viewed in a favourable light.  

Bin Laden and George Bush were both born on metal snake days…in Chinese astrology there is no such thing as coincidence.

Every sign has its karmic ups and downs and sometimes the deeps can get bad too.  If you should be foolish enough to cross them, the snake would never ever get mad or lose their temper in front of you but someday, one day, they do get even.  Some things are never forgotten nor forgiven.

Also water snakes can sometimes take contemplation to extremes and spend whole days in their heads. They are not so good at taking or asking for advice. The advice for them always has to come from inside. Darwin was a classic snake waiting years and years before releasing the Origin of Species because he knew it was a controversial time bomb of transformation and renewal.

Snake has a strange, sneaky energy that creeps right down deep into the subconscious.  So what you can end up with is a transformation, a healing.  We can see the root cause of our habits and behaviour.  We can see the reasons for things.

The sudden shock factor shows up frequently. Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King were all snakes, and all died of firepower. Stalin died of a massive heart attack in the last water snake year of ’53 causing a new beginning in Russia. 

The snake’s inner fire can make things edgy health-wise and we should be paying attention to anything to do with preventing heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes. Because of the water element we need to look after kidneys, bladder and anything to do with reproductive organs. 1953 had a very bad ‘flu pandemic.