Snakes Shed Skin Quotes

What you are now is not what you’ve always been, nor is it what you always will be. You are a snake. Shed your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better.

i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

Like a snake, my heart has shed its skin. I hold it here in my hand, full of honey and wounds. - New Heart

Like a snake sheds its skin, we are capable of getting rid of assembled habits, creating space to call matters into question. Instead of the Shakespearian " To be or not to be " we could favor " to become or not to become". By "becoming", we challenge the range of possibilities in our life and go beyond the merely "being". We can retreat, then, from the imprisonment of a deadly routine, acquire an identity and develop our personality. ( "Man without Qualities" )

Yesterday is skin on snake, to be shed many times.

A snake could shed its skin, but never change its color.

Forever was the fire-breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more. Forever was a work in progress. And I couldn't wait for forever.

Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know where you are. Everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it. Either way, there is a loss of control. Imagine yourself streaming through time shedding gloves, umbrellas, wrenches, books, friends, homes, names. This is what the view looks like if you take a rear-facing seat on the train. Looking forward you constantly acquire moments of arrival, moments of realization, moments of discovery. The wind blows your hair back and you are greeted by what you have never seen before. The material falls away in onrushing experience. It peels off like skin from a molting snake. Of course to forget the past is to lose the sense of loss that is also memory of an absent richness and a set of clues to navigate the present by; the art is not one of forgetting but letting go. And when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss.

If the snake sheds his skin before a new skin is ready, naked he will be in the world, prey to the forces of chaos. Without his skin he will be dismantled, lose coherence and die. Have you, my little serpents, a new skin?

It’s like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.

A snake that sheds its skin is still a snake.

No one else. It was me who had to carry myself over the finish line, and all I needed to remember when I felt like not trying was that that feeling wouldn't last forever. Forever. I used to believe it didn't exist. One word has terrified me as a child and it haunted me. But now I knew, and many small ways, but it was real, But it didn't scare me anymore. Forever wasn't a little girl cowering in the closet. Forever wasn't the shadows sitting in the back of the class. Forever wasn't doing what I thought Carl and Rose wanted instead of what I needed to do with my life. Forever wasn't believing I was some kind of replacement daughter and that I was letting them down. Forever wasn't being the one who needed protection. Forever wasn't pain and grief forever wasn't a problem. Forever was my heartbeat and it was the hope tomorrow held. Forever was the glistening silver lining of the dark cloud, no matter how heavy and thick it was. Forever was knowing it moments of weakness didn't equate to an eternity of them. Forever was knowing that I was strong. Forever was Carl and Rosa, Ainsley and Kira, Hector and Rider. Jaden would always be a part of my forever. Forever was in the fire-breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more. Forever was a work in progress. And I couldn't wait for forever.

Forever wasn't pain and grief. Forever wasn't a problem. Forever was my heartbeat and it was the hope tomorrow held. Forever was the glistening silver lining of every dark cloud, no matter how heavy and thick it was. Forever was knowing moments of weakness didn't equate to an eternityof them.Forever was knowing that I was strong.Forever was the fire breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more. Forever was a work in progress.

We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, like, say, masturbatory habits (for me, about once a day, usually in the shower), we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself. But it's just the opposite, more is more is more—more bleeding, more giving. These things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? He leaves it where he molts. Hours, days or months later, we come across a snake's long-shed skin and we know something of the snake, we know that it's of this approximate girth and that approximate length, but we know very little else. Do we know where the snake is now? What the snake is thinking now? No. By now the snake could be wearing fur; the snake could be selling pencils in Hanoi. The skin is no longer his, he wore it because it grew from him, but then it dried and slipped off and he and everyone could look at it.

Identity was a liquid state, ever interchangeable, and adaptable to its surroundings... It was better to not have favourites - a snake didn't mourn when it had to shed its skin.

The most dangerous enemy is not the one who lingers behind you in the shadows, but the one who walks beside you as a friend. They shape the world around you with well-constructed lies, entombing you in the gossamer of their deceit. You’ll never know their true face, for they shed their masks in layers—meticulous and devious, like the skin of an ever-changing snake.

A butterfly does not mourn the passing of its former caterpillar, nor a snake, the shedding of its former skin.

Like a snake, my heart has shed its skin. I hold it there in my hand, full of honey and wounds. The thoughts that nested in your folds, where are they now?...

A skin was nothing. Pigs had skins; snakes had skins. They were knitted of dead cells, shed and grown and shed again. But a name? That was a spell, which summoned memories.

A snake could shed its skin many times in its life, but it never stopped being a snake.

Keep creating new chapters in your personal book and never stop re-inventing and perfecting yourself. Try new things. Pick up new hobbies and books. Travel and explore other cultures. Never stay in the same city or state for more than five years of your life. There are many heavens on earth waiting for you to discover. Seek out people with beautiful hearts and minds, not those with just beautiful style and bodies. The first kind will forever remain beautiful to you, while the other will grow stale and ugly. Learn a new language at least twice. Change your career at least thrice, and change your location often. Like all creatures in the wild, we were designed to keep moving. When a snake sheds its old skin, it becomes a more refined creature. Never stop refining and re-defining yourself. We are all beautiful instruments of God. He created many notes in music so we would not be stuck playing the same song. Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your journey and play on. Nobody will ever reach ultimate perfection in this lifetime, but trying to achieve it is a full-time job. Start now and don't stop. Make your book of life a musical. Never abandon obligations, but have fun leaving behind a colorful legacy. Never allow anybody to be the composer of your own destiny. Take control of your life, and never allow limitations implanted by society, tell you how your music is supposed to sound — or how your book is supposed to be written.

Your body is not who you are. You shed it like a snake sheds its skin. Leave it, forgotten, behind you.

