Body, snake, bird
Holding close, what I gathered in the cave
Dearest Readers,
It has been ages since I last wrote to you. I hope that you are all finding your way into the new year as best you can. It hasn’t felt easy for me. I have felt myself tugging gently at the corners of January, asking it to hold on a moment, to wait, to slow down. I’m not quite ready. I need a bit more time. But time moves the way it does, forward.
I wish I could crawl into the womb of the earth and rest in her temperate darkness. I would stay there for a while, not quite ready to emerge, or put pen to paper, or etch into the dark. Not hiding, but pausing.
I have wanted to stay in the formless, in the smudgy, in the indistinct. I have needed to be there, inside the cave, within my senses, shifting from an outside-in kind of knowing to an inside-out one.
Something really big in me loosened with the turn of this year. It has been the dissipation of internal pressure and internal productivity. It is the not-so-subtle I have to that, without much effort, has slipped away and turned into indistinct background chatter. I am slowly making room for I want to. It might seem like a small thing, but it is a big thing for me. Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long to write you. I have given my body permission to pause and I have patiently waited for when the time felt right to press play again.
Giving way from I have to to I want to.
Today, I want to draw, I want to look into the dark, I want to feel the charcoal between my fingertips. Today, I want to write to you. I want to slip into the unconscious flow of image and words and dip in and out of sensemaking. Today, I want to give myself to this - to this paper, this image, these words, and your attention. It feels less like drive and more like devotion.
Let’s enter the image.
From the dark page, the cave takes shape. The body starts to find its form. At first, the eyes, so clearly open and looking. Then the nose, the mouth, the jaw line, the shape of the head, the ear. An intense gaze. I am drawn in. I wonder who you are. You seem to know the cave well, perhaps it is your home.
In the mouth of the cave, you appear, kneeling on the ground. A puff adder slithers down your arm, your ribs, your thigh. Gently, you hold it to your body as if it were part of you, another arm. Its body is thick and patterned, a snake I have come to know so well. Something is tucked under your arm. You hold something carefully to your chest. Yes, I see it now, a soft-bodied duck, round body, round bill.
You hold these two close to you. You feel them on your skin. You keep them close, these animal instincts. Are you praying? Are you listening?
It is from the cave that you fetched these two things. The duck. The snake. And you brought them here, to its mouth. Perhaps I need them too, this snake and this bird and this body that stays close to the instinctual life. A body that holds feathers and scales equally near.
Puff adders use camouflage to wait patiently for their prey. They can wait for hours, days, and even weeks. When they strike, they are incredibly quick and exacting. They shed their skin a few times a year, and when they do, they enter an “in blue” phase where their eyes turn milky, and they turn nearly blind for about a week. This is a time when they are most vulnerable and most aggressive. They transform and grow through this vulnerability, pain, and clouded vision. They find their way through, though disoriented at first.
Ducks are at home in water and in sky, able to traverse different elements and terrains. Their water-repellent feathers help to keep them buoyant. They swim and float and dive, catching fish and water critters to feed on. It’s like water off a duck’s back. Perhaps a practice of surrender, letting go, not taking things too personally. Perhaps, too, an inability sometimes to fully take this in, a defense against injury or conflict. The duck is soft and round, a companion to the flock and an intermediary of the elemental.
Perhaps this year I can wait with the puff adder. Patiently pausing until the moment is right to take action. Perhaps there will be room to grow, to transform, to shed. This may come with pain. Perhaps I can swim, fly, and waddle with the duck, finding my way in the flock, letting go, surrendering.
What are you gathering from your cave? What animal allies do you need as you turn to face the new year?
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, feelings, dreams, and impressions :) Please also give this post a share, a like, or a restack. It goes a long way!
Beautiful reflection on transformation. The detail abut the puff adder's 'in blue' phase captures something profound about creative work. That period of clouded vision and vulnerability before new growth isnt just discomfort but the actual mechanisim of change. I've felt that milky-eyed state in my own creative cycles where everything gets blurry and defensive right before someting shifts.
Thank you for attending to the 'wants'! In the last days I notices interesting shapes forming in my Yoga mat, with my sweat. So I took some inspirations from your practice and translated those shapes to paper- to see what is willing to take form. I am happy and surprised that your practice is starting to sprout in my Yoga mat now :)