Awakening the Ancient Power of Snake: Transformation, Healing, and Enlightenment

by Dawn Baumann Brunke

Overview

A look at the mythic, archetypal, and transformational aspects of Snake

• Explores how and why Snake was transformed from esteemed advisor and guardian of ancient wisdom to a symbol of deception and evil

• Examines Snake’s healing powers, its role in awakening kundalini, and its connections to dreams, shamanism, alchemy, and the Goddess

• Shares transformational stories and practical ways that Snake can help us travel through the imaginal realm, gather treasure from the psyche, and shed outgrown aspects of self

Entwined with human consciousness since prehistoric times, Snake has always been associated with transformation—from the shedding of its skin to the rising of kundalini energy. In ancient times, Snake served as protector and advisor to gods, goddesses, and royalty. But with the story of Adam and Eve, Snake became the enemy—a tempter and deceiver. How did this happen and why do humans continue to fear and vilify Snake? Inspired by a vivid dream of an immense snake that lost its tail, animal communicator Dawn Baumann Brunke investigates the interwoven history of Snake and humanity and explores how we can once again access Snake’s wisdom and harness its powerful ability to heal, transform, and awaken.

Uncovering ties between Snake and Goddess, the author demonstrates how both were systematically suppressed millennia ago with the spread of a patriarchal perspective that valued mastery over nature, God over Goddess. Brunke reveals how myths that originally extolled the virtues of Snake and Goddess were refashioned, recreating their images as debased and untrustworthy. She explores why snakes show up in shamanic journeys and transformational dreams and how their unique presence in our world can serve as catalysts of change, truth-telling, and enlightenment.

Examining Snake’s role in awakening human consciousness, Brunke considers the alchemical role of the serpent as well as Snake’s connections to ancient healing, modern medicine, and even the DNA molecule. She shares psycho-activating stories to help trigger transformation and provide graceful movement through the chaos of change. And she offers practical techniques to journey with Snake through inner worlds, to shed confining aspects of self, and to integrate experiences more holistically.

Brunke shows how we need to re-embrace the ancient power of Snake to better support our return to a more balanced consciousness—one that reunites nature with spirit, sacred masculine with sacred feminine—as we strive for global change and personal awakening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591433606
Publisher:	Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	676,663
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dawn Baumann Brunke is a writer and editor who specializes in the areas of healing, dreaming, spirituality, animal communication, and deepening our connection with all life. The author of Animal Voices: Telepathic Communication in the Web of Life, Shapeshifting with Our Animal Companions, and Animal Voices, Animal Guides, she lives with her husband, daughter, and animal friends in Alaska.

Visit her web site at www.animalvoices.net.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction

This book is a dream-inspired look at Snake — from the secrets and surprises of its biology to the many varied ways that humans interact with this profoundly amazing and most mysterious of creatures. We will explore not only Snake’s physical presence on earth but also its larger mythic story and the ways it continues to influence human consciousness today.

In order to understand Snake, it is helpful to become a bit snakelike — adaptable, curious, with eyes wide open. Whether traveling through remote jungles of the mythic past, burrowing into the subconscious, or exploring the dreamworld, an ability to discern pattern and engage insights from a variety of disciplines is useful.

Throughout my journey, I rarely knew where Snake’s path would lead. Following it was a twisty, curvy, one-thing-leading-to-another adventure. Yet time and again, I found something remarkable. From its role in the Garden of Eden and that first bite of forbidden knowledge to the power of kundalini rumbling up and down our spine, Spirit of Snake speaks to human awakening and spiritual evolution.

Like its sister totem Dragon, Snake guards a treasure both powerful and dangerous. Still and silent, Snake energy may remain dormant in our most secret spaces or manifest in frightful ways to keep us distant — until we are ready to awaken. Snake protects a knowledge best not accessed until we are emotionally, consciously, and spiritually mature.

I believe there is very good reason why Snake frightens so many. Snake’s story is much larger, more involved and interconnected to our own than most of us would ever imagine. To face Snake means facing a shadow part of ourselves that we have long denied. Is it no wonder that Snake engenders such strong reactions from humans?

Ordinary as a green grass snake yet extraordinary too, Snake may surprise us with its many guises. Mythic earth mother, master healer, companion to the Goddess, awakener of deepened consciousness, Snake appears in the collective dream when change is most desperately needed.

The questions are many. Why Snake? What did the ancients know that we have forgotten? How and why did Snake’s story become so misconstrued? What does it mean to put Snake back together again? By following its tale, what will we discover about Snake, and about ourselves?

From Chapter 11: Snake’s Dream

“Why snakes?” people ask. Why would you want to write such a book?

We often have a hard time relating to animals or humans that are different than ourselves.

We distance ourselves from “scary” animals, projecting they are slow-witted, unfeeling, malicious, or even malevolent. Such animals may experience the world in very different ways than we do. Perhaps they have sensing mechanisms we are unfamiliar with — a forked tongue, an ever-present gaze, an intimate connection with the earth, the means to burrow, swim, climb, slither along the earth and glide through the air, all without limbs.

Snake’s history with humans has been a perplexing series of ups and downs: rises to reverence and falls to demonization. Through it all, Snake remains true to itself, constantly learning and evolving, a true master of transformation.

I have come to appreciate that part of the way Snake speaks to us is through mystery and paradox — through its presence, for example, in so many different disciplines, often revealing itself in conflicting, inconsistent, and contradictory ways. Snake cannot be holed away into one small cubbyhole of thought.