If I die today, will you remember me tomorrow? The love I'm leaving behind, will you care to borrow? From a snake-shed-skin or from the sky unknown In all living and the dead I'll dwell to groan

The center was not holding. It was a country of bankruptcy notices and public-auction announcements and commonplace reports of casual killings and misplaced children and abandoned homes and vandals who misplaced even the four-letter words they scrawled. It was a country in which families routinely disappeared, trailing bad checks and repossession papers. Adolescents drifted from city to torn city, sloughing off both the past and the future as snakes shed their skins, children who were never taught and would never now learn the games that had held the society together. People were missing. Children were missing. Parents were missing. Those left behind filed desultory missing- persons reports, then moved on themselves.

Snakes in the ancient world, because of their skin-shedding ability, often symbolized immortality or eternal youth.

I was thinking about how snakes shed their skin every year, and how awesome it would be if people did that too. In lots of ways, that’s what I was trying to do. As

However many times that snake sheds her skin, she’ll always be a snake.

Sometimes I think it done changed. And then I sleep and I wake up and it ain't changed none. It's like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.

The snake was first of all a symbol of eternal life (like the moon), since each time it shed its skin it seemed reborn. It represented cosmic continuity within natural change—spiritual continuity within the changes of material life.

There seems to be a different Chicago around every street corner, behind every bar, and within every apartment, two-flat, cottage, or bungalow. City of immigrants or city of heartless plutocrats, say what you will, Chicago almost defies interpretation. In many ways Chicago is like a snake that sheds its skin every thirty years or so and puts on a new coat to conform to a new reality.

A snake,” I replied, breath hitching. “I suppose . . . I’m a snake. A liar. A deceiver. Cursed to crawl on my belly and eat dust all the days of my life.” “Ah.” To my surprise, Claud’s face didn’t twist in disgust or revulsion. He nodded instead, a knowing smile playing on his lips. “Yes, I would agree with that assessment.” Humiliation hung my head. “Right. Thanks.” “Louise.” A single finger lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him. Those eyes, once warm, now blazed with intensity, with conviction. “What you are now is not what you’ve always been, nor is it what you always will be. You are a snake. Shed your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better.

The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.

We both had been expected to be daughters but turned out to be something else. We had shed our skins, not like snakes but insects—each of us a nymph outgrowing exoskeleton after exoskeleton, and morphing as we did. We didn’t know which molt would be our last, only that we might not be there yet, both of us rivers moving toward the sea.

Because somehow, the snake felt like a gift. A promise. That someday, someway, I’d be able to move on from this horror—shed my old skin and be reborn something stronger.

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.”  ― Gautama Buddha

You are a snake. Shed your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better.

perhaps death is the most daring adventure of all it could be that just as snakes shed their skin we must shed our bodies so our spirits can explore worlds that our bodies could simply never take us to

We are like snakes, she said. Throughout our lives we shed our previous selves like old skins. We're always changing, never the same individual. Nothing, not even a terrible thing, can fully consume us.

We are like snakes, she said. Throughout our lives we shed our previous selves like old skins. We’re always changing, never the same individual. Nothing, not even a terrible thing, can fully consume us.

You need a backbone to enter the Church of the Serpents. You need to have the guts to shed your old skin and undergo a metamorphosis. What are you capable of becoming? What transformation lies ahead of you?

It's like the cuffs cut all the way down to the bone. 'It's like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.' Like my marrow could carry a bruise.

Chance gave her the stink-eye. “You really outta know me better than that by now.” “Yeah, well, every time I think I do, the snake sheds his skin and starts all over again,” she said, eyes boring into his as she said it.

I’ve been praying for that same kind of discernment lately. I want to recognize the dangerous, potentially biting characters in my story: the people who create constant emotional debris with their destructive personalities or who refuse to shed the skin of deception, the ones who threaten the God-with-me peace in my life. I’m learning to keep my distance and to pray for snakes, but not make a habit of getting down in the dirt to play with them.

Every hero needs to venture into the Belly of the Beast. It’s essential to be devoured at least once by the monster. The hero never begins as a hero. He becomes a hero, and that entails the annihilation of his own, unheroic, former self. The hero always undergoes a metamorphosis, from ordinary to extraordinary. The hero, like the snake, sheds its old skin and takes on a new form. To change, you must enter a sacred space, a transformational space. Nothing ever changes in the ordinary space. The familiar world keeps you the same. It has no alchemical power. If you are confined in the same old world, you remain the same old person. You must cross the threshold into the New World.

[The Christian story] amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the wold. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora's box, but that's not sin, that's just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the all is that nature as we know it is corrupt, sex in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of sex is a corrupter. Why was the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to Adam and Eve? Without that knowledge, we'd all be a bunch of babies still Eden, without any participation in life. Woman brings life into the world. Eve is the mother o this temporal wold. Formerly you had a dreamtime paradise there in the Garden of Eden – no time, no birth, no death – no life. The serpent, who dies and is resurrected, shedding its skin and renewing its life, is the lord of the central tree, where time and eternity come together. He is the primary god, actually, in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the one who walks there in the cool of the evening, is just a visitor. The Garden is the serpent's place. It is an old, old story. We have Sumerian seals from as early as 3500 B.C. showing the serpent and the tree and the goddess, with the goddess giving the fruit of life to a visiting male. The old mythology of he goddess is right there.... There is actually a historical explanation [of the change of this image of the serpent and the snake in Genesis] based on the coming of the Hebrews into Canaan. The principal divinity of the people of Canaan was the Goddess and associated with the Goddess is the serpent. This is the symbol of the mystery of life. The male-god-oriented groups rejected it. In other words, there is a historical rejection of the Mother Goddess implied in the story of the Garden of Eden. Moyers: It does seem that this story has done women a great disservice by casting Eve as responsible for the Fall. Why...? Campbell: They represent life. Man doesn't enter life except by woman, and so it is woman who brings us into this wold of pairs of opposites and suffering.... Male and female is one opposition. Another opposition is the human and God. Good and evil is a third opposition. The primary oppositions are the sexual and that between human beings and God. Then comes the idea of good and evil in the world. And so Adm and Eve have thrown themselves out of the Garden of Timeless Unity, you might say, just by that act of recognizing duality. To move out into the world, you have to act in terms of pairs of opposites.

