A Snake's Rebirth

2025 is the year of the Snake, and as a snake-year person myself, I greeted the new Year full of ambition, angst, and excitement. 2024 was a wild, blazing year of the Dragon that left me a little burnt at the end of the Christmas season. That winter was bitter but sweetened by some fresh romance. I felt then that 2025 had to be special, had to be my year for rebirth, reconnection to the earth, beauty and elegance.

Now it’s already October. While I was also victim to some new years discount subscriptions for self-improvement courses (I may start a series on the Masterclass videos I’m supposed to be watching), I believe that this fascination with my snake symbol has been transformative in ways no other New Years resolutions have.

First was getting bangs. The symbolic weight of a woman’s hair has never felt so real to me except for in two instances in my life: reading Mishima’s “Spring Snow”, and going through the panic, acceptation, and adoration stages myself when I first got my bangs. When Satoko shed her beautiful hair to become a monk, rejecting the grasp of male pleasure, she came alive to me as a snake with a new skin, slithering back to nature’s comfort. Seeing myself with new hair - curly, shaggy, fun - I felt free and cool, like I had stepped out of my demure self.

With the hair came style. It now made sense to appreciate fashion and have fun with things I found pretty. Like I had to look the part to own up to the bangs with confidence. Makeup too became a magical atelier where I mixed colors and formula potions to match my mood of the day.

Snakes shed their skin to create more room for growth. It’s an intensely physical process that connects the body to a spiritual desire for a new path forward. I lost some weight without meaning to just because I started to enjoy eating healthier, going on walks, and listening to my body more. I lost a relationship over which I tormented myself, and discovered that I could still find love in others and in myself. These things shaped my new skin with which I venture into the world today.

And the world itself… it greets me sometimes with care, sometimes with a slap. It is full of cries of rage, help, and desperation, burning fires so strong I feel choked by the smoke. But it continues to be kind as well. I find grace in my friendships and beauty in nature. A snake feels the seasons through its belly, and connected to the earth it stays grounded, safe.

I am young and old, I am foolish and wise. Like the silent snake making its way through the wood, eternally becoming. I will seek to embody this spirit of the snake with courage and grace as I grow throughout the years.