My mothers

I was raised more by servants and solitude than by my American parents.  We lived in various countries in Latin America while I was growing up and we had servants, live in maids, one at a time except for one family of husband, wife and daughter; the husband was gardener.

They were usually in their twenties or thirties, humble, from the poor side of town.  Many of them came from shanty towns where they didn’t have running water or electricity.  They were simple sweet people, close to the Earth, some of them fresh from the jungle.  Some might say primitive and yet they really were civilized, elegantly so.

I was so lucky to have such mothers.

Then there was my jet setting mother: “You just wait till your dad gets home, you’re going to get the spanking of your life!”  and then they would sit in their separate chairs in the living room, in silence, reading and drinking their cocktails into the night.

Ten sigh days

Some days are ten sigh days.

Some sighs are ten day sighs.

The Taming of Starjumper7

I’m a killer, I have the blood of innocence on my sword. I’m guilty.

Rattlesnakes! Are my friends now … but how can you wash your hands of the sins? Not easy. This situation was weighing heavily on my mind. The student was ready. The teacher appeared.

The Valley Spirit communicates in mysterious ways, but effective! Like flower petals drifting down from heaven, oh so lightly, sweetly, she spoke to me.

“Don’t kill snakes, Starman. Lao Tzu says don’t kill snakes”

She didn’t know the message was for me, it’s just one of those interesting coincidences.

How many of us are killers? Will you kill a flea but not a bumblebee? A microbe? How big does it need to be before you deem it’s life spirit too valuable?

Rattlesnakes were attracted to the doorstep of the trailer in the mountains. Perhaps it was the most ideal place in the county for rattlers. Then, when I went to the door they would rattle, a sound like dry leaves vibrating. I screamed like a little girl and jumped back. The second time that happened I decided to chase it away with a long handled implement, a shovel. I didn’t know at the time that it was the ideal tool for sending snakeypoos to heaven but I discovered that soon enough. At first I tried to dig out it’s hiding place under the trailer tire. It was obstinate, fearing for it’s life. Rattling. I injured it with the shovel and then used it to cut the oh so dangerous head off (the head must be buried for safety, so no one steps on it) The snake’s head was sitting upright on the shovel and I moved my hand near it. The jaws popped open and the fangs popped out, what a shock! I buried it.

How easy it is, after the first one, to do more. How easy it is to become numb to being a killer.

Later I started to wonder if I should even kill snakes near the trailer, I started to feel bad, three weeks ago my dog was bitten on the nose by a rattler that didn’t rattle. Poor baby, paying for my sins I figured. The neighbors found out how much it cost to treat the dog and were concerned for their own dogs, then they saw two rattlers mating in the dirt road, coiling around each other, rattling – in ecstasy? They’re gone now. That’s more blood on my hands. At least there won’t be a whole bunch of baby rattlesnakes, the most deadly of all, right by our houses.

Several times I’ve come so close to stepping on a rattlesnake while I was wearing sandals. They always warned me and never bit even though I was inches away. They just wanted to get out of the way. I was the evil one, when I had tools. Tools and technology make killing too easy, don’t they?

Week before last I came close to stepping on that same rattlesnake, the one that doesn’t like to rattle, four times. The first time was while I walked down my dirt road in the dark with no light. It rattled that time and warned me. I had left the shovel behind, and will continue to do so. I’m at peace with snakes now, they are after all, my brothers.

When my crown point was more open I could sense them sometimes, and I’m opening it once again. Once, long ago, I was sitting outside eating a green pepper in the dark of night. The pepper finished, I tossed the seed core back over my shoulder into the bushes, and as I let it go I had a vision of it hitting a rattlesnake – and then – as soon as the seed core hit the ground – that dry brush vibrating sound.

This year is a strange one on the dry side of the mountains, strange things are happening, the weather, big meteors overhead, and there are more people and animals being bitten by rattlesnakes, far more than ever.

I am the serpent king,

I can do anything.

The Doors