I confess that I sometimes felt like I was being launched into the endless expanses of space alone...But from the moment I had voiced my trans identity that first night, every step I took felt like coming home. Every step felt like healing, aching and uncomfortable as it began, but slowly hinting at a kind of relief, a feeling of rightness I’d never known before. I was shedding my skin like a snake. I knew it as soon as the itch began. I can only describe how I knew it as the unyielding certainty of instinct.

Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay, As the flowers recited their lines And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond. The pen was cool to the touch. The staircase swept upward Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy Already distilled in letters of the alphabet. It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar Palaces and also lines of care At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks, The color once known as "ashes of roses.-" How many snakes and lizards shed their skins For time to be passing on like this, Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now, Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand As a change is voiced, sharp As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed Past us into a basin called infinity. There was no charge for anything, the gates Had been left open intentionally. Don't follow, you can have whatever it is. And in some room someone examines his youth, Finds it dry and hollow, porous to the touch... O keep me with you, unless the outdoors Embraces both of us, unites us, unless The birdcatchers put away their twigs, The fishermen haul in their sleek empty nets And others become part of the immense crowd Around this bonfire, a situation That has come to mean us to us, and the crying In the leaves is saved, the last silver drops.

The longer she was here, the more she felt like a snake shedding its skin, like something tight and constricting was falling off her. For nine years she'd focused on her studies and her goals for the future, and now that her future was upon her, she wanted only to sink into the comfort of the past.

The name itself is trouble. “Slough” means, literally, muddy field. A snake sloughs, or sheds, its dead skin. John Bunyan wrote of the “slough of despond” in Pilgrim’s Progress. In the 1930s, John Betjeman wrote this poem about Slough: Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow, Swarm over, Death! Then he got nasty. To this day, the residents of Slough rankle when anyone mentions the poem. The town’s reputation as a showpiece of quiet desperation was cemented when the producers of the TV series The Office decided to set the show in Slough.

I was shivering with cold. The woman filled the pitcher again and repeated the process, but it looked less like a shower than a snake shedding its skin. The water slipped off her body like a transparent skin. “Unless I do this, I can’t forget the bad things. Instead of screaming out loud, I freeze the screams and rinse them from my skin.

My mind was caught up in an inexplicable mystery! I had changed, and it bothered me. Not like a subtle adaptation one would deem a nuisance, but vitally enough to eat at my gut. Like a snake slithering out of its old, scaly skin, I had somehow shed my previous self—a person whom I feared was my better self. How had this happened? And so fast! So drastically!

Transgender people are not caterpillars who transform into butterflies, as lovely as that tired analogy may be. We are more like pet snakes who slough off our skin to keep growing, in full view of anyone peeking through the glass. When we finish shedding, our old selves lay there for a while, decomposing. It’s not very glamorous, but it’s closer to the truth.

Snakes don’t think like that. To miss their shed skins they’d have to be aware in the same way people were. They’d have to recognize that the old skin just didn’t fit any more and that to miss it would be negating the value of the new one. They’d have to understand that the new skin couldn’t have come into being without the old skin going before and being cast aside.

If you want to be a fine new person with a fine new life you’ve got to put the person you were behind you, like a snake sheds its skin. You’ve got to stop picking through your hoard of hurts and grievances like a miser with his coins, set ’em down and allow yourself to go free. You’ve got to forgive and you’ve got to trust, not because anyone else deserves it, but because you do.

We think there is *one* planet called Earth, but there are thousands, even *millions*, like a snake shedding its skin every so often, but with all the old skins still bunched around it. You live inside the creature for quite a while, so it comes as a shock to find you're living now in one of the husked-off skins, and sometimes you can touch and know about the creature as it is now and sometimes you can't.

wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she’d been dead a long, long time. Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy’s mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask. I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. But I forced myself to take a deep breath. The mummy wasn’t alive. She

Grief is a cocoon from which we emerge new. Last year Liz’s beloved partner became very sick and started dying. I was far away, so each day I would send her messages that said, “I am sitting outside your door.” One day, my mom called and asked, “How is Liz?” I thought for a moment about how to answer. I realized I couldn’t because she’d asked me the wrong question. I said, “Mama, I think the question is not ‘How is Liz?’ The question is ‘Who is Liz? Who will she be when she emerges from this grief?’ ” Grief shatters. If you let yourself shatter and then you put yourself back together, piece by piece, you wake up one day and realize that you have been completely reassembled. You are whole again, and strong, but you are suddenly a new shape, a new size. The change that happens to people who really sit in their pain—whether it’s a sliver of envy lasting an hour or a canyon of grief lasting decades—it’s revolutionary. When that kind of transformation happens, it becomes impossible to fit into your old conversations or relationships or patterns or thoughts or life anymore. You are like a snake trying to fit back into old, dead skin or a butterfly trying to crawl back into its cocoon. You look around and see everything freshly, with the new eyes you have earned for yourself. There is no going back. Perhaps the only thing that makes grief any easier is to surrender completely to it. To resist trying to hold on to a single part of ourselves that existed before the doorbell rang. Sometimes to live again, we have to let ourselves die completely. We have to let ourselves become completely, utterly, new. When grief rings: Surrender. There is nothing else to do. The delivery is utter transformation.

