As is customary for me on the eve of a New Moon, I awoke before dawn to meditate on the question of what needs to be let go. There are many ways to work with the New Moon. For this October New Moon, I’d been working with the specific question: What skin is loosening itself from my body?

As the overcast light crept louder, I noticed a dark clump in the Lavatera bush outside my living room window. I thought it was some leaves blown during the all-night deluge.

Morning routines took over. But just as I was seeing my family out the door, I flickered a glance again and saw that it was no pile of leaves; it was a large Garter Snake about 4 feet up in the branches of the Lavatera! Carefully and wide-eyed, we all clamored close to the window to have a look. Surely, the heavy rains from the evening before had inspired Snake up into the bush.

On account of my New Moon question, I felt compelled to sit quietly with Snake for some time. Without attempting to assign meaning, I no less found myself swimming in good medicine. I began to speak truths about where I felt stuck, washed out, flooded.

Snake’s utterly silent response drew me deeper and deeper into whole-hearted confessional, full-bodied listening. When I came out of a drum journey to rove with Snake beyond the veil, I opened my eyes to find two sets of Snake Eyes staring back!

They were two.

Not mating— wrong season for that. Not likely mother and babe— the babes don’t stay long with Mother.

No, I found myself staring back at friendship, lovers-for-the-pleasure-of-it, simple companionship even in the most solitary of creatures— A coupling for warmth amidst deluge… the gift of universal Eros: that wild, erotic Love that translates itself through us, in all straightforward naturalness.

They didn’t moved a muscle— a study in the quiet work of recuperation and integration. One held their head out in all dignity, the other’s head rested on her companion. Eyes wide open, bodies still-as-stone. But when I sang to them a song of praise and gratitude, surely, as One Loosening Old Skins From Her Body, they flickered their tongues at me~

Snakes communicate through touch and smell, finding each other through their most visceral needs. Wildness embodied.

As I looked out my south-facing window at their lovely, entwined bodies only two inches from the glass, the Wild One in me wondered: Are they looking into these large windows at a Captured One? Am I the great zoo attraction of their day? How might I— and we all— become more wild, less trapped inside, less domesticated.

Snake Duo stayed with me for that day for 8 and 3/4 hours… Yesssssssssssss… and this brought on more questions, which fold themselves into my day as ribbons through silk.

collage by Amanda Verdery Young, using CanvaPro

I’ve shared these questions below, any one of which can be a portal to a heart-opening and eye-widening New Moon phase for you. But first, it’s important to share—

Such encounters are sssssssssssso personal, so intimate. But they are not rare per se— just undervalued, overlooked or un-looked-for. What those I work with find, and certainly what I’ve found, is that these kinds of encounters are in fact our truest inheritance. And while it can be tempting to make all kinds of meaning from them, the more profound and universal Truth that I found myself singing out to Snake was:

Your Presence is The Medicine.
And Snake sang back:
Your Presence is The Medicine.

Above all, I leave you today with this mantra:

Your Presence is the Medicine.

Hold this Mantra close as you work with one or more of the following

New Moon Journal Prompts:

How might you show love and appreciation wordlessly— through touch, scent, movement, stillness, (non-verbal) sound? For example: Could you offer enthusiasm by flicking your tongue at your beloved? Might you find refuge— and offer it— by simple, effortless snuggling and caress? Could you find solace in companioned, conscious silence?
How might you choose to shed old skin— let go— with less fuss, less forcing, less effort?
How might you be simple in your power, by climbing up to higher ground when the deluge comes, before it floods you? Who could you take along with you up into higher branches?
How might you slide through the landscape unnoticed, until you want to be seen?
How might you be masterful at regeneration through stillness in broad daylight?

5 Autumn New Moon Journal Prompts