Dream: "Like a Phoenix . . ." by Nutcracker While out in the yard one day, I came across a small garden (garter) snake and cut off its head to kill it. The snake is yellow and white and as thin as a pencil. But the snake doesn’t die and the head has grown back, only now there are two heads instead of one. It’s about a week or so later and I kill the snake for the second time (cutting off both heads). Again, it doesn't die, and now has regrown six heads. Also, each time I kill the snake, it’s body grows larger and larger and s now as fat as a fifty-cent piece. One day I came across the snake inside my house. It’s lying on a towel on the kitchen counter. I want to kill it (to get rid of it again), but I’m now becoming fearful of it (doing so). Just as I’m trying to decide what to do about it, B. comes in and I tell him to kill it (for the third time) and to make sure he cuts off all six heads. The snake is finally dead for real this time. After that's been taken care of, I go to e-mail someone (I can’t recall who) a copy of my poetry chapbook entitled, “In Living Trust”. But for some reason, they can’t receive it. There is no file there to download. It turns out (I later come to realize) that the snake was my chapbook and it (my chapbook) died with the snake. The thing I feared most (success), I had destroyed. (5/1/98) Snakes/Three
