Snake is a really funny zodiac sign because it stands for yin transformation but all of its three hidden stems are yang. Its main hidden stem is yang fire or big fire. But snake hour is between 9 AM to 11 AM, not quite noon. It’s the growing morning sun.

In western imagination, snakes have a terrible reputation. Why? Snakes are just too sexy! Look at them. They slither around undulating. They’re phallic. They’re all smooth with this beautiful skin. They can bind you with their bodies.

The strongest symbolic association around a snake appears in the field of medicine. The caduceus is a very old symbol that shows two snakes entwined around a staff. This symbol stands for medicine. What do snakes have to do with medicine? Snakes have venom which is used to create both poisons and medicines. Some would say that there is no difference between poison and medicine, that poison is just medicine administered at the wrong dosage or at the wrong time.

I think that this association between snakes and medicine gets at the heart of the sign itself. Snakes, being yin or internal transformation, have to do with knowledge.

Snakes are researchers. They are taste testers. They like to study things at length and very deeply.

As an animal, a lot of snakes are blind by sight. That doesn’t matter because snakes can perceive things that other animals can’t. They can sense heat which tells them how to strike at prey even in conditions of complete darkness. They can taste how ripe an egg is just by licking around the outside of an egg. When a snake molts, the skin on its insensitive eyes actually falls off too. This means that there are long periods of time when snakes can’t see. However, a molting snake can still get around and even hunt because they have such finely tuned other senses.

So, a snake sees everything. They’re inquisitive and perceptive. They don’t just notice what other people notice. They don’t just see the things that are most obvious. They actually see behind what is presented. They understand all of the layers of a moment and can analyze a single conversation in full context.

Try this. Ask a friend with a snake in a prominent pillar in their chart how they perceive a person both of you know or a historical moment. Chances are, they will say something completely unexpected and also uncannily insightful.

Snake is yin fire containing yang fire. Fire illuminates the truth. Snakes are gifted with the power of insight.

Okay, so a snake can see you and can see through everything that you do. Can you see a snake?

Have you ever seen that popular meme that went around a few years back where you’re supposed to look for the snake hiding in the grass off of a high resolution jpeg? The meme is popular because it’s like a puzzle. You can’t find the snake. When you do see it, you have to do a victory dance or something because the snake was that hard to find.

A lot of snakes are performers. They like to disguise themselves. Harmless snakes will pretend to be venomous snakes so that predators leave them alone in the wild. Male snakes emit female pheromones when they are cold so that other male snakes are drawn to them and wrap them up with their bodies, warming them. Snakes can even play dead. They drop to the ground and give off a rotting odor when they are threatened. This makes predators leave them alone due to simple disgust.

So, snakes can see through you but you may not be able to see a snake. They’re masters of disguise. You see what they want you to see.

In Chinese culture, snakes have a reputation of being slightly lazy. A hardass parent might call their kid a lazy snake to try and get them to study. But I don’t think that snakes are lazy. I think that snakes can appear as though they are lazy because they don’t like to be seen doing anything at all. Why? Because snakes don’t want you to know what they are up to. This is why a snake will appear as though it is doing nothing at all even when it is very busy.

Private? Definitely. A snake is yin transformation. It works on the inside. It keeps everything on the inside and transmutes it there.

If you ever see a snake eat, you’ll marvel at how strong it is on the inside. Snakes swallow their food whole but then break things down inside of their bodies. They’re able to pick apart entire skeletons without the use of fingers because their insides are just that dexterous and strong.

Let’s talk about the snake in the story of the race in the Jade River. But, first, let’s talk about how the snake’s affinity for disguise and powers of perception can work against themselves. We already know that snakes are highly tuned in to their surroundings and that they will tend to flow in the direction that things are already moving to better blend in.

What happens when a snake confronts a pack of meerkats? The meerkats will surround the snake not to kill but to dance. Each meerkat bobs up and down in succession. As a result, the snake is completely confused. It’s so sensitive to every single dancing meerkat but it has no idea when and where to strike. The snake can only follow the dance, bobbing up and down with the meerkats, becoming hypnotized and trapped by the rhythm.

In the story of the snake in the Jade River, the snake thought along the same lines as the rat. The rat decided to hitch a ride on the cow and won first place as a result. The snake also wanted a ride but, instead of choosing the strongest animal, it chose the fastest one. The snake wrapped itself to the horse’s leg and hitched a ride.

What happened when the race started? The horse started sprinting. Of course, it was very fast. The horse is the fastest animal in the whole race. However, the horse did not move towards the finish line. It went off to the side. It didn’t start to move towards the finish line until it had its share of fun and remembered that the race was still on.

What did the snake do in this scenario? It couldn’t do anything. It could only hold on for dear life. When the horse finally got to the finish line, the snake jumped off and slithered across first.

What does this story tell us about the snake? It tells us that the snake is beholden to its environment. The snake is perceptive of its environment. It is camouflaged to its environment. Snakes control their insides but they don’t control their outsides. They are beholden to them the way the snake in the strong was beholden to the horse.

This is why snakes are so tremendously loyal. Snakes wrap themselves around things and then they stay. They stick by a partner or a friend. Why would they leave? This is the person that they know the best, the person they have studied at length. Snakes control through intimacy. A snake wrapped around a branch has taken that branch inside of itself. A snake will stay by something that it has learned to make work. Because they want to stay by you, they will not allow you to leave either. Imagine trying to escape a python’s grasp.

There’s a lot of back and forth when it comes to playing with a snake. There’s a lot of inside and outside. This is the game of intimacy. It’s a game of knowledge. Who knows the other more? So, are snakes sexy? Definitely. But not just because they’re smooth and long. Snakes understand how to seduce.