Page 139 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION

Nova

Vandals trap the wild snake I love—

the rosy boa who lives out back—

and stow him in a clear plastic box.

He coils and clings to the side

like a starfish. Captors gone,
I try to free him, trip the latch

so he can escape without harm.
But the entire nature of the box

changes—his head stays stuck

while his body separates and

drops to the ground. Suddenly,

that narrow cylinder of muscle

and bone becomes a tunnel

of blinding light where I walk,

gazing at choirs of galaxies
stretched to infinity.

If this is death, I rest easy.

Notes:

This spring, a dream came to me unlike any I’ve had before. The central figure is a rosy

boa—a docile and especially beautiful desert snake. We feel honored to have them
living on our property. Every year, as the weather warms up, we record the day when we

first see a rosy boa. They are a federally protected species—designated as a species of
special concern. They are also among the most ancient snakes still alive on the planet,

dating back tens of millions of years.

What wisdom do they hold in their bodies? In my dream, the answer is all the drama of

deep space—star nurseries, the source of life, and the glory of death. As I walked inside
the body of snake/tunnel of light, the galaxies I saw looked like the spectacular photos

taken by the Hubble telescope.

My daily devotional practice consists of reciting a litany of my own making—a prayer that

names everything I’m thankful for in my life and that asks the universe for help in areas
where I need it. One of my daily requests is to understand the true nature of life and

death before I leave this body. The dream of the rosy boa felt like both an

acknowledgment of this request and a teaching.

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