The Symbol of the Snake

The Tree of Life and Death by Berthold Furtmeyr is a remarkable display of the story of Adam and Eve. It shows Adam slumbering in the Garden of Eden with the snake climbing up the Tree of Life, while two women were distributing the fruit to others: Eve from the Tree of Death and Maria Ecclesia, the mystic Bride of Christ, from the Tree of Life (see below).

What really got me about this picture was the snake as a symbol of the phallus climbing up the tree. Indeed, it displays Adam as being driven by a subconscious force. We think we are the master of our destiny while from a divine perspective we are still asleep. We have to respect the force of the phallus until the day we wake; before that, we simply have no choice.

While the snake in motion displayed as a phallus is a symbol of our human struggles, the erect snake is often displayed as a symbol for enlightenment. I recall a movie about the Buddha where he sits lost in meditation, and as it starts raining, a cobra moves up to him and covers his head from the rain, hovering over him in an erect pose. That's indeed the symbol of enlightenment, displaying the dissemination of the life force through the erect body into the brain rather than losing it in the act of ejaculation. Well, it is not really lost. but it takes both yin and yang during the sexual act to become one. Whereas enlightenment transcends both. Just as the bible says, when your two eyes become one, your body will be filled with light.

The last symbol that in a sense combines both cases is the symbol of the snake that bites its own tail and forms a circle. This could be called the symbol of the Tao. The Tree of Life and Death displays duality, Taoism transcends good and evil. The circle encompasses yin and yang, subconscious and conscious. The circle may not represent our notion of holiness, but it is whole. From a divine perspective all aspects of life are "perfect", may they be subconscious or not, male or female, enlightened or not.The circle comprises them all and that is Taoism.