**Trigger Warning 🐍 Snakes**
“The snake that can't peel off its skin can't grow. The soul is trapped inside the body; just like a tree inside a seed.”
Mwanandeke Kindembo
One of the few alive snakes to cross my path on my daily walks
September 22nd, 2025
📍Salida, Colorado, USA 🇺🇸
Greetings from the wilderness!
I am still deep in recovery mode from the AWAKEN Retreat and a whole host of other activities. My summer was so full, and I'm really looking forward to autumn this year. I've got one more month of travel ahead of me before the new year—I leave for San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico on October 1st to visit a potential venue for the RENEW Retreat happening in April, and to spend some time with friends doing Janzu in the cenotes near Tulum. Before heading back to Salida, I will be embarking on an epic leaf-peeping camping road trip through the American Southwest. Stay tuned for pictures!
In the meantime, with the Fall Equinox yesterday, I've been thinking a lot about this seasonal shift and how my life is mirroring nature. In addition to being a season of harvest, autumn is also a time when we shed the old to make room for the new. How fitting that 2025 is the Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac, specifically the Wood Snake. No creature knows the necessity of shedding for growth quite like the snake.
The snake is a symbol of transformation, wisdom, and intuition. Unlike its reputation in Western traditions as something to be feared, in many cultures the snake is revered as sacred—shedding its skin as a living metaphor for rebirth and renewal. The snake reminds us that growth is not always about addition, but sometimes about release.
For much of my life, I carried a deep fear of snakes—more than a fear, it was a phobia. Since living in Asia as a child, where I visited snake markets, I developed an unhealthy fear of snakes. Just the thought of a snake, or even a picture of one, would activate this fear in my body: my breath would tighten, a shiver would run down my spine, and I would find myself running in the opposite direction, screaming.
The Lord knows this and has been working with me to overcome this fear over the last year. Little did I know that a year of daily walks in the woods would not only desensitize me to seeing snakes, but also enable me to find deep compassion (even sorrow) over the loss of a snake.
As cold-blooded reptiles, the local snakes like to slither onto the dirt road to sun themselves. So, while I will occasionally run into a live snake trying to stay warm, more often than not, I come across a snake that has needlessly been run over by a careless ATV or car. On busy weekends, sometimes three to five snakes will pay the ultimate price for being on the road. I've seen so many dead snakes now that my heart breaks when I come across them—sorry for the loss of another innocent life to careless humans.
I never thought I'd see the day I would grieve the loss of a snake.
Shedding Old Skins
When I encounter one of these snakes, it brings to mind the places where I am called to shed old skins—fears, beliefs, identities, patterns—that no longer serve me. As I have been contemplating this Fall season and how it represents transformation in my life, I can't help but think about the snakes and how they represent my journey to transform fear into growth.
This fear of snakes has become, strangely enough, one of my greatest teachers. Where I once saw only danger, I now see possibility. I've come to see how much that fear mirrored the deeper shadows within me—parts of myself I resisted facing, skins I resisted shedding. To shed fear is to embody courage. To face what unsettles us is to make room for what heals us.
The snake teaches that transformation is not only about release but also about refinement. To shed an old skin is to grow more into who you already are. To embrace this shedding is to return to your True Self.
The Wisdom of the Snake
The snake winds its way through so many ancient stories: in the desert with Moses, lifted high as a symbol of healing; in Eden, whispering of temptation and awakening; in Indigenous traditions, as guardian of the earth's wisdom. In all these tellings, the snake holds a certain power—it forces us to confront our mortality, our instincts, our hidden depths.
The Year of the Snake is also a year of deep introspection. It calls us to care for our inner landscape just as carefully as the outer one—to prioritize mindfulness, to nurture both mental and physical health, to cultivate balance. The shedding of old fears has become, for me, a sacred practice of both courage and healing.
So this Fall, I'm saying yes to the invitation to let go of past limitations that keep me small. To honor the wisdom found in stillness and harmony. To trust the cycles of death and rebirth that lead me back to my True Self. I'm asking myself, "What fears am I ready to release? What skins no longer fit the woman I am becoming? What wisdom lies coiled within me, waiting to unfurl?"
May we all learn to meet the snake—not only the dead ones in the road, but the one in our souls—with reverence rather than resistance. Because sometimes what we most fear is the very thing that is here to transform us.
With Love,
Jennifer
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