this is rapture and joy: officially a level 1 certified venomous snake handler/relocator 🤷‍♀️🤣

My road since 2020 has been a straight path toward sovereignty, freedom, and slowly living into all the nooks and crannies

I have the high medicine of the rattlesnake to thank for bringing me back to the fiercest and most grounded side of myself

After an experience in 2020 with a western diamondback in the Superstition Mountains just outside of Phoenix, I wrote:

"When I work with snake medicine in ceremony it almost always centers me in my heart. She is focused and serious, fully knowing truth from fiction-- almost sniffing it out and giving you no place to hide in yourself. She strikes fast and hard, to remind us that fake shit is poison to our systems. Only pure hearts are allowed to rest with her."

Fake shit is poison, only pure hearts rest with her... this is where I'm at these days

Living into everything that's authentically me-- including my weird fascination, admiration, and deep respect of these amazing creatures

So this weekend-- in Stallings NC, with 85° and 80% humidity, in a firehouse training facility, while 13 weeks pregnant 😜-- I took a step toward the unknown

Whatever this is thats moving me closer, I'm stepping in and letting it take over

The snakes we worked with-- an Eastern Diamondback, a Timber Rattler named Sweet Cheeks, and a Cottonmouth named Bellatrix-- were perfect in their design

With sweet personalities (given 18+ people handled them in and out of buckets and bags with hooks, they remained so tolerant and calm) and an intense grounded focus that I've never experienced before

They're a symbol of our country (don't tread on me), a symbol of medicine work (caduceus), a symbol of the infinite (ouroboros)

So much magic and power in these gorgeous creatures, fuck whatever our culture has said about them

We're all misunderstood