The Snake and the Ancestors

Connecting with our stories of origin

Symbols of the Ancestors abound in the stories of the Jews, or whose tribal name is Ivrim (Boundary Crossers). In the Jewish culture, for example, the culture of the Ivrim, or the Hebrews, the snake is a sacred and primordial Ancestor who plays an integral role in the story of our origins. The snake lives at the center of the cycles of time and sits at the root of our sacred tree.

“It is the snake itself, coiled in a circle, encompassing all of the winds and their attributes, connecting all of our life cycles and life changes . . . . The snake is the circle, the cycle, the stream that flows through our very being and through each of our stories as they unfold through the choices we make and the actions we take.” (Winkler, 1999)

The snake in many cultures represents feminine energy and sexuality and since ancient times has been a symbol of life. The snake resembles three life-affirming images: the meander of the river, the roots of trees, and the umbilical cord between child and mother. In Genesis of the Old Testament, the ancestral river is not only the river that gives drink for the garden and separates into four life affirming headwaters: the Mouth of Transformation (Peeshon), Belly Flow (Geechon), Simple Unity (Chee-dekel), and Multiplicity (Parass) (Genesis 2:13), but it is symbolic of the map that we create with the footsteps of our life and the lives of our ascendants.

The roots of ancestral trees are the roots of the sacred trees. For the Ivrim (the Hebrews), these trees are the olive, the acacia, the myrtle, the willow, the elm, the carob, the cedar, and the pomegranate. These also are the roots that lead us back to ourselves, our land, our nourishment, our people.

The umbilical cord represents the genealogy that ties us to a people, a land, and a culture, as well as that which ties us lifetime after lifetime to life herself. This is the journey of remembering our indigenous mind. Healing happens by bringing together the sacred hoop of humanity that is held in the Four Directions, the Four Rivers, the Four Winds that blow us together and create the sacred spiral that is the human experience. (Zohar 1:130B)

>>more