First Person > Oracle 20/20 Magazine

Power of Life
by Lynn “Phoenix” Marks

“Get out. Get out. Get out now.”
That’s my inner voice speaking to me.
This same guidance has been nudging me to come to the beach since Friday. I’ve been procrastinating or is it resisting. It’s Sunday, late afternoon, and I’m finally here. The lukewarm waves are amazingly gentle today as they caress my body. I intend to walk out as far as I can stand and just bathe in these healing waters of the Atlantic. More than a fun day at the beach, I know that I’m here for a spiritual cleansing.
With each step I feel God’s radiant light penetrate each cell and atom of my being and release all that is not of my highest good under grace now. With each wave, all that is not of my highest good is washed away from my being and returned to the nothingness from where it came, the divine ocean of the Universe, to be transmuted under grace.
This is my prayer. This is my vision.
“Get out. Get out. Get out now.” Just minutes in the water and now I’m being guided to turn back, to get out of the water. I look out to a distant wave and wonder if sharks are near by. I quickly catch, cancel and clear these thoughts. I stop questioning and surmising and start following the inner guidance. As I approach the shore slowly, something hard rolls over my right foot. I stop immediately and pick up the reddish stone. Out in the sunshine it looks more white than red and the stone is really a shell. Barnacles cover its worn scalloped exterior. Inside the hard white lining is the fossilized remains a snake no more than an inch and a half long. As if frozen in time, its raised serpentine body, from its head to its tail, is perfectly preserved.
Spiritual lessons come in many ways, through many teachers and keep coming until we get the lesson. In Messages from God it says: “See the symbolic messages of your life, not the literal illusions.”
Perhaps my gasp when I turned over the shell isn’t so much from seeing this snake, but recalling my experience with an uninvited snake in my bedroom just four weeks before. Only that snake was very much alive, and some 10 times larger. This is the third time I’ve experienced this snake symbolism in the past year. The synchronicity isn’t lost on me.
I ask God what I am experiencing. “Growth” is the reply.
I’m both amazed and perplexed as I reflect on the week leading up to this moment. As I walk the beach I recall how life feels like it’s slowed down to a crawl and I haven’t been very comfortable in my own skin, in my own life.
For weeks I joyfully moved forward experiencing one synchronicity after another. And, then one day a week ago it took all my concentration to stay focused, calm and present. My body, mind and spirit seemed constricted as if they were tied up in one huge knot. I felt physically dizzy, every joint ached and my vision was blurry. Then one day a sty appeared in the middle of my upper right eye-lid. Then it went away as quickly as it came without any physical treatment and the next day another appeared in the same place on my left eye-lid. As the week continued, I felt mentally confused, emotionally agitated and despondent, and spiritually lost. And, the worst part was I didn’t even know what was causing this manifestation.
And, yet on another level, I knew the source, because everything we experience in our outer world has been initiated by us - our thoughts, words, choices and feelings. So although I didn’t know the literal cause I was conscious of the need to release whatever was depleting my energy. In fact, my meditation prayer and release vision at the beach has been my prayer this past week.
It is often at times like this, when our world seems to be turned upside-down or inside-out or doesn’t make much sense that we need to remember that things are rarely what they appear to be. Intuitively I know that this latest snake experience holds the key to understanding what I haven’t been able to see.
“And the day came that the risk it took to remain a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin
As I walk along the shore I see many shells and rocks and yet none seem to call out to me today. Then on the way back another reddish shell gifts itself to me. Its coral-colored, scalloped top shell is beginning to erode and is doted with numerous pin holes. I turn it over and inside I’m amazed to see the same type of snake fossil, less than half the size of the other.
Spiritual lessons often come in two’s. It’s the divine’s sign for confirmation. The question is: “confirmation of what?” I’m told that I’m in the right place, doing the right things, and I will be told.
I’ve always had an aversion to snakes. A year ago when I came face to face with a snake we were about a foot apart with only my bedroom window between us. This 15 foot black snake brought me the message of spiritual will - the power to act from faith rather than fear. For it is only when we face the unknown, unexpected and uncomfortable from the knowingness that everything is happening for our good (rather than happening to us) that we can truly access the divine; make choices that lead to true peace, harmony and prosperity; and rise to a higher level.
For being of more than average intelligence, there are more times than I like to admit to that I seem to be a slow learner. This seems to be a reoccurring lesson. And, yet intuitively I know that facing this latest snake totem, is my crisis of meaning. To get its lesson is to free my spirit and fly again. I am filled with both peace and curiosity.
As I continue to walk the coast-line, my eyes are drawn to a piece of coral. I pick it up and it’s a perfectly shaped heart. Instantly I know this is the divine reaching out to reassure me that I correctly heard the message. “You are exactly in the right place, doing the right thing. All is well. Be at peace.”

