A Snake is not a Symbol

Excerpt-James Hillman-Animal Presences

Often I begin a workshop on animal images with the snake. The snake works like a charm, freeing people of their insidious notions of snake symbolism and, therefore, of animal symbolism in general. The questions I ask sound like this: “How do you understand a snake image?” “What does a snake mean?” “What’s your interpretation?” I have assembled and conde…