Sunday, September 15, 2013

Magnificence


Some say that every 7 or 10 years, depending on who is doing the telling, that every cell in our body has been regenerated, replaced.

Others say that every inhalation and exhalation is a complete cycle of birth and death.

Then there is the snake, which regularly molts and sheds, freeing itself of its outgrown skin.

There are many ways we shed our own skin, slither out of our too-tight sheath. We quit a job, leave a relationship, move across the country. When we walk away from people, places and things that restrict our growth, we are engaging in the important practice of molting.

But molting can also cause us to feel more vulnerable. When a snake is molting its vision may be impaired and, as a result, it may act more defensively. When we are sloughing of those things that, in some way, keep our worlds small, we may also be without long range sight. We may not even know what is coming next. 

It is precisely this vulnerability, or the fear of it, that all too often keeps us in unhappy situations. But our vibrancy, the magnificence of our lives, depends a continual process of molting.

The snake begins to shed with the simple act of rubbing its nose against a rough surface to split the old skin. You can begin the process by asking yourself, what in my life is holding me back, weighing me down, preventing my growth and fulfillment? You may notice subtle constraints that result from the way you talk to yourself—the judgments and self-criticism. You may notice larger constrictions that come from the way you let others treat you. Or you may discover that your job or environment is so limiting that you are being suffocated by it.

In many Native American cultures, the snake represents the transmutation of life. Through the shedding of its skin, the snake dies and is reborn over and over again. We too need to continually transform, slipping off our old skin in order to slither into the ever-expanding luminosity of our lives. 

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