WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.260 align:middle line:84% OK so one I want to read now, my editor 00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:07.200 align:middle line:84% kept saying too many rattlesnakes, too 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:07.950 align:middle line:90% many rattlesnakes. 00:00:07.950 --> 00:00:10.035 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:10.035 --> 00:00:16.920 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.920 align:middle line:84% To me of course they're just some of the best beings. 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:23.465 align:middle line:84% They have much more integrity than a good many human beings 00:00:23.465 --> 00:00:25.800 align:middle line:90% and so I couldn't quite see it. 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:31.620 align:middle line:84% But I have all sorts of encounters with them. 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.223 align:middle line:84% The house I live in is really old. 00:00:34.223 --> 00:00:36.390 align:middle line:84% It's up in the Tucson mountains and the rattlesnakes 00:00:36.390 --> 00:00:38.070 align:middle line:90% live under the floor. 00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:40.470 align:middle line:84% And they were already living there when I got there 00:00:40.470 --> 00:00:44.280 align:middle line:84% and I expect they'll be living there when they carry me out 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:44.788 align:middle line:90% of there. 00:00:44.788 --> 00:00:46.080 align:middle line:90% They've just always been there. 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:50.490 align:middle line:90% 00:00:50.490 --> 00:00:56.400 align:middle line:84% So I have all sorts of little snake stories 00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:00.510 align:middle line:90% but this is something that I-- 00:01:00.510 --> 00:01:03.480 align:middle line:90% well, you'll see what it is. 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:09.120 align:middle line:84% The fourth morning after July 11th, 2001 when my mother died, 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:11.610 align:middle line:90% I took my horse for a ride. 00:01:11.610 --> 00:01:13.860 align:middle line:84% I left the house before dawn to get 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:16.590 align:middle line:90% saddled and ready for daybreak. 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:20.400 align:middle line:84% The Catalina Mountains were heaped with blue rain clouds, 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:24.780 align:middle line:84% so the light of the rising sun was diffuse and luminous. 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:27.660 align:middle line:84% A silver blue shimmered in the jade green 00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:33.150 align:middle line:84% of the Jojoba and Palo Verde and the great greasewood. 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:35.280 align:middle line:84% The horse took his time and picked his way 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:37.350 align:middle line:90% through the rocks on the trail. 00:01:37.350 --> 00:01:40.020 align:middle line:84% When he stopped I thought he was malingering 00:01:40.020 --> 00:01:42.870 align:middle line:84% until I heard a faint rattle and saw 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:46.080 align:middle line:84% a rattlesnake on the trail, motionless, 00:01:46.080 --> 00:01:50.250 align:middle line:84% half-coiled, and poised for full retreat. 00:01:50.250 --> 00:01:52.710 align:middle line:84% In the early morning light the snake 00:01:52.710 --> 00:01:56.160 align:middle line:84% was an amazing, ethereal pale blue. 00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:58.860 align:middle line:90% Rain cloud blue. 00:01:58.860 --> 00:02:02.520 align:middle line:84% The horse walked another 50 feet and stopped again. 00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:06.600 align:middle line:84% There in the middle of the trail sat another pale blue rattler 00:02:06.600 --> 00:02:09.419 align:middle line:90% in a flat hunter's coil. 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:14.100 align:middle line:84% The horse stopped soon enough so the snake did not rattle. 00:02:14.100 --> 00:02:18.780 align:middle line:84% As a child, I'd seen a grass green rattler and a rattler 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:21.870 align:middle line:84% as black as local basalt, but I never 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:24.450 align:middle line:90% expected a blue rattlesnake. 00:02:24.450 --> 00:02:28.440 align:middle line:84% The snake scales are actually tiny hard feathers 00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:30.960 align:middle line:84% with a prismatic inner structure, 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:33.720 align:middle line:84% in which the color of a feather comes not 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:36.540 align:middle line:90% from pigment but from light. 00:02:36.540 --> 00:02:40.560 align:middle line:84% Like the opal with shifting patterns of refraction 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.040 align:middle line:84% that allow different hues of light to pass through, 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:48.480 align:middle line:84% the snake scales soak up the color of the surrounding light, 00:02:48.480 --> 00:02:51.660 align:middle line:84% making them invisible to the human eye for minutes 00:02:51.660 --> 00:02:53.790 align:middle line:90% at a time. 00:02:53.790 --> 00:02:56.280 align:middle line:90% Twin blue rattlesnakes. 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:58.890 align:middle line:90% I thought of my mother at once. 00:02:58.890 --> 00:03:01.260 align:middle line:90% That's where she was now. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:05.100 align:middle line:84% Her human form and energy changed and joined 00:03:05.100 --> 00:03:08.190 align:middle line:84% with the silver blue light of the morning. 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:11.740 align:middle line:84% The twin rattlesnakes caught my attention. 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:13.890 align:middle line:90% They were her message to me. 00:03:13.890 --> 00:03:18.660 align:middle line:84% Where she was now was in this world and nearby me, 00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:22.650 align:middle line:90% but not as she was. 00:03:22.650 --> 00:03:29.340 align:middle line:84% It was my mother who of course her grandma Goddard 00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:36.030 align:middle line:84% was a Cherokee daughter of a man born on the Trail of Tears. 00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:42.120 align:middle line:84% And among the Cherokee people, as with many-- 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:44.220 align:middle line:84% well I don't know of an indigenous group 00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:48.660 align:middle line:84% in the Americas that does not have a high regard for snakes. 00:03:48.660 --> 00:03:52.680 align:middle line:84% But my mother was the one that when we were kids 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:57.600 align:middle line:84% taught us not to be snake killers and to love snakes. 00:03:57.600 --> 00:03:59.760 align:middle line:90% So it actually came from her. 00:03:59.760 --> 00:04:05.370 align:middle line:84% Of course, then later on a great many among the Pueblo 00:04:05.370 --> 00:04:10.200 align:middle line:84% people too of course, there's a high regard for snakes. 00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:14.550 align:middle line:84% So that was that morning when I saw the twin blue snakes, that 00:04:14.550 --> 00:04:20.519 align:middle line:90% was why I thought of my mother. 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:22.069 align:middle line:90% So--