Nazi Pine Cones & The Staff of Aesculapius
Episode 09:11:2023 - Prompt: Symbols
Where Symbols took me…
Poland. August,1995.
50-years after the Soviet Red Army drove the Nazi German military out of Poland.
I was camping near a virgin forest with my German boyfriend, Marc H.
Marc had refurbished an old Mercedes camper (circa 1960s) so we could take road trips In The Nature.
We had parked & set up camp near the outskirts of Poznań when I decided to go on a walk by myself.
If you’ve never been in a virgin forest, this is something to remember:
There are no paths. No trails. No markers.
And I, being a city gal, assumed I could walk in & walk out of a virgin forest.
I couldn’t have gone too far before I realized I had no memory of the direction I came from. I looked around, trying to recall a landmark.
It all looked the same… lush & beautiful.
Only when I started to panic did I hear the voices of children speaking in Polish.
The Boy Scout troop wasn’t a mirage!
I followed the children out of the forest back to the park where they were doing some activities In The Nature.
How sweet, I thought.
At this point, I knew how to get back to where the Mercedes camper was parked and chose a path just beyond the scouts.
About 20 paces in, I saw it.
A large Swastika made of pine cones on the ground.
Was this the exercise the scouts were tasked with executing?
Children, use elements found in nature to recreate symbols of your former oppressors.
I kicked the pine cones to destroy their handiwork & kept my eyes open.
Which brings me to a recent symbol found in nature…
It was Day Two of our Five Day ultra-race event.
Molino Vega. July 4, 2023.
July 4th was the first day after a full buck moon, and our bedroom was washed in white moonlight. I was lying in bed, feeling the lunar vibes when I heard my partner say:
“Holy Shit, come look at this!”
He was in front of our house. His voice only had to travel twenty feet for me to hear him on the second floor with the windows wide open.
I got out of bed wearing a slip and went out the front door to see what it was.
In PERCEPTION I wrote about the innocence of my first psychedelic trip. I have an open mind for the unusual in visual perception.
“Do you see it?” he said. “It’s a huge snake.”
The only snakes we see around here are small and making a break for it.
On the decorative wrought iron frame next to our front door, illuminated from the interior light of the house behind it, I thought I saw the iron move.
The snake was coiled around the iron, almost mimicking its design.
As if it were knotted around itself!
“I can’t go back inside,” I said.
Thus began an hour of trying to get the snake away from the front door.
My mom suggested hosing it down.
The snake loved the water. It had been 38°C/100°F all day.
My partner tried to encourage the snake to wrap itself around a broomstick.
Nada.
When it finally released its grip, it slithered down to the ground and out into the tall grass near the acacia. I hadn’t realized how amped up I felt staring at that snake, wondering if I would ever get back inside the house.
In PATIENCE, I wrote about the foreshadowing of this snake coiled around the decorative wrought iron next to our front door and how it reminded us of the Rod of Asclepius, the single snake coiled around a staff.
It’s the symbol of healing & medicine.
Our summer had begun with a death that was followed by a health crisis.
The health crisis continued until two weeks before our wedding.
The health crisis is no longer a crisis, but it requires medicine.
And a lot of healing.
Damn that snake.
YOUR TURN:
SYMBOLS can be personal and self-defined. I’ve given my father, who passed away over ten years ago, the symbol of a moth.
There are cultural symbols, historical symbols, mystical symbols, obvious symbols. Universal symbols.
Symbols foreshadow. They can be foreboding. They can be revelatory.
Where do SYMBOLS take you?
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Happy writing!
Here’s a family story from my growing up years. One day when my older sister was in second grade, her teacher asked what brand of car the students’ parents drove. In the mid-50s, cars were often viewed as symbols of wealth and prestige, and still are today, even among grade school kids. But I think the teacher’s question was not so much about status as about how families function and the decisions they make—a typical second grade social studies lesson plan, followed by occupations. What do your parents do for a living? What does a fireman do? What does a policeman do? What does a banker do? Anyway, the students responded to the teacher’s question with such car brands as Chevrolet, Ford, Buick, Pontiac, Plymouth, Chrysler, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac. At the time, I think my parents drove a faded-purple, rear-wheel-drive Studebaker, a four-door though one of the back doors didn’t open. Whatever car they could afford, which was not much since my dad had just begun to earn a salary after years of medical training. So, after my sister listened to her classmates rattle off the names of all those luxury cars, she stood, pulled her petite body up straight, tossed her red hair, and said, “In our family, cars are called transportation.” That story became one of the symbols of frugality and practicality in our New England family. And we belly-laughed every time we heard the punchline—and still do.
My necklace, the one I always wear, is a small infinity symbol on a slender silver chain. Inside the symbol is a tiny chamber into which the mortician poured - carefully - a portion of my younger brother's ashes. Such a small space for what is to me momentous, and he told me never to undo the closure because the ashes were so few they would fall out and I'd lose them like I lost Bill.