Grace Under Snake

My friend Larry and I once sneaked into the Greenville reservoir to fish over a Labor Day weekend. We brought a tent and sleeping bags, but the weather was mild and the sky was clear so the first night we decided we’d just sleep under the stars.

Sometime in the middle of the night my body warned me something was not right. I woke with a start to the horrifying awareness that there was a snake lying across my chest. A really big, thick, heavy snake.

On automatic pilot my head had shot up immediately, but since the rest of me was in the sleeping bag, this had been my only movement so far.

It was enough to startle the snake, whose head turned toward my face. I could clearly see the outline of it against the backdrop of the stars. Some part of my brain instantly calculated that at the widest part, the snake’s head was about four inches across but that it was probably not a pit viper (poisonous) because the place where its head met its neck wasn't so dramatically differentiated. Some other part of my brain had already calculated a response: DON’T MOVE!

I didn’t. Though in a flash I considered my options.

Roll over hard or sit up fast to fling it off my chest?

Try to ease my hands out of the bag and grab the snake just behind its head?  

It was still hovering, moving slowly back and forth not more than ten inches from my face. I could see its tongue flicking in and out by the light of the stars. And I was certainly not sure it wasn't a copperhead or a timber rattler. 


Probably not a good idea to startle it.

I was aware of the massive amount of adrenaline surging through every part of me. Lots and lots of powerful energy. But all that energy kept pointing to the one thing: DON’T MOVE.

The snake stayed where it was, moving its head and flicking its tongue. Best guess...from the time I waked up it was on me no more than a minute or two. Then it slithered on. I could feel its slow S-shaped movement across my chest.

I was amazed and incredibly grateful when the snake was far enough away for me to jump up and warn Larry. And the thing that amazed me most was how all that adrenal surge could resolve to such a startlingly clear message to just stay still.

This experience has been a good teacher. It’s encouraging to know that our mind-body could have such timely wisdom inscribed in its DNA.

It’s also a wonderful metaphor about equanimity, about finding balance in the presence of stuff that could easily knock us completely off balance. That we contain in ourselves models of grace under pressure.


We can laugh and remember that our lizard brains and our mammal brains know how to be still even though our human brains may still be struggling with the concept.

Now…back to the here and now, I try to remember at the office sitting at the computer when my neck aches because it’s been stuck in the same position God knows how long and there’s a knowledge somewhere in me that I’ve been pushing myself t0 hard to get some important thing finished—pushing to the point of ignoring body pain and jangly feelings—now, here, this day, this moment I try to re-call the wisdom of being still.

Take a break. 3 minutes will do just fine, repeating something like the following, one phrase at a time, during each in and out breath:

Breathing in I calm by body.

Breathing out I calm my mind.

Grace whispers: May you be balanced.

Grace smiles: May you be at peace.

I know deep down, though this kind of grace under pressure is not nearly as dramatic as remaining still with a snake on your chest, it is nevertheless, over time, another kind of life-saving response.