Snakes on St. Croix and the Nightmare in Paradise

I had a nightmare last night.

The actual retaining wall, minus the snakes.

In my dream, I was peering into the darkness, trying to see what was there lying in wait for me on the retaining wall in our backyard. It is very much what I write about in my blog post, "The Monster in My Garden" and here it is confronting me. I lean closer to the rocky wall, and just as I had suspected, there is a snake looking back at me. It is a brown patterned snake with large unassuming eyes. It looks back at me, but is not afraid or menacing. I back out of it's space, not wanting to confront it or make it angry when I notice the taut torso of a large silver snake hanging over me. I brushed past it when I leaned closer to the brown snake. I thought it was a tree limb. Now, it hung before me, it's face eye-level, suspended, muscles rolling ready to...

But before it could do anything, I backed away. I literally pushed myself back in my bed, my body recoiled as far as I could go before banging into Peter who was sleeping beside me and Dorothy pinning the blankets down by my feet, I didn't get far, couldn't get away. 

I was hyperventilating, even as I lie awake. I could still see the two snakes looking at me. I was awake but the feeling of danger kept coming back to me, making me breath short shallow breaths. I had to fight to keep from screaming. 

Peter and I have a history with snakes.
He actually bought the kids a snake
for Christmas and I freaked out because
I couldn't believe he never knew I did
not like them?!? In all of the years we
were together, he never noticed that
I would bypass them at zoo exhibits?!?

During the course of the remaining hours before dawn, I saw the images of the two snakes again and again and each time, I hyperventilated. It wouldn't be until I had gotten dressed and taken Dorothy outside, as I sat in front of the very retaining wall, was I able to recall the image of the snakes and not panic with fear. 

Why? What was I afraid of? 

I think the one snake, the brown snake, is my fear of abandonment. It is there, I know it's there, I recognize it, I see it. 

The silver snake, though, is a mystery. The thing about that snake in my dream is that it startled me. I didn't know it was there. I ducked under it. I brushed up against it. I was so frightened by it, could it be because I didn't know that I was in eminent danger? I just didn't know. I didn't know how close danger was and that's what scared me. 

Also, I think I hyperventilated because I tried to get away, but Peter was holding me back. He was in my way. He kept me from fleeing. And Dorothy, she pinned me down, she was weighing heavily on me, keeping me from moving. 

Did they prevent me from getting away or were they there to tell me I don't need to flee. I don't need to want to run from my problems, they have my back?

This is the rescue we had gotten for Macallan. Macallan
called her Otse (Ooh-T-see) for a small town in Botswana.
She was covered in fleas and the BSPCA didn't know if she
would make it. Born a stray, she had no idea what love was, at
first, she wouldn't let us near her, but then when she realized
we were only trying to love her, she was the best dog ever!

Or was the dream my genuine fear of living in St. Croix? I have this normal fear and then I have this very large menacing fear that I have to duck and brush past if I want to remain here. It scares me but I can't get away, get out, get going, leave because of Peter and Dorothy. What if I am not facing my intuition to leave because that would mean I can't face leaving Peter and Dorothy behind? 

Now, the emotional fear, while it's pervasive and sometimes detrimental to my mental and emotional state, it is something I can deal with. What scares me is that there's a very real danger that I know about, like the feeling I got in Africa when we left for a fundraising event we were managing and we returned home to find our neighbor had shot our dogs. I knew we shouldn't have left them. I knew we were being instructed by the universe to leave Botswana, but I didn't listen, and our dogs died as a result. Is this another one of those times when I am not heeding the call of the "gods" and then something catastrophic will happen? Is it? Well? Is it? (I ask you - the reader, or my dad and brother who have passed on or the universe in general.) 

I just don't know.