"the serpent and the rainbow"

"Time heals all wounds.  And if it doesn't, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay."
--Emma Forrest

In the beginning, there was the Great Serpent, whose seven thousand coils lay beneath the earth so that it might not fall into the abysmal Sea.  In time, the Serpent began to move, unleashing its undulating flesh which rose slowly into a great spiral that enveloped the Universe in the heavens, it released stars and celestial bodies.  On earth, it brought Creation, winding through molten slopes to create rivers, the veins through which flowed the essence of all life.  Rising again into the sky, it cast lightning bolts that made sacred stones.  It lay along the path of the sun and with its layered skin, the Serpent retained the spring of Eternal Life and from its Zenith it let flow the waters upon which the people would nurse.  As the water fell to the earth, the Rainbow arose and the Serpent took her as his wife, their Love a cosmic helix that stretched the heavens.  (The Serpent and the Rainbow, Haitian Folklore Creation Myth)

: