THE POWER OF THE SERPENT

One of the oldest and most universal symbols of sacred knowledge. 

She winds through the mythic and initiatory traditions of civilizations across India, Greece, Crete, Sumer, Egypt, the Mayan world, Aboriginal Australia, and Mesoamerica, the serpent appears as a guide, guardian, and transformative force—an eternal archetype of both earth and cosmos, death and rebirth, instinct and revelation.

My personal experience of the serpent as a being of ancient gnosis—is without a doubt knowledge gained through direct, embodied experience.

Let’s have a brief look at several cultures and feminine lineages where the serpent gnosis is immense power, wisdom, and spiritual evolution—and how that power lives waiting for us to awaken her in our own body today as the “serpentine”: the intuitive, rhythmic, exquisitely spiraling intelligence of the body and the earth.

In Indian yogic and tantric wisdom, the serpent represents *Kundalini Shakti*, the coiled life-force at the base of the spine. This is awakened through breath, specific placement of mantra in the body, deep movement, highly advanced sexuality practiced ,devotion, and bringing consciousness down into the lower chakras and purifying them. The serpentine Kundalini energy then rises along the spine—through chakras and psychic centers—until it unites with *Shiva* at the crown.  

This journey is somatic, electrical, hormonal, and deeply intentional.

The serpent here is far from a figure of deception—but of spiritual and divine feminine embodiment and the reclaiming of the’ original creative force.¹

The Kundalini’s path mirrors the double-helix of DNA and the subtle spiral of the spine—enlightenment is not separate from physiology, but arises through it and the

The Minoan civilization of ancient Crete (2000–1450 BCE) revered a Snake Goddess—depicted holding serpents aloft, bare-breasted, radiating power and poise.² She was not a goddess of danger, but of life.

The serpents she held symbolized:

- Regeneration, through shedding and renewal  

- Insight into the rhythms of nature and body  

- Feminine authority rooted in earth energy  

She tells us that wisdom lives in the cycles of life, and in relationship with earth—not apart from it.

Long before Apollo ruled Delphi, the sacred site was a sanctuary of *Python*, an ancient serpent spirit associated with the earth’s wisdom. The priestess known as the *Pythia* embodied this lineage.  

In trance, she inhaled natural vapors rising from beneath the temple and delivered prophecies as the mouthpiece of Gaia herself.³ The serpent in Delphi represented divination, intuition, and the feminine mystery of receiving truth directly through the body.

Where patriarchal systems later labelled the serpent as a trickster, ancient Greece honoured it as a conduit of truth.

In Aztec cosmology, *Coatlicue*—"She of the Serpent Skirt"—is both the womb and tomb. She is the cosmic mother whose skirt is made of living snakes, and whose power governs both creation and dissolution.

Her serpents signify:

- Life force and vitality  

- Transformation through cycles of death and rebirth  

- The radical truth of existence as both fierce and nurturing  

Coatlicue also live in us, as the aspect that feminine power is not only gentle—it is elemental, fierce, and profoundly connected to the rhythms of life and death.⁴

In Aboriginal Dreaming, the Rainbow Serpent is the creator-being whose movement across the land shapes rivers, mountains, and life itself. It signifies the unity of movement, water, breath, and divine imagination—a principle both cosmic and ecological.

The Rainbow Serpent teaches that creation is not only an ancient act but an ongoing one, happening through us as we live in relationship with earth and spirit.

In Mesoamerican cosmology, the Feathered Serpent — *Kukulkan* (Maya) or *Quetzalcoatl* (Mexica) — encodes the union of matter and divinity. As a serpent with wings, it bridges the underworld, the earth, and the heavens.⁶

This symbol represents the awakened human, whose spiritual insight meets embodied wisdom—whose roots are in the soil and whose consciousness is in the stars. The same as Kundalini in India…

Egyptian mythology revered the serpent as a symbol of immortality, transformation, and sacred power. The *Uraeus*—the upright cobra—appears on the foreheads of goddesses and pharaohs, signifying awakened life force rising through the spine into sovereignty and illumination.⁷

The *Ouroboros*—a serpent swallowing its own tail—is one of the earliest symbols of eternity. It encodes cyclical time and the alchemical truth that creation requires destruction, and that beginnings are born of endings.

In Sumer, serpents were linked to fertility and underworld knowledge, particularly through Inanna’s descent mythology and the god Ningishzida—the serpent and tree of life.⁸

In global shamanism—from Siberia to the Amazon—the serpent is an ally of transformation and healing. It represents:

- the ability to Shedding the past in one fell swoop , the entire skin at once….

- Vision through altered states  

- Restructuring of energy and identity  

Shamans often work with serpent beings during trance, receiving healing, instruction, and spiritual medicine.

he Embodied Serpentine: A Living, Somatic Truth

The serpent endures in myth not only because it’s ancient, but because it’s *alive in the body*.

- Our spine moves in spirals  

- Our breath waves through like a coil  

- DNA encodes us as serpents made of light  

- Intuition rises from the root, traveling up the central channel  

To awaken the serpentine within is a return to primal intelligence, inner listening, and the feminine genius of direct, energetic knowing.