The bird/snake Goddess represents the continuum of birth, death, and re-birth. The realms of the bird and snake cover all of the worlds. Birds soar in the heavens while some birds also occupy the waters; snakes live on the earth and in the Underworld, and likewise, water snakes occupy the waters. Both bird and snake embody graphic depictions of birth, since both are oviparous. Both creatures represent regeneration as well, since birds molt and snakes shed their skin. In Neolithic Europe, death and rebirth were tied together in the tomb which served as a ritual place for rebirth: the tomb could also represent the womb. In her death aspect, a Goddess such as Medusa turns people to stone—a form of death, since all human activity ceases for those thus ossified. Read against iconographies of the bird/snake goddesses, one can identify ways in which the Underworld Goddess, the Goddess of death, gives birth to life. Like Ereshkigal, with her leeky hair, Medusa, with her snaky hair, is also a birth-giver. But in Medusa’s case, she gives birth as she is dying, whereas in the earlier, Sumerian myth, the process of death led to regeneration; the Goddess of the Underworld did not have to die in the process of giving birth; she who presided over death presided over rebirth. The winged snake Goddess, before Perseus severs her head, is whole; in prehistory, she would have been a Goddess of all worldly realms. When Medusa’s head is severed, she becomes disembodied. Disembodied wisdom is very dangerous. Hence, she becomes monstrous. It is her chthonic self which the classical world acknowledges: Medusa becomes the snaky-haired severed head, a warning to all women to hide their powers, their totalities. This fearsome aspect goes two ways: she can destroy, but she also brings protection. In patriarchal societies, the conception of life and death is often perceived as linear rather than circular.

and, amongst others, my breviary with the gold corners, which I beg he will preserve in remembrance of his affectionate uncle.' "The heirs sought everywhere, admired the breviary, laid hands on the furniture, and were greatly astonished that Spada, the rich man, was really the most miserable of uncles — no treasures — unless they were those of science, contained in the library and laboratories. That was all. Caesar and his father searched, examined, scrutinized, but found nothing, or at least very little; not exceeding a few thousand crowns in plate, and about the same in ready money; but the nephew had time to say to his wife before he expired: `Look well among my uncle's papers; there is a will.' "They sought even more thoroughly than the august heirs had done, but it was fruitless. There were two palaces and a vineyard behind the Palatine Hill; but in these days landed property had not much value, and the two palaces and the vineyard remained to the family since they were beneath the rapacity of the pope and his son. Months and years rolled on. Alexander VI. died, poisoned, — you know by what mistake. Caesar, poisoned at the same time, escaped by shedding his skin like a snake; but the new skin was spotted by the poison till it looked like a tiger's. Then, compelled to quit Rome, he went and got himself obscurely killed in a night skirmish, scarcely noticed in history. After the pope's death and his son's exile, it was supposed that the Spada family would resume the splendid position they had held before the cardinal's time; but this was not the case. The Spadas remained in doubtful ease, a mystery hung over this dark affair, and the public rumor was, that Caesar, a better politician than his father, had carried off from the pope the fortune of the two cardinals. I say the two, because Cardinal Rospigliosi, who had not taken any precaution, was completely despoiled. "Up to this point," said Faria, interrupting the thread of his narrative, "this seems to you very meaningless, no doubt, eh?" "Oh, my friend," cried Dantes, "on the contrary, it seems as if I were

Hennessy carefully patted the blood away to reveal the tattoo. It was difficult to not be overwhelmed by the realness of it, the permanence of it. Part of him expected her to just wipe the blood and ink away to reveal bare skin, but instead, his entire left arm was patterned darkly from shoulder to wrist with something like chain mail. No, like snakeskin. Each scale was a pure dark green, and the only place his skin showed through was in a narrow line to indicate the edge of each interlocking scale. It felt like a lifetime ago he and Hennessy had held a snake in the abandoned museum. Bryde had ordered them to look at the reptile, to study it, take in its details in case they wanted to dream it later. They had. But Hennessy had been wide awake, not dreaming, when she’d painted these scales up and down his skin. “Fuck you,” he told her. “This is so good.” She gave him the ghost of a smile. “Welcome back, Ronan Lynch.” It was still jarring to be Ronan Lynch. Time behaved so differently here; it was important here. One did not have endless dark moments to fill; human lives were so short, so urgent— “Where’s Adam?” Hennessy asked, “What?” “Adam. My Adam. Adam!

For a moment, the fog remained unmoved. It sat around, swirling in place, very clearly listening but showing no sign of offering answers. Then, just as Nausicaä began to contemplate conjuring a few more fireballs, the fog began to thin. Little by little it drained from the air until, finally, all that was left was a vaguely damp, translucent haze. She could only stare at what was revealed. “Huh,” she breathed when speech at last overcame her surprise. “This is…new.” It wasn’t just the changelings that had gathered. They were present, of course—one mere step away. Nausicaä briefly took in the unmistakable pale green tint of his fawn-brown skin and the snaking twists of ivy that grew from the sharp flares of his little shoulders. But there were others. There were so many others. In all of Nausicaä’s very long life, she had never encountered so many of magic’s children in one place. The crowd of them stretched far in almost every direction, faces of all shapes and sizes peeking out of the foliage and trees. There were centaurs, goblins, brownies, imps and sprites. There were redcaps, with their crimson-stained hats and vicious scythes, which glinted in the moonlight. There were kelpies dripping sodden weeds, lilies strangled in their manes. Littered throughout the branches above were crows that weren’t really crows at all, but sluagh—wandering souls of the violent dead who preyed on those soon to die. There were larger things too. Unnameable things. Things that had undoubtedly been calling this forest their home long before Nausicaä had ever been born. She narrowed her eyes at the distance—something massive as a mobile hill stood still as silence too far away for mortal eyes to see. Their form was not unlike an overlarge, poisonous tree frog, all vibrant blues and yellows and greens, a crown of velvet antlers on their head and hundreds of glittering black eyes on their face. A freaking Forest Guardian, she would hazard a guess, not that she’d ever seen one to say for sure. “Uh…okay, well, weird time to have a company meeting, but you do you, I guess. I’m going to…go. Gar, maybe it’s best you stick with these guys until I square things up with my Reaper. Thanks for lifting the fog, forest brats! Good luck with…whatever this is. May the force be with you.” She turned back around. There weren’t any faeries in front of her, either—just trees and misty gloom and a darkness unnatural even for this time of night. And, of course, the glass-chime tinkling of magic, which now sounded to her a bit distressed.

