I interviewed Anne Baring yesterday (Click to enjoy the interview). She is the writer of Dream of the cosmos and she talked about the Shekinah. The Shekinah is an ancient Goddess, refered to in Judaism as the “dwelling particle of God”. The holy spirit in the Catholic church. The vision of Shekinah came to her in a dream. A life changing dream that took several decades to show its meaning. Anne told me that “This was not only a dream for me, but a dream for everybody in the cosmos”. A Big Dream.
Maybe, just like me, you can grasp Shekinah intuitively. I always thought of God as the goodness of all living things on earth, combined into one energy. It makes sense to me to call this energy Shekenah. In early Judaism she was known as the Wisdom Goddess, later also known as Sophia. Read about it in this book: The Cosmic Shekina: A historical study of the goddess
Because I am a curious person, I bought myself one of the best books about Shekinah: the cosmic Shekinah. A dove is on the book cover: there is a special relationship between Shekina and the dove. Here is the writer David Rankine explaining this himself. The Dove used to be a bird of wisdom. Remember how Noah sent out a dove to check if the waters had lowered enough?
In this exciting book Sorita D’Este and David Rankine show how Shekinah is related to Isis the Egyptian mother Goddess, to Inanna the Sumerian Goddess that had to decent to hell to find life and to Astarte, the goddess of fertility in Canaan.
The snake we all know from the bible as the bad guy who seduced Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit, is the companion of Shekinah. But as a symbol of healing. The snake is the symbol of life after death and resurrection. Sometimes in churches, Mother Mary (the most modern expression of the ancient Mother Goddess) stands on a snake. The snake as a symbol of power.
I can recommend this book to you if you want to know more about the divine feminine. And Anne Baring re-defined femininity. It is not about women, not about power. It is about fertility. It is about growth. About nurturing. About the inner light. In both males and females.
The symbolism of the snake as a guide for Shekinah also speaks to the dual nature of the divine feminine—bringing both wisdom and transformation. The snake’s association with healing and resurrection highlights the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth that Shekinah embodies. In many cultures, the serpent is a symbol of renewal, casting off old skin to emerge renewed. This mirrors the feminine power of Shekinah, who encourages us to shed outdated notions and reconnect with our deeper, more intuitive selves. As the serpent sheds its skin, so too does the divine feminine invite us to transform and evolve, not through dominance, but through nurturing, self-discovery, and growth.
The presence of Shekinah as a spiritual guide reminds us of the importance of balance between light and dark, creation and destruction. Just as the snake is both feared and revered across various traditions, Shekinah represents the nurturing and transformative energy that exists within all of us, regardless of gender. This energy calls us to recognize the importance of inner wisdom and to embrace both our light and shadow aspects. In doing so, we come closer to understanding the divine feminine that transcends societal constructs, empowering us to live a life in alignment with the greater cosmos. Through Shekinah and her serpent companion, we are reminded that true power lies in our ability to nurture and grow—on both a personal and collective level.
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I love snake dreams (Shakti symbolism), mine are mostly positive. These 2 dream segments are my favorite so far:
“Recall going into a public bathroom with a huge sleeping snake (pale yellow with darker yellow leopard-like spots / head bigger than mine) on a counter elevated to like head height – the snake was part of this bathroom – the bathroom was painted red and seemed to glow. Adam was on line to get into bathroom someone saw us hugging and told his girlfriend – she was all tensed up. When she approached and saw it was me she relaxed – I looked up, saw her and we embraced. Adam went into a vacant stall. He was in there a while. When he came out he looked high – I said, “its like being on acid and shrooms all at once being in there.” He was starry-eyed saying “mind blowing.” It had something to do with the sleeping snake – like experiencing its dreams.”
And…
“As we are leaving a huge albino snake with pale yellow leopard spots outlined in light brown (dream of this type several times now) drops from the ceiling – hanging from the ceiling still – it starts licking my eyes intensely like a dog would do to your face when they love you and are happy to see you. I let go of Lyric (dog I use to have in WPR) and tell him to run because I think he is small enough to be swallowed by the snake. I shut my eyes tightly and stand there for a while letting it lick my eyes before I leave the house. “
These are powerful dreams. With a strong connection between snakes and eyes… The skilled eye of the healer?
~Being kissed or bitten by the snake in ancient times meant that you were selected to be a healer.
Nowadays, the dream belongs to the dreamer. Have you taken specific actiondanything because of this dream or did you let it go its own way?