For Serpent, in some cosmologies, the direction is South, the element is Water, the time is Night, the season is Winter. Here the human person is held between sunset and the dawn, poised to begin the journey into this world. It is the time before birth, the time of gestation, reflection, preparation. A time of acceptance, all is as it is, a time before the separation of the Earth and Sky. In the journey of the human, it is the path from birth through to adolescence, the time when we are nurtured and instructed, when we know that our earthly and heavenly parents will hold us, protect us and provide for us in our innocence and beauty. She is the great Serpent, mother of the Waters, the Sachamama of the Americas. the world serpent of the Saxons, the Kundalini of the Hindus, the Caduceus of the Greeks; it is she who is the archetype, the unifying principle of holding, of stillness, of binding, of connection. In this place is the perfect circle of Ouroborus, the serpent who holds her tail in her mouth, who holds the earth together. The perfect circle of life and death, in the place from which we emerge, the place of the beginning of the dark nights and the bright days.

Source: Sunflower Stories, by Deborah Lowen.