purple python

I was in Germany, taking a tour of the house and garden of a man who lived in the early years of the twentieth century. He was famous for birthing new ideas and experimenting with unconventional art forms including musical, visual and literary - a visionary. The house was a huge stone mansion, housing at least several families or a large extended family at one time. It was definitely a very wealthy household. Here, I was told, he hidden during the rise of Nazi Germany, taking shelter in the secret basements, continuing to create and invent. I walked through the densely landscaped rose gardens that swept down the hill behind the house. As I neared the servants’ quarters, the path grew thick with foliage and I couldn’t get through without lying down on the ground and rolling under the thorny branches, then stepping carefully down a very slippery and steep stone wall. I felt anxious about the maneuver, my heart racing as I bent under the branches and touched the rock, and a purple snake whipped out and latched its mouth around my wrist. I did my best to squeeze the snake just behind its head so that it would let go. It did, its mouth open wide, trying to bite me again, but I could see that it hadn’t any teeth. I threw the snake away into the garden, but it came back to bite me again. Several times I had to grab the snake by the tail and behind its head, pulling it off my wrist, then throwing it back into the garden.