The Power and Presence of The Serpent

Following some interesting interactions this past week, I feel the need to speak about the significance, relevance, and symbolism of the Serpent.

For many, across religions and deep in the collective psyche, she is a much maligned and misunderstood creature.

But for me, the Serpent is a She, and I speak of her as such.

She is a powerful symbol, raw, primal, deliberate.

She is also a fierce living force, piercing in her precision, unflinching in her truth.

Yet she carries a soft, well‑protected underbelly: the place where vulnerability and power meet, the place most people fear in themselves,

I used to.

In a patriarchal society, she is threatening.

Her calculatedness is demonised, while in men it is praised.

The Serpent is one of humanity’s oldest symbols.

She appears in the archaeological, mythic, and ritual record as far back as 4000–3500 BCE. Across Africa and Egypt she emerges as creator, guardian, destroyer, healer, and cosmic force.

In Christianity she is cast as the tempter of Eve, the feminine force patriarchy tried to subdue, vilify, cauterise.

And yet she persists.

For a very long time, I was afraid of my own darkness, until I realised that is where my potency is seated. Only when I turned toward it, instead of away, did I truly begin to find myself.

The darkness, like the Serpent, is feared, rejected, cast as evil.

But the truth is this: it is only the split‑off parts of ourselves, the ones we exile, deny, or demonise, that have the most power to wreak havoc in our lives.

We project them outward onto other people, symbols, “forces,” and they terrify us

…until we make contact with them,

...until we make friends with them.

Does that mean I believe there are no truly demonic forces in this world or beyond the veil?

No.

I am not naïve.

And I have met some of them.

But when you have met your own demons, up close, without flinching, you become impervious to those that are not yours. Because then you inhabit yourself fully.

In other words, you hold sovereign dominion over your own being, in its totality.

Nothing external can claim what you have already reclaimed within.

So why am I telling you this?

Because two recent interactions have brought challenge to my door.

They have asked of me:

Am I going to dilute my work?

Make it softer, more comfortable?

Hide the Serpent energy carried through my work?

Or am I going to own it fully?

I wouldn’t be writing these words were the answer not the latter.

She has been with me through every iteration of my work and my own evolution.

It is probably true to say we first met in Ghana nearly 30 years ago, when I encountered the Uroborus and stitched her into a headscarf I had made, and she has been with me ever since.

She is the Wheel I am building now.

Every step is in alignment with her.

She teaches me through every person she brings to me, whether they engage with the work or not.

Some people are drawn to me and don’t know why.

Something in them recognises a register, a frequency their system aligns to...

or wants to align to.

But the first challenge is always the same: the confrontation with the Serpent, with their own darkness, their own potency, their own split‑off power.

Some step forward.

Some step back.

Some run.

And last weekend, the Serpent brought me two encounters in two days that revealed this pattern of the last two with perfect clarity.

The First Encounter - the Woman

As I sat in a local cafe, I felt her, I didn't notice her glance over, she was not intrusive, just a soft, steady awareness.

And I felt it.

A quiet pull in the chest that says: pay attention.

I have learned to listen.

And obey.

I don’t feel that with everyone.

I don’t hand my card to just anyone.

Only when something in me rises and says yes, them.

So before she left, I approached her.

We spoke easily.

She said she had really wanted to talk to me, she was curious about me and what I do.

She asked about my work.

I told her what it addresses, how it brings you into alignment, how it clears the channel to your core self.

And she said:

"OMG, it's like you're in my head!"

She explained she had just been sitting there, browsing online - looking for retreats and immersive experiences.

She asked if my work was talking therapy.

I said firmly, no, it is somatic work.

She nodded like she understood.

I explained the work of the Serpent Wheel.

She took my number.

She talked a bit about her background, from Zimbabwe.

We spoke a bit about our shared heritage and life in the UK.

Later, I sent her the Serpent Ceremony details.

She asked one question:

“Does Serpent mean snake?” 

I said yes and gave her some context.

The next day, I saw her again, in fact twice, in one day.

This time, she rushed past me.

The second time, she turned sharply to avoid me.

I felt the recoil immediately, the tightening, I sensed the Christian based theological fear, even though she'd said nothing about her faith, I knew.

So I didn’t take it personally.

Well, in that first moment I did...I am not going to lie.

But very quickly, I knew it was not 'me' she was reacting to.

The next day, the messages from her began.

“I am really interested but I don't want to compromise my Christhood.”

I told her I understood, I was baptised myself some years ago; I know the weight of that internal conflict.

Then she asked if it was free?

(Interesting)

I explained how I work and the exchange involved.

She said "I don't have the money, to spend on this"

(Interesting)

Then:

“Is anything you practice unholy and against God?”

I explained my work is sacred, rooted in earth‑based medicine, held with dignity and reverence, in line with my own relationship with divinity.

Then she asked for a “trial”

"before giving money to something"

I explained that’s not how this works and pointed her back to my website.

And that was the end of it.

You either do the work, or you don't.

No trials, no short cuts.

The Second Encounter - the Man

The very next day, again in the same café, a man approached me.

He walked straight up to me and said he had to speak to the Goddess he saw in front of him.

I didn’t flinch. People project all kinds of language onto what they feel when they meet me.

I’ve learned to let them speak in the tongue their nervous system reaches for.

We had a warm exchange.

Open.

He was cute.

I asked where he was from. Ghana origins, lived in the States for years.

We spoke about Ghana.

We spoke about Africa, the differences in the countries, about our shared heritage.

It was a warm exchange.

He was also at least fifteen years younger than me.

He put his number in my phone.

Said he’d be in touch.

Sent me a text directly to say it was really nice to meet me, I replied, the same.

Then,

nothing.

After two days of silence, I felt the truth of it: he’d been drawn to something in me he couldn’t name, and when the charge settled, he didn’t know how to hold it.

So I sent him my work.

I told him gently that what he felt might not have been about me as a woman at all, but about the current I carry.

Silence.

And that was that.

What These Encounters Reveal

I am sure there could be many ways to interpret these encounters.

But, what is clear is that both of them felt the pull before they understood it.

Both stepped toward me.

Both recoiled for different reasons.

Both touched the edge of the Serpent and then backed away.

One because of religious conditioning.

One because of erotic confusion.

Both because the Serpent is a mirror, and not everyone is ready to see what she reflects.

Fortunately, I am wisened.

And as I consciously carry this medicine now,

I know not to take the recoil personally.

It is not about me.

It is about what wakes in them when they meet the Serpent

and whether they can bear it.

And I want to say this clearly:

There are those who can meet her.

Those who do not recoil.

Those who feel the fear rise and still step closer.

Those whose resonance is stronger than their conditioning.

Those who recognise something ancient both in her, and in themselves and they choose to trust that pull rather than run from it.

The Serpent does not chase.

She does not convince.

She simply reveals.

And people choose whether they can meet her.