{"id":666,"date":"2006-05-26T03:21:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-26T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=666"},"modified":"2011-08-22T12:22:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T18:22:27","slug":"the-snake-motif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=666","title":{"rendered":"The Snake Motif"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right before M. and I left on the road trip that culminated in my rattlesnake bite and hospital stay<\/a>, I was having trouble with a blockage in the bathroom lavatory.<\/p>\n

I did not think that I could get my large plumber’s “snake” down through the waste pipe behind the wall, and I thought of going to the hardware store and picking up a \"hand-operatedsmaller one. But we were busy packing, and so I left the problem for later.<\/p>\n

And then, five days later, came the bite from a “baby” rattlesnake and, minutes later, an encounter with a larger one who acted like a proper rattlesnake. In other words, the second one gave us a warning buzz so that we could avoid it.<\/p>\n

Home again and still on crutches, I called Cory the plumber. He roared up the driveway in his big diesel van the following morning.<\/p>\n

Of course I had to explain the crutches. A few minutes later, he had disassembled the drain and was carrying his electric plumber’s snake up from the van.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had about enough of this snake motif,” I said.<\/p>\n

“All right,” he replied, “we’ll call it an auger.”<\/p>\n

Little snake and big snake, metaphorical. Little snake and big snake, literal.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the only god worth worshiping is the god of irony.<\/p>\n

There is a complicated message here about the “poison path<\/a>,” I think, but I am still thinking about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right before M. and I left on the road trip that culminated in my rattlesnake bite and hospital stay, I was having trouble with a blockage in the bathroom lavatory. I did not think that I could get my large plumber’s “snake” down through the waste pipe behind the wall, and I thought of going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-polytheism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-aK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4372,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4372","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":0},"title":"Talking about Tlaloc, 5","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I think it is time to rebuild the shrine to Tlaloc under the bridge \u2014 the one that was mysteriously augmented last summer.\u00a0 I had taken it down before the spring run-off, which is just a memory now. Once the heat abates a little, I need to hike back over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1963,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1963","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":1},"title":"The Positive Power of Poisons","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Instapundit, a Popular Mechanics round up on medical possibilities of venoms and poisons. I can't say that my 2006 rattlesnake bite had any positive physiological effects, but I can tell you that a sting from the little tan scorpions that we have in southern Colorado (same as this?) can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"health\"","block_context":{"text":"health","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":664,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=664","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":2},"title":"A Pagan's perspective on The\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A Pagan's perspective on The Da Vinci CodeThe most interesting thing about this article in an Australian newspaper is that a Pagan was asked to join the \"panel of religious experts.\"The most serious problem according to the panel - a theologian, Catholic film critic, Opus Dei priest and a pagan\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":844,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=844","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":3},"title":"Cremation, public lands, and commerce","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ladies in White, three women in Missoula, Montana, tried to start a business scattering human ashes--what the funeral industry calls \"cremains\"--on national forest land.The U.S. Forest Service doesn't like the idea, because they see a \"slippery slope\" towards permanent monuments:But the Forest Service has long had a firm policy against\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6178,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6178","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":4},"title":"When Trees Disappear","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the background story. Back in 2011, I wrote about making an offering to Tlaloc, Southwestern god of the hydrological cycle (among other things), at a tiny mountain spring near my home. The spring is high on the side of a ridge, fed by that year's snow and rain, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-dV57BkoZQRQ\/UIgi2vbiO8I\/AAAAAAAABdc\/_ixQl3ANtJA\/s400\/volcanofire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=161","url_meta":{"origin":666,"position":5},"title":"Book progress & link dump\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Book progress & link dump I am a little drained today, having finished revisions on my book Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism in America. On Tuesday I will e-mail files to my editor at AltaMira Press, followed by the printouts. Naturally it is not as\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3136,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/3136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}