Nevertheless, it would be prudent to remain concerned. For, like death, IT would come: Armageddon. There would be-without exaggeration-a series of catastrophes. As a consequence of the evil in man...-no mere virus, however virulent, was even a burnt match for our madness, our unconcern, our cruelty-...there would arise a race of champions, predators of humans: namely earthquakes, eruptions, tidal waves, tornados, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts-the magnificent seven. Floods, winds, fires, slides. The classical elements, only angry. Oceans would warm, the sky boil and burn, the ice cap melt, the seas rise. Rogue nations, like kids killing kids at their grammar school, would fire atomic-hydrogen-neutron bombs at one another. Smallpox would revive, or out of the African jungle would slide a virus no one understood. Though reptilian only in spirit, the disease would make us shed our skins like snakes and, naked to the nerves, we'd expire in a froth of red spit. Markets worldwide would crash as reckless cars on a speedway do, striking the wall and rebounding into one another, hurling pieces of themselves at the spectators in the stands. With money worthless-that last faith lost-the multitude would riot, race against race at first, God against God, the gots against the gimmes. Insects hardened by generations of chemicals would consume our food, weeds smother our fields, fire ants, killer bees sting us while we're fleeing into refuge water, where, thrashing we would drown, our pride a sodden wafer. Pestilence. War. Famine. A cataclysm of one kind or another-coming-making millions of migrants. Wearing out the roads. Foraging in the fields. Looting the villages. Raping boys and women. There'd be no tent cities, no Red Cross lunches, hay drops. Deserts would appear as suddenly as patches of crusty skin. Only the sun would feel their itch. Floods would sweep suddenly over all those newly arid lands as if invited by the beach. Forest fires would burn, like those in coal mines, for years, uttering smoke, making soot for speech, blackening every tree leaf ahead of their actual charring. Volcanoes would erupt in series, and mountains melt as though made of rock candy till the cities beneath them were caught inside the lava flow where they would appear to later eyes, if there were any eyes after, like peanuts in brittle. May earthquakes jelly the earth, Professor Skizzen hotly whispered. Let glaciers advance like motorboats, he bellowed, threatening a book with his fist. These convulsions would be a sign the parasites had killed their host, evils having eaten all they could; we'd hear a groan that was the going of the Holy Ghost; we'd see the last of life pissed away like beer from a carouse; we'd feel a shudder move deeply through this universe of dirt, rock, water, ice, and air, because after its long illness the earth would have finally died, its engine out of oil, its sky of light, winds unable to catch a breath, oceans only acid; we'd be witnessing a world that's come to pieces bleeding searing steam from its many wounds; we'd hear it rattling its atoms around like dice in a cup before spilling randomly out through a split in the stratosphere, night and silence its place-well-not of rest-of disappearance. My wish be willed, he thought. Then this will be done, he whispered so no God could hear him. That justice may be served, he said to the four winds that raged in the corners of his attic.

with sin. Eve was tempted by a serpent (a phallic power symbol). It is interesting to note that the serpent has always been a symbol of power rather than a symbol of either good or evil in and of itself. Its ability to shed its skin makes it an especially appropriate symbol of eternal life. While snakes generally have a bad name even in our modern times, we might remember that Moses used serpents to prove that he was a more powerful magician than the Pharaoh's magicians. (Ex 8:1-12) "And the Lord spake to Moses ... take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh and it shall become a serpent." Moses' supreme

thought it was Mike who was sobbing. The poor guy! And then there was the time the magic wind switcherooed Katie into Slinky, class 4A’s pet snake. Just thinking about shedding Slinky’s skin still made her itch. Most fourth-grade girls don’t shed. The magic wind was the reason Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. She knew what kinds of weird things could happen if they came true. But she still really, really wanted a Christmas tree, even if she couldn’t wish for one. Luckily, Katie didn’t have to wish this time. Instead, Nick said, “I think we should go to a tree farm and pick one out.

Keep creating new chapters in your personal book and never stop re-inventing and perfecting yourself. Try new things. Pick up new hobbies and books. Travel and explore other cultures. Never stay in the same city or state for more than five years of your life. There are many heavens on earth waiting for you to discover. Seek out people with beautiful hearts and minds, not those with just beautiful style and bodies. The first kind will forever remain beautiful to you, while the other will grow stale and ugly. Learn a new language at least twice. Change your career at least thrice, and change your location often. Like all creatures in the wild, we were designed to keep moving. When a snake sheds its old skin, it becomes a more refined creature. Never stop refining and re-defining yourself. Transformations are an integral part of life. Just look at the seasons or the weather.

She’d make her way over to me slowly, and I’d get to my feet and close the distance between us, snaking my arms around her waist and pulling her close against my body. She’d look up at me, her eyes suddenly widening as she realized that it was finally happening. Then, our lips would touch and nothing in the world would matter but the feeling of her body against mine, her skin next to my own.

Sometimes fiction can help bring the authentic feeling of a personal encounter to history in ways that are tough to manage in historical non-fiction. I like both genres, but I've definitely read non-fiction that reads like a snake's shed skin while purporting to describe the living, moving snake.

