Ice Above and Below and the Coming of the Light by Sara Wright

January’s twilight
hours draw me
into her pale embrace
stalactites and frozen
streams whisper
that winter’s skin
is thin even with
months to go
flowing water
is muted
under seeded snow
underground roots
pulse
with light
 sleeping
forest boughs
wake in wild winds
crack and moan
rest in peace
 at dawn
bears sleep
fox and weasel
seek slivers of
open water
I walk in slow
motion to
stay upright
at the edge
of a meandering
serpentine stream
listening for
the scent
of just one
hemlock singing
feeling the tangles
of gray and green
 Indoors
standing at the window
I ask
 how many
forested eyes
are meeting my own?

Even in deep winter I am no longer separate from earth and sky. How did this happen I ask myself after years of feeling bereft for months as winter white dragged on? These days even when confined indoors my windows let in the light I have longed for, though my aging eyes grow dim. Although it is harder for me to traverse a frozen landscape after breaking my hip last year, I continue to snowshoe over the snow and stand out under the stars seeking the Light of the Great Bear and the Animal Powers. Circles and cycles overlap. Along with the Great Bear who circumnavigates the sky Earth is spinning –   bringing with her ‘First Light’.

_______________________________________________

AVANYU  The Power of the Snake

I glimpse your sinewy shape
sharp horns
 you slither across
canyon walls
calling up desert rains
flood warnings too
Imaging, embodying
Tewa Pueblo Powers
Doubling
Spirit of Life
Serpent Rises
 Water is Life

This is the second poem I have written in a week about the waters, frozen here, rising in New Mexico.

I belong to both places – the high desert and to northern forests.

The first time I glimpsed Avanyu pecked into rock I feared this serpent and didn’t know why. Maybe it was the horns or the fact that this mythical figure seemed male.

Up until that point my relationship with snakes had been so positive. I loved snakes and left dishes of water for them in Maine. During the winter they slept in my woodpile emerging in spring to warm themselves at the window tangled as one mass. Were they all related or just friends? I never knew. ‘My friends’, I called them whenever I met one.

After discovering feminism and the demonization  of the serpent I reclaimed the snake as my own. On my 39^th birthday I gave myself a gold snake ring, the first present I ever gave myself and have worn this coiled ring ever since…

My study of world mythologies taught me that pre- Christian cultures everywhere revered the snake as a manifestation of the Spirit of Life. In most cultures the serpent is associated with wisdom, transformation, initiation and rebirth. For example, only yesterday I read that we have entered the lunar new year and in Chinese culture this is the YEAR OF THE SNAKE. In the Chinese Zodiac the cycle of animals repeats every ten or twelve years. More intriguing, 2025 is associated with the Wood Snake( I think forests) who has an additional emphasis on growth, flexibility and renewal.

My personal relationship with snakes went under scrutiny when I first met Avanyu who was pecked horizonally into canyon  walls that were sometimes flooded by torrential rains in New Mexico. I found him carved in rocks, sometimes without horns, as a solitary figure or as part of a whole petroglyph story. Always his image brought me pause. I was sure he was a male figure. To the Tewa in the pueblos he was the Spirit of the Waters, and was highly revered. The early spring dances revealed his importance, but my sense was that this figure had no gender. I still feared his Powers. The last time I saw Avanyu it was in a dream. I saw from a great distance a GIANT snake that was coming down the Rio Grande. He was so monstrous that he displaced all the water in the river, draining the tributaries as he came closer and closer. The serpent glowed with brilliant rainbow colors that also pulsated all around him. The terror I experienced awakened me from the dream and I knew instantly that something terrible was coming that couldn’t be stopped – a kind of avalanche – it would happen not just to me but to ALL PEOPLE.  Four months later Covid struck with vengeance, and I was fortunate to make the trip home to my beloved North country safely.

I have a very special relationship with the power animals that are called fetishes by westerners. Indigenous people once carved these animal powers to be used only for healing and ceremony. Today some Indigenous peoples also carve them to sell. Some have become collectors’ items.  But my deeply personal relationship with these figures began just at the crossroad when some of these carved animals were first being carved for non – native peoples. I met a woman who had developed a relationship with the Zuni. This was a beginning for me. As I slowly acquired a few spirit bears, I somehow knew to create a bear circle, but this is a tale for another time.

I have digressed a bit to provide some context for the reader. For almost four years before the frightening dream  each spring I left an offering for Avanyu to the rising river waters. At these times I experienced the sense that I was participating in an  ancient ceremony in a way that I didn’t have to understand. I just had to do it. I often left flowers.

I also attended all the ceremonial dances that occurred throughout the year that were close to Abiquiu where I lived. The Tewa  Pueblos enacted “The Bow and Arrow Dance” which was held early each spring to honor Ayanyu’s powers. The dancers emerged from the kivas and in a sinewy line singing and the drumming hypnotizing some like me. Horned serpents adorned their clothing as the dancers moved from side to side in one unbroken line undulating like a serpent – swimming – in slience returning to the kivas…

To the pueblo peoples, Avanyu embodies the Spirit of the Waters. However, this powerful figure includes both earthly and cosmic aspects. Clouds, rain, lightening bodies of water and the fusion of earth and cosmos are all part of his powers. He’s an unbelievably ambiguous mulivalent figure. His roles in myth and ceremony are unpredictable – endings, beginnings, change, transitions, transformation. Bolts of lightning shoot from Avanyu’s mouth. He sustains Life itself. The  horned aspect is also a reference to lightning. It’s important to note that these serpent images stretch across the Four Corners region ( including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Mexico). That they are ancient in origin goes without saying. The secrets of the Horned Serpent are guarded closely. Discourse is limited.

I also visited a favorite store repeatedly in Santa Fe during the four years I lived in the high desert, eventually acquiring 3 -4 more carvings. The cosmic bear I bought I wear all year long. Snakes were also in evidence, but I stayed away from them until I came upon a ‘spirit pot’ that had Avanyu carved into its surface. The walnut sized pot was never sold, and finally during the last year I was compelled to buy it. Almost against my will.

For five years my pot has lived amongst the rest of my beloved spirit animals that reside in a hidden woven basket unless I bring them out for the eight ceremonies I celebrate during the course of the year. Since ‘First Light’ is upon us, while preparing for this ceremony that pot entered my circle along with my unease. Avanyu was exerting his serpent power, and I have learned that to ignore these nudges is to make mistakes, so I reluctantly included him. Now I will have to wait and see what his presence means…

Today is the first of February and last night we were blessed by a benign snowfall, light enough to shovel and deep enough to snowshoe…I feel gratitude erupting like a fountain. Winter beauty can be astonishing. As I was clearing paths on snowshoes I thought of the snake and created sinewy paths. My hope is that I too can follow Avanyu as I open to the coming light embodying elements of both –  light and darkness –  part of one whole.