I have been mulling over the moccasin incident for two days now. I am troubled by the incident in a way that is new to me. I have quietly meditated on the problem and asked the spirit guides for insight and at first heard only silence. The second time I heard thoughts that seemed to be not my voice. The thoughts were this: “You (addressed to me as if someone/something not me was talking) didn’t give the brother a chance to escape, and you didn’t try hard enough to capture before killing. This was due to your own fear. The brother did not threaten you except by being, and that is not sufficient reason to kill. You will suffer for this for some time to come. You may be forgiven.”
I don’t know the origin of these kinds of thoughts, but I suspect they come from deep inside my own conscience, whatever that is. The alternative answer lies in some other source, a deep and present spiritual source. This morning in the periphery of my vision a grey shape moved quickly away as I contemplated writing this. I think this is the right thing to do and I am sorry to have killed my brother.
Image: cropped photo of brother snake, dead.
I don’t know the origin of these kinds of thoughts, but I suspect they come from deep inside my own conscience, whatever that is. The alternative answer lies in some other source, a deep and present spiritual source. This morning in the periphery of my vision a grey shape moved quickly away as I contemplated writing this. I think this is the right thing to do and I am sorry to have killed my brother.
Image: cropped photo of brother snake, dead.
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1 comment:
I had a similar situation a few weeks back.
On the front stoop, a small cottonmouth was quietly coiled. Marta's massouse discovered the little critter as she was leaving late that day.
The snake was minding his (her?) own business and, dang, contrary to what I preach and teach, I killed it!!
Weigh this against what I did with the only other water moccasin we've seen on our property. It was about 3 years ago. We were doing some major remodeling and around 5:30 I went out to the mail box, and low, a 3 foot cottonmouth was frozen on his (her?) way somewhere. The snake was about 3 feet from the mail box, heading toward the street. I got my snake stick out of the garage and put the snake in a cloth sack. A few days later I took it out to a, to remained un-named, plantation and released it in a creek.
Why I killed the little one, I don't know. The only relief from guilt that I can find lies in the fact that I did put it on the rock for the hawk, although I think that something during the night got it. Anyway, it did provide someone with a meal.
I told the big snake that if he (she) thought I'd messed up his (her) afternoon, he (she) should have shown up about 30 min. earlier, before the workers left!! As a matter of fact, the snake was in the very spot where one of the workers parked his car.
everyday.
So, one snake was lucky, and the other snake was not. And, like with your experience, it still bothers me that I killed the little snake
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