Falco’s eyes flickered when he saw Cristian. “This one is actually with me,” he said, slipping an arm around Cass’s waist. “Then you might want to keep a closer eye on her.” Cristian nodded curtly at Falco and turned back toward the salon. Looking back over his shoulder, Falco added, “They tell me she’s got special skills.” He let his hand slide even lower, onto one of Cass’s slender hips, as he directed her back out into the night. Cass pulled away from Falco the second the door shut and they were out of the man’s line of vision. “Special skills?” Her voice burned with acid. Falco grinned. “You mean you don’t?” He leaned in close and snaked both his arms around her waist. “I’m going to require a refund then.” His breath was hot against her neck. Cass couldn’t help it. She saw the room with the candles again, her naked body intertwined with Falco’s, the two of them so close together they were practically wearing the same skin. Her whole body went rigid at the thought. “Oh come on,” Falco whispered in her ear. “I was joking. Acting the part.” Cass softened a little bit but still pulled back from his embrace. She couldn’t think of him that way when she was angry. She shouldn’t think of him that way at all. She took a deep breath and tried to regain control of her thoughts. “And acting the part requires you to put your hands all over me? Or is that just an extra benefit?” She didn’t know if she was more angry at Falco for treating her like a common prostitute or for leaving her alone in that house full of brutes. Falco rolled his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cassandra. I prefer my women a little less…repressed.” Without thinking, Cass reached out and slapped him. Her palm connected with the side of Falco’s face with a satisfying smack. She withdrew her hand immediately, horrified at what she’d done. To her surprise, Falco started laughing. “That’s more like it,” he said, his blue eyes lighting up the night. He rubbed the side of his face. “I think that’s going to leave a mark.” “I--I’m sorry,” Cass said. A red blotch began to form across Falco’s cheekbone. “Don’t be. I’m sure I deserved it. If not now, then at sometime in the past.” He winked. “Or the future.

Safer than being a mouse in a barrel of snakes, that's for sure. Be on the lookout for mice friends, who are really just snakes waiting to shed their skin.

When does an idea become a plan, he wondered; a plan turn to action and gain an irreversible thrust? Like a snake, he was shedding his old skin, and feeling lighter with each sloughing.

Owen felt like he was bearing witness to the birth of someone new, like watching the rising of a phoenix or a snake shedding an ill-fitting skin. She hadn't taken her clothes off with the aim to seduce him, and that made the act even more enticing... Awareness, a new state of herself, that was what she was after, and in it she was glorious.

When a snake sheds its skin it lets go of the dead, dysfunctional layer. The new and wholesome skin, the new self, is already inside. It is just a matter of writhing, massaging or employing other kinds of work and energy to get the old skin off. Being likened to a slithering reptile may give us the creeps, but let’s take what we can from this metaphor. It doesn’t matter if our guidance comes from a Higher Power or an inner voice—the snake’s shedding of its skin is a useful likeness to the process. Our better self, higher self or our Good Orderly Direction is already inside us.

People in town gossiped and clucked their tongues about Mama Mags, wondering to one another how a person could live all alone like that, but it sounded alright to Juniper. She’d never had any interest in boys or betrothals or the things that came after; she’d figured she’d spend her days clearing henbit and cudweed from the herb-garden and chatting with the sycamores. In the fall-times maybe she and her red staff would go walking in the hills with a basket over her arm, collecting foxglove and ninebark, snake-skins and bone, sleeping beneath the clean light of stars.

~Infernal Serpent ~ Winds are venomous these days. Masked under a dark silhouette, their smile parades the fossil roots of deceit. Nibbling wings, of which they learnt to fly. Hands blemished red Have you slaughtered a rose lately? The face bleached in dismay tongue weakened. I ain't, the fear following you Like a cloud passing above your shadow. Run!! How far? There is no path across the desert. Fright of a nomad creates mirage in distance Standing in silence, I want to witness the snake shedding its skin again.

Always pursue glory. Shine like the stars. Burn up with ambition. Shed your old skin. Try, try, and try again. Fail, fail, and fail again. But fail better, and one day you will not fail at all.

His head throbbed beyond mere headache. This went deeper. For a brief moment, as the tiny voices chattered, unintelligible—what were they saying?—Mad Mike felt a familiar panic surge within him. And though he told himself he'd never do it, he understood a .45 round as a solution—a messenger of peace, an exit. And that knowledge, that intimacy, terrified him. He felt strangely tired and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool window. He wanted to shed his uniform, like a snake's skin, and to sleep for a very long time. A dim room. Clean sheets. The hum of an air conditioner. The touch of an understanding woman. Not even sexual—a mother maybe. And the realization all of that was so far away. He opened his eyes. It was all still here.

What you are now is not what you've always been, nor is it what you always will be. You are a snake. Shed your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better.

She had changed the course of my life in a way that was irrevocable, yet she was going off to England to forget this place. I could see how easy it was for them to slip into new lives, shed their skin and grow new ones like snakes

(Battle with Maleger) As pale and wan as ashes was his looke, His bodie leane and meagre as a rake, And skin all withered like a dryed rooke, Thereto as cold and drery as a Snake, That seem’d to tremble euermore, and quake: All in a canuas thin he was bedight, And girded with a belt of twisted brake, Vpon his head he wore an Helmet light, Made of a dead mans skull, that seem’d a ghastly sight. Maleger was his name, and after him, There follow’d fast at hand two wicked Hags, With hoarie lockes all loose, and visage grim; Their feet vnshod, their bodies wrapt in rags, And both as swift on foot, as chased Stags; And yet the one her other legge had lame, Which with a staffe, all full of litle snags She did support, and Impotence her name: But th’other was Impatience, arm’d with raging flame. So braue returning, with his brandisht blade, He to the Carle himselfe againe addrest, And strooke at him so sternely, that he made An open passage through his riuen brest, That halfe the Steele behind his back did rest; Which drawing backe, he looked euermore When the hart bloud should gush out of his chest, Or his dead corse should fall vpon the flore; But his dead corse vpon the flore fell nathemore. Ne drop of bloud appeared shed to bee, All were the wounde so wide and wonderous, That through his carkasse one might plainely see: Halfe in a maze with horror hideous, And halfe in rage, to be deluded thus, Againe through both the sides he strooke him quight, That made his spright to grone full piteous: Yet nathemore forth fled his groning spright, But freshly as at first, prepard himselfe to fight. His wonder farre exceeded reasons reach, That he began to doubt his dazeled sight, And oft of error did himselfe appeach: Flesh without bloud, a person without spright, Wounds without hurt, a bodie without might, That could doe harme, yet could not harmed bee, That could not die, yet seem’d a mortall wight, That was most strong in most infirmitee; Like did he neuer heare, like did he neuer see. His owne good sword Mordure, that neuer fayld At need, till now, he lightly threw away, And his bright shield, that nought him now auayld, And with his naked hands him forcibly assayld. He then remembred well, that had bene sayd, How th’Earth his mother was, and first him bore; She eke so often, as his life decayd, Did life with vsury to him restore, And raysd him vp much stronger then before, So soone as he vnto her wombe did fall; Therefore to ground he would him cast no more, Ne him commit to graue terrestriall, But beare him farre from hope of succour vsuall. Vpon his shoulders carried him perforse Aboue three furlongs, taking his full course, Vntill he came vnto a standing lake; Him thereinto he threw without remorse, Ne stird, till hope of life did him forsake; So end of that Carles dayes, and his owne paines did make.

