Snake Dance /Walkabout/Meet and Greet
Queen Ishtar - Prince Bashar and Xenia warrior Queen. Friendly, fun Pythons!
Contact to book or find out more.
Bash
ar and Xenia can be booked as a double act (with Ishtar). These two Royal Pythons are very sweet and love to meet people. They are VERY easy going and love to be adored and stroked by the public. They enjoy performing and like being photographed. Ishtar loves to talk and educate people about how fascinating snakes are. Bashar and Xenia are Ishtar's beloved pets and get treated like the Royalty that they are!
You can't train snakes like other animals and they won't do anything they don't want to do. Xenia and Bashar love dancing and like to co-choreograph improvised work with Ishtar. The are a husband and wife team who love each other very much and like working together, but understand when only one is required!
The Mystical Origins of Snake Dancing
Snakes connect with the Earth with their body’s, they love to touch and sensation. They move carefully and gracefully and are great inspirers and teachers for dancers. Throughout the world, religion and art frequently feature the serpent as a symbol of power, regeneration and healing. Snakes shed their skin and this is symbolic of personal rebirth. In ancient tribes and in some contemporary societies such as India, the serpent is honoured as an aspect of the great goddess. Here the qualities of wisdom, the cyclic nature of existence and the ineffable mystery, are contemplated through the symbol of the snake.
Snakes can invoke fear, love, fascination and revulsion. Snakes are certainly primordial and mysterious. How we perceive them is fed by myth and legend and a deep instinctive feeling of awe. They have been linked to evil and manipulation, such as in the tempting of Eve. However, snakes have been deified in many religions, where they are seen in a positive light, as an expression of the life force and renewal. ‘In images of the goddess in every culture, the serpent is never far away, standing behind her, eating from her hand, entwined in her tree or in the shape of the goddess herself,” state Anne Baring and Jules Cashford (1991). In Sumerian myth, Nammu, the great serpent goddess of the abyss, gives birth to earth and heaven. In Bronze Age myths, the serpent is perceived as the consort of the goddess, who weds with her to convey fertility to the earth.
The serpent plays a big role in ancient Egyptian religion. Isis is often featured with a cobra headdress. The snake as a focus of divine worship can be seen today at the fertility goddess Hathor's temple at Dendarah, Egypt.L ong wavy serpents, carved in black basalt are featured in the temples innermost shrine. Many other past religions have worshipped the snake. In Crete, hundreds of a certain kind of snake goddess have been unearthed from ancient times. They feature fierce and beautiful women holding a snake around each wrist. She is now simply called the ‘Cretan snake goddess.’ This is similar to a third-century terracotta relief of Demeter, Greek Goddess of the Harvest, which depicts Demeter holding wheat and snakes in each hand.
The caduceus is an ancient symbol which depicts two snakes intertwining up an eternal flame or winged staff. This symbol is an established representation for the healing or medical professions. There are many cults that have involved snakes in healing rituals. Healers use snakes to assist fertility and generally heal clients.
Dance like belly dance can stimulate energy, what they describe in yoga as ‘Serpent power’, or what is more formally known as the Kundalini, which is a form of yogic spirituality. The cultivation of the Kundalini works on the bodies ‘metaphysical’ energy systems, to help purify, stimulate and strengthen. Kundalini means coiled. The image of a coiled serpent is often used to represent Kundalini. The serpent energy climbs up the spine and creates spiritual awakening.
Snakes have been given a bad press that is for sure. This seems a shame when there is so much positive and interesting and even spiritual history surrounding them. When one has got over the initial feeling of nervousness, snakes make great pets and respond to their owners. Some people even feel that they are able to give and receive affection in their own snaky way! Those who dance with snakes must have a relationship with them. There is real creative communication between snake and dancer. The exotic experience of watching a snake dance is electrifying, primal and exciting.