POEM: Serpent Ladder 🐍🪜🌎
A visual poem by me and Ari Kuschnir as an offering to the humans on earth today
Dear Ones,
Many of you know that my beloved,
, is a talented AI filmmaker and artist. Friends have created a new AI tool, MoonValley, that launches today. It’s a generative filmmaking model “trained from scratch entirely on fully-licensed data from creators.” To support this move towards more-ethical-and-responsible AI models AND because it’s just cool what this thing can do, he sat down to make a short experiment. He asked me to write the “script.”Based on the nature of the visuals that were coming up, Ari suggested something cosmic and metaphysical. I took that “prompt” with me and set out for a walk. What came to me was the image of the snake, the journey of kundalini…the great and mighty serpent power of the Earth.
Like many of you, Ari and I have been enjoying Josh Schrei’s recent episode of The Emerald podcast on POWER. I highly recommend it. This episode and the one on GUARDIANSHIP are for me, essential sacred texts for this time. He’s created something captivating, activating, healing, and wise. If you’ve been feeling a little down (or a lot down) about the state of the world and the so-called “power players” and their misuse of said-power, this episode is for you. It’s the most salient and wise treatise on power I’ve ever heard…and as a long-time yogi, I’ve read a lot of scripture and commentary on power.
Josh’s episode was with us as we created this. As was a conversation we’d had—earlier in the day—about friends we’d known in our youth who were dynamic, bursting with ideas and inspiration, and how that energy of creation (that Shakti), if not properly initiated and stewarded in a sacred context, can dissipate or drive people mad over time. We talked about the tragedy of our culture’s poor rites of passage for youth—all of the uninitiated adults.
This visual poem is a reminder that this Earth and all creation are manifest through the power of Shakti. This power lives within all of us. The journey of the serpent power up the ladder of the central channel and the chakras, powering human development and infusing the subtle anatomy with light, is crucial to longevity, inspiration, vitality, and ultimately AWAKENING so that we can can be of service to ALL LIFE. This is every human’s birthright. It is the power and process of awakening that the mystics have written about, sung about, and talked about for ages. It is also the precious energy of the Earth, our Mother. It is the highest, the mightiest, and also the lowliest and the earthiest. It is the snake.
Here is the extended POEM I wrote. The video is an edit of this:
POEM: Serpent Ladder
7.7.25
We are designed
like a ladder
But the energy that animates us
Moves like a snake
What is the force that calls the snake forth?
Initiation
And what is the power unlocked by initiation?
Memory
And what is the drive that fuels its migration?
Desire
And what is the name of the desired destination?
Enlightenment
And who has the key to the gates of enlightenment?
Grace
And what can inhibit grace?
Ignorance
And what dissipates ignorance?
Experience
And what keeps the snake moving through experience?
Will power
And who tells the story of this epic journey?
The Witness
And what is the condition for the snake’s rest?
Completion
And what is the force that ensures this completion?
Destiny
And who is the one that governs it all?
The Snake.
By nature,
The snake is selfless
Nourished and amplified
In service to all life
It cannot be depleted
Only dispersed
But even then
Only temporarily
For its course is set
At the moment of conception
The moment we choose life,
Or is it life that chooses us?
Namaste. Aho. Amen. Alright.
(YouTube link here if you’re not on IG.)
We will be meeting at 12-1pm EST today for our usual Coming Home meditation. The link is the same as always. The power and love we generate today will be dedicated to the Mother Earth. If you feel called to offer your practice to HER today, please join.
I dreamt about a snake last night, so this feels synchronistic to me.