I’ve never felt like this before. I’m a snake shedding my skin. A pupa hatching into a butterfly.

The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes.

We all know what it means to be lost, to be alone, Little Bird, but together? Together, we’re stronger. We shed that life, like a snake sheds its skin—” “And became the Vipers,” she finishes, sighing. “Fuck, why did you tell me? It makes it harder to hate you.

No matter how many times a snake sheds its skin, it will always be a snake. Remember that before allowing certain people back into your life.

Shed the shell of fear, a voice inside proclaimed, like the snake does its skin. “Enough,

What was in her retracted, slipped out easy as a snake shedding its skin.

I sense something deep inside me drawing me in, tugging at me like an undertow. I want to give in to it, be seized by it. I want to give up my bearings, slip out of who I am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

He looked up as I approached. His eyes were rheumy, and he looked lost. His chronic psoriasis had gotten much worse since I’d last seen him: large flakes of skin were coming off his cheeks and forehead. He reminded me of a molting reptile, a snake shedding its skin, as if the scales were falling away to reveal his corrupt inner core. But then he smiled when he saw me, and the old familiar glint was in his eyes. He waited for me to sit down, adjust my chair, the legs scraping against the linoleum. Then he said, “They must have told you.” “Told me what?” I said. “About the cancer.

Remember, it is only mankind that weeps, and the manlier you are, the more you should do so.  Augustine says that the more saintly a person is and full of holy desires, the more tears he should shed during prayer. Oh happy tears that wreck our enemies, that drown evil thoughts, that extinguish the flames of our wrong desires, that wash away the stains of our sins, that moisten the hardness of our heart and soften it towards God! The ship of our desire sails swiftly over you to him, for the wind of the Holy Spirit never fails to purify and move our tears. The sinner bathes himself in you like the snake so that he may the more easily cast the skin of his past life by means of the narrow passage of penance.

Like a snake on a rock, I have shed my skin and grown another. I feel reborn and ready to resume activities.

We identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes us one less of oneself. But it's just the opposite, more is more is more-- more bleeding, more giving. These things, details, stories, whatever are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? He leaves it where it molts. Hours, days or months later, we come across a snake's long-shed skin and we know something of the snake, we know that it's of this approximate girth and that approximate length, but we know very little else. Do we know where the snake is now? What the snake is thinking now? No. By now the snake could be wearing fur; the snake could be selling pencils in Hanoi. The skinks no longer his, he wore it because it grew from him, but then it dried and slipped off and he and everyone could look at it.

Poets and Snakes [10w] Everyday I my skin is shed to grow ~ and be reborn.

If I shed my skin like a shed, rather than a snake, then you might expect me to have shingles.

After I paid my admission fee, I saw that the reptile enclosures were kept perfectly clean--the snakes glistened. I kept rescued animals myself at home. I knew zoos, and I knew the variety of nightmares they can fall into. But I saw not a sign of external parasites on these animals, no old food rotting in the cages, no feces or shed skin left unattended. So I enjoyed myself. I toured around, learned about the snakes, and fed the kangaroos. It was a brilliant, sunlit day. “There will be a show at the crocodile enclosures in five minutes,” a voice announced on the PA system. “Five minutes.” That sounded good to me. I noticed the crocodiles before I noticed the man. There was a whole line of crocodilians: alligators, freshwater crocodiles, and one big saltie. Amazing, modern-day dinosaurs. I didn’t know much about them, but I knew that they had existed unchanged for millions of years. They were a message from our past, from the dawn of time, among the most ancient creatures on the planet. Then I saw the man. A tall, solid twentysomething (he appeared younger than he was, and had actually turned twenty-nine that February), dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts, barefoot, with blond flyaway hair underneath a big Akubra hat and a black-banded wristwatch on his left wrist. Even though he was big and muscular, there was something kind and approachable about him too. I stood among the fifteen or twenty other park visitors and listened to him talk. “They can live as long as or even longer than us,” he said, walking casually past the big saltwater croc’s pond. “They can hold their breath underwater for hours.” He approached the water’s edge with a piece of meat. The crocodile lunged out of the water and snapped the meat from his hand. “This male croc is territorial,” he explained, “and females become really aggressive when they lay eggs in a nest.” He knelt beside the croc that had just tried to nail him. “Crocodiles are such good mothers.” Every inch of this man, every movement and word exuded his passion for the crocodilians he passed among. I couldn’t help but notice that he never tried to big-note himself. He was there to make sure his audience admired the crocs, not himself. I recognized his passion, because I felt some of it myself. I spoke the same way about cougars as this Australian zookeeper spoke about crocs. When I heard there would be a special guided tour of the Crocodile Environmental Park, I was first in line for a ticket. I had to hear more. This man was on fire with enthusiasm, and I felt I really connected with him, like I was meeting a kindred spirit. What was the young zookeeper’s name? Irwin. Steve Irwin.

