Trying to Accept Change in the Year of the Snake
Last week marked the beginning of the Year of the Snake in the Lunar calendar. I love using snakes in my work, as their symbolism can vary across cultures and contexts. Plus, they’re just fun to draw.
In my self published Wild Seeker Tarot deck, you’ll find snakes in numerous cards - but I’m feeling especially compelled to talk about the ouroboros I used to symbolize the Wheel of Fortune card. There is tension in this card, possibly influenced by my own fraught relationship to change. Water and fire surround the ouroboros, symbolizing the need for balance - either element can extinguish the other depending on their quantity. How do we accept change without also risking total evisceration?
The ouroboros consumes itself, in a constant state of destruction and rebirth. We must shed layers of our old self so that we can better adapt to new circumstances. The description for the Wheel of Fortune that I wrote in the Wild Seeker Tarot booklet says:
“In life’s great mystery, change is the only constant. Trust in the cycles of life, and learn to surrender to their unpredictable nature. Everything is temporary – both joy and sorrow will arrive on their own timeline. As the wheel turns, new seasons come and go, celebrations and challenges shifting together. The changes you are currently experiencing will bring you into deeper alignment with your truest self. The energy that you release into the world is what will return to you.” - The Wild Seeker Tarot
In the last few weeks, it feels like change is coming at breakneck speed. I’m reminded of the brief period I sought counseling from an Acceptance and Commitment therapist at the beginning of the pandemic. I’ll spare you the details, but I was struggling with repeated patterns that kept coming up in my relationships (plus, you know, pandemic). I had spent years doing all the self help and therapy and podcasts trying to break free of these patterns, only to find myself in different versions of the same scenario over and over again.
In my sessions with my new therapist, she tried to get me to embrace and accept my circumstances.
Uh, was this lady out of her mind? I was in therapy precisely because I didn’t accept my reality, and I wanted it to be different. How could anything change if I accepted what was happening?
What I thought she was saying, was that accepting my circumstances meant tolerating them, and that felt disempowering. What I actually understand now, is that accepting my circumstances means not living in denial, and that is the catalyst for making meaningful change. When you see and accept your reality with clarity, you are empowered to make aligned choices. The path to change becomes clearer, but only after you shed away your old layers.
In either case, I stopped seeing that therapist pretty quickly, because I was not ready for all that.
Over time, the more I learned to tend to my nervous system, the easier it became to invite the meaningful change by making different choices. As I learned to create safety and trust within my body, the easier it was to take unfamiliar action, and finally change my patterns.
For many who may be staring down a reality that feels too hard or scary to accept, perhaps the snake can be your symbol of hope and empowerment.
Do you have symbols that bring you hope? I’d love to hear about them!
Take care of yourselves,
Bryna