This is part of the great value of learning from an animal such as Snake. Snake pushes us to move beyond our comfort zones and neatly-ordered categories, to experience life in larger, wider and deeper ways.

While I asked myself several times, Why snake?, I was inspired by the many people who so generously shared their intriguing, powerful, and transformational encounters with snakes. I was also heartened to learn how talking about the book and sharing my experiences shifted the minds of many who were at first appalled.

Snake’s story is deeply interwoven with our own, and continues to influence us today. From its incarnation as the great cosmic serpent and its ubiquitous role in mythology to its value in modern medicine and vital role in our ecology, from its inspired guidance in dreams and transformational experiences to its connection with healing, kundalini, and the life-giving molecule of life, Snake is ever present in our world. Winding its way through human history, Snake both charms and frightens, encouraging us to release that which restricts in order to awaken anew.

I think everything the ancients and alchemists knew about Snake is true and needed now — today, more than ever. Snake’s wisdom is vital to us during this time of planetary upheaval and profound paradigm shifts. As noted in the Introduction, “Snake appears in the collective dream when change is most desperately needed.” And that is where we are.

The global transformation we are currently experiencing (which feels like madness and destruction to so much of the world) is part of an immense shift, a move from rigid patriarchal rule to a more balanced consciousness that reunites nature with spirit, sacred masculine with sacred feminine, and more.

Snake’s expertise is in bringing together that which is separated and disjointed — something that is essential right now to our survival as a species. Snake lives within us. Curled gently around the base of our spine, Snake not only guards the sacred portal of enlightenment, but opens it too. A spark of divine awareness glows at the base of our sacrum, our holy bone. It is time for Snake to unwind, to flow upward along our spine, connecting and integrating — male and female, life and death, human and divine — riding ancient currents that inspire and revive.

Wise guide, powerful archetype, dream visitor, protector of that which is most sacred, it is Snake that leads us — propels us — to awakening.

Table of Contents

Foreword Dr. David Lilley ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Dreaming of Snake 1

1 The Secret Life of Snakes 8

2 When Snake Ruled 24

3 What Happened in the Garden 46

4 Living with Snake 63

5 Swallowing Life Whole 80

6 Snake in the Psyche 93

7 Undulation 114

8 Once Bitten: The Healing Power of Snake 130

9 Dreaming with Snake 150

10 The Snake, the Stargazer, the Scientist, and the Shaman 165

11 Lessons from Snake: How We Transform Our World 185

A Personal Postscript 208

Appendix 1 Snake Science 101 211

The Keys to Classification

Securing and Digesting Prey

Snakes Eating Snakes

The Straight Poop Snake

Locomotion The Ins and Outs of Snake Sex

Appendix 2 Ten Snake Bios 228

King Cobra

Brahminy Blindsnake

Corn Snake

Green Anaconda

Small-Scaled Burrowing Asp

Black Mamba

Bushmaster

Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait

Paradise Tree Snake

Timber Rattlesnake

Notes 259

Bibliography 264

Index 268

Editorial Reviews

As a dream analyst, each time I hear a dream with Snake I know it to be a potent vision carrying an important message. This is the book I have long been wishing for—a single reference for clients to deepen their understanding of the dream experience with Snake. Dawn Brunke’s vast research, deep insight, and elegant writing on this subject are breathtaking. Reader beware: if you pick this book up, you may not be able to put it down! I was swept away.

Tayria Ward

As a nature enthusiast and avid hiker, I have long known that snakes are not the frightful creatures that we have made them out to be. Dawn Brunke sets the record straight by clearly showing our emotional reaction to snakes is vastly out of proportion to the actual danger they present. Entertaining, informative, and masterfully written, this book not only goes well beyond anything you might expect to read about snakes but also shows how Snake’s story is deeply interwoven with our own and continues to influence us today in a multitude of ways. Continuously revitalizing itself by shedding its old skin, Snake symbolizes the global need for renewal and transformation. We must find a way to ‘shed our old skin’ of polarity and separation consciousness and find our way into the heart-space of oneness if we are to survive and thrive as a species.

Bob Frissell

Bravo for the epic narrative that Dawn Baumann Brunke spins while taking the reader on an evocative and exhilarating journey of mind, body, and soul in search of the ancient tale/tail of Snake medicine. Shakti Kundalini energy is our sacred birthright and will rise again when we find the courage and willingness to harness the shamanic wisdom of Snake that lives within to awaken and transform our lives.

Linda Star Wolf

Reading this book is profound, healing, and life-changing. Dawn Brunke guides us on a journey of exploration and transformation as we enter into a relationship with Snake. We are helped to overcome our fears and be willing to meet Snake face-to-face, as it lives in our world and also resides within our bodies and our psyches. Dawn then helps us to deepen in this relationship with Snake by following an amazing serpentine path through dreams, mythology, history, science, and direct experience. This book is timely as it guides us to shed the skins of our past ways of being and open to Snake’s wisdom and understanding of unity consciousness. Through Snake, we can remember and reclaim the integration of the sacred feminine and sacred masculine to heal ourselves and come into wholeness, and we can then return to right relationship and harmony with each other and with all of life.

Heather Ensworth

Brunke shows with elegance and power how Spirit of Snake speaks to human awakening and spiritual evolution. Teacher of healing powers, she is coiled within us, wrapping around our consciousness as the forgotten Goddess of our DNA. Wonderful and unique book!

J. Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus