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On snakes, transformation and “crushing it”

Upon finding a road-killed snake last week, “crushing it” took on a whole new meaning for me.

According to urbandictionary.com “crushing it” means: “Being in severe shape, looking good, being better than others, looking hot, feeling positive, having more than others, having relations with other attractive people.”

Or put another way, “doing it all…. well.”

But can we really “crush it” in everything we do?

Not according to television screenwriter/producer Shonda Rhimes in her June 2014 Dartmouth Commencement Speech. Ms. Rhimes is the creative force behind the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal and had this to say:

“As a very successful woman, a single mother of three, who constantly gets asked the question, ‘How do you do it all?’ For once I am going to answer that question with 100 percent honesty here for you now.

“Shonda, how do you do it all?

“The answer is this: I don’t.

“Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life…

“Anyone who tells you they are doing it all perfectly is a liar.”

I love her honest answer, and this is why I want to take a look at how we really “crush it.”

Crushing it and snakes

I was riding my bicycle out of my driveway last week and came upon a beautiful green snake that had been run over.

Crushed.

Dead.

Flat as a pancake.

I offered tobacco to pray for its passing, and got a shovel to move it off into the meadow for a proper burial.

Then I thought about what it might mean. What message did it bring to me?

Road killed snakes are a rarity around here.

When unusual animal encounters take place in my life, I pay attention, as we all should, because there could be a message in it for us.

Snakes represent transformation. The shedding of their skin represents rebirth and healing.

That’s why the Rod of Asclepius, entwined with a serpent, has always represented the healing profession. Asclepius was the Greek God of medicine.

If transformation is about to take place in our lives, do we sometimes try to stop it?

Crush it?

Nip it in the bud?

Shonda Rhimes says we can’t do it all, and she should know. When we’re doing really well in one area of our lives, we are likely neglecting another area.

In other words, crushing it in the negative sense: stopping progress. And perhaps those are the areas we should be paying the most attention to.

I “crushed it” in my former high-pressure job in Los Angeles, but at the sacrifice of my health and spiritual and emotional lives. They were crushed in the negative sense until I was force to make a change.

Yes, change and transformation can be uncomfortable, but the brave thing to do is embrace it because the life you’ll be living at the end of the transformation may be much more beautiful than the one you’re living now.

“Before a snake begins to shed its skin, its eyes will begin to cloud over. It gives the snake a trancelike appearance. To many mystics and shamans this indicated the ability of the snake to move between the realms of the living and the dead, of crossing over from life to death and then back to life again. As the skin begins to shed, the eyes begin to clear as if they will see the world anew.” Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

In order to shed it’s skin, a snake slithers into a very tight space so that it’s essentially stuck there, and the only way out is to resolutely move forward, leaving the old skin behind.

Do you need to make changes in your life but are resisting them?

What needs to be healed that you are holding on to?

Watch for signs and answers, particularly from the animal world.

Even if we don’t get an unexpected message, as I did from the snake, we can go looking for answers.

Put out a question and go for a walk, carefully observing the world around you. If you are open, answers will come.

Our guides and angels always want to help us. All too often, we tune them out.

In these trying times, I suggest we all work harder to tune into them.

And celebrate our transformation!

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach

 

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