Prevne was crawling with agents, he went, even if you went to buy a newspaper your identification was checked. "Easier to have it tattooed on, like you," said Kasimir, "Move your foot, Stefan."—"Move your fat rump, then."—" Oh, mine are German numbers, out of date. A few more wars and I'll run out of skin." --- "Shed it, then, like a snake."---No, they go right down to the bone." --- Shed your bones, then," Stefan said, *be a jellyfish. Be an amoeba. When they pin me down, I bud off. Two little spineless Stefans where they thought they had one MR 64100282A. Four of them, eight, sixteen thirty-two sixty-four a hundred and twenty-eight, I would entirely cover the surface of the globe were it not for my natural enemies.

The real transformation upon the awakening of kundalini is that you shed your old tendencies and negativity like a snake sheds its old skin. You no longer feel angry or flustered over trivial matters unlike the earlier times. Your emotions and thoughts don’t overpower and trample all over you anymore. You begin to gain control of yourself.

One of the most difficult aspects of jumping to a new curve is setting aside your ego. In her essay, "Shedding My Skin," Rebecca Jackson writes, "Have you ever let go of something that simultaneously protects and strangles you; something that both defines you, but also suffocates your evolution? just like a snake shedding its skin, you have to lose something critical to grow, leaving you vulnerable and exposed in the process."7 When we take a step down to gain momentum for an upward surge, for a time we will know less than those around us. This can deal a blow to the ego. In achievement-oriented cultures, it is very difficult to look dumb even temporarily, asking questions like, "Am I doing this correctly?" especially to lower-status team members. MIT professor emeritus Edgar Schein describes a willingness to acknowledge that "in the here-and-now my status is inferior to yours because you know something or can do something that I need in order to accomplish a task or goal" as the art of humble inquiry. For many, this can feel very painful. In fact, in some cultures, says Schein, "task failure is preferable to humiliation and loss of face."8

Leave your limiting-self just like a snake shedding its skin so that you can go beyond your own frontiers!

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he said in a dangerous drawl, “and you just gave me the excuse I needed.” “What—what are you talking about?” Lily demanded, stepping backwards. A drop of rainwater from the leaky roof landed with a disconcerting ker-plop on the top of her head. Caleb was unbuttoning his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves. “I’m talking,” he replied evenly, “about raising blisters on your sweet little backside.” Lily was careful to keep to the opposite side of the table. “Now, Caleb, that wouldn’t be wise.” “Oh, I think it would be about the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Caleb answered, advancing on her again. Lily kept the table between them. “I might be pregnant!” she reasoned desperately. “Then again,” Caleb countered, “you might not.” The muscles of his forearms were corded, the skin covered with maple-sugar hair. “I wasn’t going to shoot you—I only wanted to scare you away.” Lily dodged him, moving from one side of the table to the other, always keeping it between them. “Caleb, be reasonable. I wouldn’t shoot you—I love you!” “I love you, too,” Caleb returned in a furious croon, “and right now I’d like nothing better than to shoot you!” Lily picked up a chair and held it as she’d seen a lion tamer do in an illustration in one of her beloved dime novels. Helga of the Circus, if she remembered correctly. “Now, just stay back, Caleb. If you lay a hand on me, I assure you, you’ll regret it!” “I doubt that very much,” Caleb replied. And then he gripped one leg of the chair, and Lily realized what a pitiful defense it had been. He set it easily on the floor even as his other arm shot out like a coiled snake and caught Lily firmly by the wrist. Like a man sitting down to a cigar and a glass of port after a good dinner Caleb dropped comfortably into the chair. With a single tug he brought Lily facedown across his lap. Quick as mercury he had her skirts up and her drawers down, and when she struggled he simply imprisoned her between his thighs scissor fashion. “Caleb Halliday,” Lily gasped, writhing between his legs, “you let me go this instant!” “Or else you’ll do what?” he asked evenly. Lily felt his hand caress one cheek of her bottom and then the other, as though charting them for assault. “I’ll scream, and Hank Robbins will run over here and shoot you for the rascal you are!” Caleb laughed thunderously at that. “You’ve had your little joke,” Lily huffed, “now let me up!” “No,” Caleb replied. Lily threw back her head and screamed as loudly as she could. “You can do better than that,” Caleb said. “Hell, nobody would hear a whimper like that in this rain.” Lily filled her lungs to capacity and screamed again. She was as surprised as Caleb when the door flew open and Velvet burst in, ready for battle. Color filled her face when she understood the situation. In no particular rush, Caleb released Lily, and she scrambled to her feet unassisted, blushing painfully as she righted her drawers and lowered her skirts. Caleb chuckled at her indignation and then stood up respectfully.

Snakes shed their skin, cats their fur, manta rays their teeth. Man sheds used-up objects: he leaves an open Nesquik tin and a dirty glass on the kitchen counter, an open toothpaste tube, unmade beds, their sheets stained with urine; he leaves grandfather clocks, cigarette burns in the ashtrays, comics that have been scrawled on and books borrowed from the school library; he leaves clothes in the wardrobes and food in the fridge.

In her imagination she was somewhere dry and sunbaked, with a drink in her hand and the smell of cut flowers close by, filling her with happiness and tranquility. The dream faded as a blade of saw grass sliced her forearm just aft of her glove, bringing her back to the reality that she was wading through a god-awful-smelling canal full of snakes, leeches, and vermin. She’d spent almost an hour up to her neck in the slimy ditch, pushing a large clump of water hyacinth along with her to break up the outline of a human head. Her body felt like it would never dry out once she climbed out of this dank water, and even if it did, she was convinced she’d never be able to wash the smell of rotten vegetation off her skin