A Symbol of the Shamanic Path: The Plumed Serpent
If you’ve thought of further empowering your shamanic or other practice, you may want to consider adding this representation of the Plumed Serpent to your altar and, with care, to cherish and hold during prayer and ceremony. With study you will find the twin powers of transmutation and transformation represented here.
Transmutation changes one thing into another. Transformation essentially denotes changing oneself (or helping someone else change) into a better, more enlightened version. These are the universal principles woven into the shamanic path.
One of my teachers, a Hopi grandmother-healer, taught me a dramatic example of transmutation many years ago. She explained that one day while trimming a rose bush, she was shocked to realize that it was not the sting of thorns, but rather the sharp fangs of a copperhead snake hidden inside the bush striking at her hand. She reflexively yanked her arm back, but the hand had already begun to discolor and swell from three poisonous bites. The swelling began moving swiftly up her arm, but knowingly, she clutched just above the elbow and commanded, “Stop!”
Over the next few hours, the swelling had indeed stopped at her elbow. It receded over the next several days. When I asked why she hadn’t gone to a hospital, she said, “Because, at that moment, I was given snake medicine.”
She had transmuted poison into medicine.
Consider the larger and profound implication of her teaching: Joined with your intentions, transmutation and transformation can influence the greater body of existence. But how?
Let’s briefly pull that thread.
The plumed serpent god Quetzalcoatl of first century Mesoamerica continues to influence art, philosophy and culture even today. Even though I wasn't thinking of Quetzalcoatl when I started working on this piece, I was of course deeply connected to the rich and varied metaphysics of serpents themselves.
Depictions of the serpent’s mystical influence are cross-cultural and originate deep into antiquity, long before and separate from pejorative Biblical references to the serpent. Serpent symbols are repeatedly found in various early cave art and later with Hindu and Egyptian icons that depicted the Ouroboros (see illustration above of a serpent eating its own tail). These signified the mysterious relationship between the continuing cycle of life and death, generation and decay, light and dark, birth and death.
And rebirth.
To many Indigenous peoples, serpents represent the power of rebirth, as when a snake sheds its old skin to make ready for the new skin of a more vital and transformed self. This understanding is uppermost as you connect to Spirit while at your altar or during shamanic ceremony.
So, I eventually chose the Plumed Serpent to represent this timeless metaphysical potential in one powerful symbol, and as a reminder of the continually moving energy of transmutation / transformation, creation, and the unifying singularity of communion with All That Is.
I trust that you, too, will come to recognize and embrace the true wisdom of the Plumed Serpent Prayer Stick / Altar Totem once you incorporate it into your healing service or meditation practice.
Aho & Namaste,
Bob
(For important information on how to activate your prayer stick, their purposes and more, please read “Spirit Prayer Sticks, Divine Partners” on the main prayer stick page, here.)
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