Serpentine Seduction
Below I offer you my musings, both verbal and visual, on the Serpentine Seduction character I have been exploring for the past year. Recently, this act was picked to compete for the M. Exotic World competition at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, and I have been taking this concept to it’s most heightened depths.
It is a pleasure to create art, and art is not a luxury. Art is a necessity to find the depth of feeling that gives life meaning, and contextualizes all we do in this earthly plane.
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Serpentine Seduction 🐍
《《》》
The serpent slithers
Life force up the spine
Creating space
And reflecting divinity
The balance
of masculine
And feminine
A nonbinary between.
Snakes spiraling,
in a pile
Writhing
in swirling rhythm.
Curving vertebrae
infinitely
Remembering
our sensuality.
》》《《
new act, embracing the serpent I have tattooed in my arm (with @sofiahthom) and Remembering the legacy of my earth based ancestors honoring the serpent before Christian myths vilified the snakes and killed them all... almost.
above photos by Sara Stemle, on location in the Juno Dunes, Florida, and the Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Jupiter, Florida. c2023Why Serpents?
Why Snakes?
So,
snakes.
When I partake in psychedelics, I often become a snake. Or a pile of snakes. Even before dabbling in psychedelic adventuring, moving in liquid serpentine fashions was enamoring for my mindbody.
In 2019 Sofiah Thom and I got serpent sister tattoos on our forearms, something that was a huge edge for me. She was adamant about seeing a snake on our arms. I trusted it. I thought about it. I felt into it.
Snakes were the symbol of both the goddess & the god in many Celtic and Druidic - it was the unification of the divine essences. They are liquid and amorphous, but also the structural rod. both. and. same. My maternal lineage hearkens from the rocky moors and seas of Cornwall, in the very south of England. It's the land of stonehenge, of Arthurian & Morganian legend, of Mary Magdalene, of faeries and mermaids, of trolls and pirates and other magickal creatures.
The snake is a symbol that people connected to worshiping the divine goddess and the land would have tattooed on them. And the Christian church, when it came, exterminated the "snakes" from the isles. Read: mass genocide of a religion.
Honestly, I still can't forgive Christianity for this. for doing this over and over and over in the name of power and a sacrificial god of mercy and forgiveness... who tells followers to engage in holy wars of extermination.
So, snakes.
So I embrace the snakes.
My paternal lineage hearkens from Finland, Scandinavia betwixt Russian and Viking. Farmers and sea-faring humans, fighters and raiders and innovators and dreamers. The snake, in Viking lore, _________________________
But truly, I find a deep metaphor in the shedding of skin. Of the depth of the divine energy held within our spines to weave and explode upwards in kundalini energy, from root to crown and back again, weaving the magic we are within our mind bodies.
This serpentine piece has been a lot for me to embrace. it's a lot more than I ever thought I'd be getting into.
Yet, when the imagination dives into a concept, all we can do is listen. and respond. and notice why we shy away from something - usually it's a cultural idea that has been put upon us and not our own ideas.
So, I dive in and dissect, looking for how to remember and reimagine.
And to create great art about everything I feel.
Plus, right now I am shedding the layers of my life, truly getting rid of so much that I no longer need. It's liberating. It's beautiful. It's hard.
And yet, when we've outgrown a skin, the new one awaits underneath. Holding onto it won't do us any good.
photos by Chris Nightengale, bodypaint by Melissa Bruck, costume by Gaea Lady.Shot at the Eco Collective Chicago, IL. c2023Snake Lore
& Reclaiming Seductive Serpent 🐍
Making art about the serpent had been a slow entry for me. I resisted snake and animal prints for most of my life, really avoiding the snake energy entirely. Associating it with evil, with bad things, and with the downfall.
So, I realize that creating this art about the serpent and my erotic self is truly about reclamation and renewal.
I am discovering what it's about as I shed skin after skin, the process of creation integral to any intuitive understanding of what's unfolding.
It's about reclaiming the feminine power and goodness after the Eve + Serpent + Apple + fall from Eden... the snake and the woman cast out and blamed as the fall from grace, patriarchy and christianity applying original sin to women, creating a hierarchy of goodness and worthiness & thus a second sex.
It's an outlook that has permeated our fullest existence in the western world and takes a huge amount of undoing in order to reprogram, for we at our core as women, often believe we are less than our male counterparts. We take the blame. We are not as worthy. We don't lead or put ourselves in places of power. We shame ourselves and each other. We are not worthy.
The snake is a symbol of sexual desire, thus, in abrahamic tradition. By making the serpent evil, the lust for women also evil, it puts us women in quite the pickle.... and vilified the ancient energy of the creative life force of Vedic (indian) Kundalini snake/spine energy movement that is closely associated with clarity, empowerment, sexuality, wisdom, and enlightenment.
Funny.
Blech.
These beliefs are deeply ingrained. Even though we may not ever say these things aloud, many of us internalize these enculturated norms of being, and act accordingly in our lives.
So, this exploration of the 🐍 serpent is to rewrite that story in my body and mind, my spirit and soul. It doesn't get to take up real estate any longer.
I embrace the older myths of the snake and serpent as healing. And the immortal Orobourous - the snake eating its tail in a perfect circle. Where life and death nourish each other, eternal and strong. Never ending, time forever.
Snakes can be the caretakers and messengers of the underworld - as they live in holes and cracks and go between. They usher us into our greatest transformations such as cracking open to birth all new everything- a symbol to me of rebirth and renewal through the shadow work.
Or gnawing and sucking at the roots of the tree of life... symbolizing where our energy leaks may be.
A snake sheds its skin to emerge shiny and new, letting go of the old, dull, worn skin that has served it so well for so long. Wriggling out of its old skin home, the serpent emerges new and ready for a next chapter
It doesn't hold onto its skin, but lets it go, composting it and leaving it for the earth.
Here, Creative life force is born again- fertile and ready. The energy of the rising serpent from earth to sky, from root to crown, clears and restores the universe itself. Eternally and repeatedly.
So, by shedding my skins to my original skin thru burlesque performance art, working with the power of the rope dart and the sensuality of silk, the breathwork of the rising serpentine spinal spiral energy, I reclaim my power, sexuality, eroticism, expression, divinity, and capability to tap into lifeforce and creative energy.
It feels good.
Even though the shadow work during this process has been rough and tough. Drastic emotional waves of up and down, all part of the process. I trust it. I'm clearing and clarifying. I recognize the pleasure in the process, in all the ways it feels.
And I emerge, looking forward to getting to know the new life in my new skin, which has always been a part of me, that I grew and honed myself, and that I will one day shed again. Eternally.
Written May 18, 2023 14:30 , @ the eco collective Chicago
while being body painted by Melissa Bruck
