the reptile in me sees the reptile in you

Hello there,

The title, of course, is a play on the meaning of "Namaste" - "the god in me sees the god in you."

Seeing the god in each other is all very lovely, but often us humans in our on-going tendencies towards denial like to act as if the reptile in us somehow isn't part of god.

Oh, but it is.

The beady-eyed predatory serpent concerned only with selfish survival, willing even to eat its own offspring if need be, is soooo much a part of the divine.

So much, indeed, that the caduceus, the Staff of Hermes, that great symbol of healing and magic, features reptiles rather prominently:

I've been meditating on the caduceus a lot lately - it represents something dear to my heart, and something that I've found to be the key to magic and joy in life: the unification of (seemingly) polar opposites.

Something that I find fascinating about the caduceus is that from its dance of entwining serpents, eventually wings emerge.

We know, of course, that birds evolved from reptiles. So the image suggests an evolutionary process, as does the fact that the dancing snakes look like a DNA helix.

I like to say "the reptile in me sees the reptile in you" because I think it's all-too-easy to get so excited about our evolutionary destination (wings! god! spirit!)...

... that we try to "skip over" the first key part of the process: embracing our incarnation as predators and honoring our reptilian ancestors.

So if no one has yet given approval to your cold-blooded power hunger today, remember you have it in heaps from me.

love and villainy,

Carolyn Elliott