Anointing the Cobra

The flute coaxes. It dances. From behind closed eyes, all I can do is sit and wait. I see a cobra curled inside a circular box. But that’s not me, just a moment from memory, across oceans, when a man with thick coal lining his eyes stares at me through a window. I want to listen to the poetry of Tagore recited by my teacher, but I can’t help it – I turn, I glance over, wander out that window to the flute. And there, this androgynous creature is dancing the snake out, calling it to unwrap itself, to emerge and enter the sun-filled day.

Now I’m in bed, progesterone pellets crushed under my tongue. Prayers for conception.

Pregnant silence except for this song, and I long for a sign. A sign for anything because it feels so good to be aligned with all the elements that simply function in accordance.

Tonight, Roman chamomile for the bottom of the feet. Valerian, too.

James Hillman says that we do not finally become someone, but that we grow into an image that is present at birth. Like the acorn that grows into the majestic oak, we too have a map, a blueprint, and an intricate architecture of the final trajectory, implanted in the soul. And so we find ourselves drawn again and again to the same seemingly random themes, those same five steps we, in one way or another, circle again and again.

We satisfy and fulfill that course and yet, often, we do not see the pattern or experience the meaning in the impulse itself. For me – pilgrimage. Even in a sad urban block of trendy shops, I find a way to weave from sidewalk to alcove to roasting coffee beans. In that walk, epiphanies and change. I feel it in the smallest of turns.

All over town, like a hound, this voice whispers, “He sent them out two by two, to anoint and heal.” I swat the fly a hundred times but no matter. Lavender, frankincense, rose, jasmine, myrrh. What do you want?! I shout. As if I don’t know.

The acorn would not tell the budding Oak to go away. How silly. It simply assumes its natural form.

Someone told me the other day that more women were burned at the stake in Salem than were killed in the holocaust. For working with plants and remedies, a massacre.

Folded arms, I lean to the side, and I cannot find anything more to say. The flute pulls me to sleep and I want to go. Last night, fitful dreams about the oils. Tonight, I will spoon the snake.