The Holy Wild
Chapter One
The God of the Holy Wild
The summer I wrote this, we discovered a nest of snakes living in our house. It was a hot
spell, and often we retreated to the basement to escape the worst of it.
We weren't the only ones, it turned out.
A mother snake, at some point, had found her way into our house (we left most of
our doors open that summer to create airflow). She had slithered into the back corner of
the coolest, most interior room, and there hatched a brood of baby snakes: tiny black
serpents, with slender, tapered bodies and teardrop-shaped heads and little, red flickering
tongues.
I hate snakes. I once heard about a man who, digging in his garden, hacked his
shin apart with his spade when a garter snake slithered up his pant leg. I understood this:
the panic, the wildness, the madness, the willingness to maim yourself to protect yourself.
If it had been me and not Adam and Eve in Eden, we wouldn't be in the trouble we're in,
but not because I have greater virtue; simply because it was a serpent who seduced them.
I'd have killed it first.
One evening I came hom ... read full excerpt from: The Holy Wild ebook