For many of us when we first think of the symbolic meaning of a snake, it reminds us of The Bible, and the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis. From a traditional Judaic-Christian view, the snake represents temptation, evil, poison; the snake is the servant of Satan.
Although in most cultures and times the snake has had a more positive significance. It is revered for its amazing powers of survival as a sacred symbol of eternal life: birth-growth-maturation-decay-death-rebirth, and the cycle repeats. It is often represented in a circle, biting its own tail. Snake was a symbol of the life process, the cycles of a never-ending spiral of life and death and life. For the snake was a symbol of life, wisdom and healing: shedding its skin, immortality, rebirth.
And, in this awareness is the connection between the snake in the shell, the unexpected “pain” that I’ve been experiencing and the growth that God promises. This fossilized snake is in fact the remnants of what the snake left behind, it’s skin.
As Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth said, “The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow to be born again.”
A snake sheds its skin when its inside becomes bigger than its skin outside, which doesn’t grow but only stretches to the point of having to be shed. This is a process that continues throughout its lifetime. The shedding releases the old dull, scarred and torn self, so that the new, larger, shiny self can come forward.
Like the phases of the moon, there are four phases through this transformation. See if you recognize any of them, figuratively speaking of course.
First, before the old skin is shed, there is a period of time when the snake is almost completely blind. A blue film forms over its eyes. During this transition time between worlds the snake is more vulnerable and defensive, agitated, strikes out and cannot eat.
When the blue film goes away the snake still has not shed. Be the snake and feel what it may feel. Perhaps this whole process is a false alarm; I must have misunderstood something; maybe I’m just sick or crazy!
Then the magic happens and the shell of the old skin (self) starts to come off. Sometimes the snake just wriggles out of it easily and quickly. Sometimes it takes more effort, even requires soaking in water to loosen where the old skin is so tightly attached it resists all efforts to release (i.e., whirlpools and baths, exercise and vacations). And, sometimes the snake has to rub repeatedly over rough rocks to scrape off the torn piece (perhaps massage, other body work, counseling or therapy).
Eventually the shedding is complete. The snake, no longer blind or feeling stress, is ravenously hungry and extremely active. The new skin comes in all shiny and beautiful making the snake feel soft and smooth.
If we could be as wise as a snake. It doesn’t carry around the old skin as a reminder or a personal cross to bear of its hard times and previous existence. It leaves that old skin, that old self right where it came off. No remorse. No longing. No looking back. It just goes forward.
In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews says: “Anytime a snake shows up as a totem, you can expect death and rebirth to occur in some area of your life.”
You don’t have to have a snake literally show up in your life or even come as a token, like the shells I received at the beach, to recognize the energy of snake in your life. Each time you feel overwhelming stress, agitated, vulnerable and can’t seem to see things clearly, know it’s the power of life awakening your consciousness to rise to your next highest good. Like the Hindu concept of Kundalini, or serpent fire, the energy rises from the base of the spine igniting emotional, mental, and spiritual energy centers (chakras) as you mature emotionally and spiritually. Remember the wisdom lessons of the animal guide snake.
In the midst of your stress, stay centered in faith. Ask your higher self “What must I shed in my current condition to be reborn to fulfill my soul’s destiny?” Said another way, “What beliefs and habits have I outgrown.”
Catherine Ponder in Open Your Mind to Receive writes of the essential need to decide to let go that which has completed its course in our life: “Many of our human ills are caused by our unwise binding of people and things to us, or our letting people and things unwisely bind us to them.” She goes on to remind us of the ultimate benefit of releasing that or who impedes our growth. “As soon as we do so, nothing can take from us that which still belongs to us by divine right.”
Surely Bob Dylan got it right when he said, “Artist have to understand they are always in a state of becoming” for we are all artists of our own life. And, as you continue to grow from the inside out - to shed the old self, ways, habits, life - you will more fully express and realize you.
© 2005 Lynn “Phoenix” Marks

Lynn “Phoenix” Marks, is an intuitive coach who writes and speaks on understanding the messages of life to realize our full potential. She will be at Phoenix and Dragon on November 18 at 7 – 9 PM for a free talk and signing of her latest book, Messages from God®. Spiritdiva@bellsouth.net or www.messagesfromgod.com