I am terrible at remaining calm and staying in a forgiving state of mind. I too quickly allow myself to become upset and angry when people, especially those people close to me, act in ways I would prefer they not.

If I am dealing with my children I become upset with them, and then myself as the situation deepens. My voice becomes strong and I lose myself to the anger which develops instead of remaining peaceful and finding the solution in a positive manner.

My son takes the brunt of my ire in almost all situations. He is very much like me. Very flippant, has a smart mouth and generally sees right to the heart of the issue, stoking the fire before I even realize there is a flame.

All of the things I am good at too.

I need to work much more on my meditation practice and see how far that can take me. I feel that forgiveness is something you learn something you cultivate and practice; not something we are born with.

Meditation offers practitioners many benefits; from lowering blood pressure to showing more clearly the objects they are attached to. Forgiveness is a natural outcropping of meditation, especially when it is the goal of a particular practice.

By practicing the Loving Kindness meditation forgiveness should begin to flow and become something that is tangible, not just an aspiration. I will redouble my efforts and actually practice on a real schedule.

It is easy enough to say Om Mani Padme Hung throughout the day, but to pay attention to these words and to let my soul follow them, that is hard for me.

But I guess no one ever said Dharma was the easy way out.

Last night while working in the backyard my mother-in-law stepped on a rather large copperhead snake. My daughters came racing in to the living room screaming about the snake trying to kill them.

By the time I get a shovel from the garage and run to the backyard the poor snake is coiled and hissing mad. I know I should have simply scooped it up and flung it deep in to the ravine, but instead I whacked it over the head and proceeded to kill it.

My ‘daddy-instinct‘ was to remove the threat. I listened to that instinct before I had time to see the beauty of the snake and let it move on.

When it was all over one of my daughters asked me why I had to kill it. I gave her the whole ‘to protect you darling’ speech, warned them never to go near a snake and then walked back to the house.

Already I felt horrible. The snake was terrified. It really just wanted to get away from the giant animals - my family. In fact, when my mother-in-law stepped on it before she saw it, the snake didn’t bite her, it just coiled up and hissed. It was telling her and my girls to leave it alone.

“Go away, leave me,” it had tried to say to them.

Later in the night the snake talked to me in my dreams.

I was walking to a neighbors house, intending to dine with them that night. When I came close to their front porch a large snake was resting quietly on a flat rock inside the entryway. At first the snake’s head was facing the other direction but before I could move away it turned, looked at me.I stood, transfixed by its’ gaze, eyes locked on eyes. The snake’s body rose now, bringing its’ head even with mine. I didn’t move, I couldn’t think, I simply stood there in its’ presence.

Suddenly I passed the snake, walked in to the home and found the rooms all filled with people enjoying the food and company. As I tried to do the same myself I was continually reminded of the snake just outside the door.

All of the pictures and paintings in the house were snakes. All of the statues in the house were snakes as well. The print on the love seat was of leaves and snakes; the snakes on the print were alive and slithering in and out of the leaves as people sat on the furniture; unaware of the moving snakes below them.

Finally I could take no more and I went to leave. Seeing the snake, still at eye-level with me in the doorway I turned to find the back door.

Leaving the backyard I crossed in to my lawn again and that is where I found a little clutch of tiny baby copperhead snakes. Wriggling and writhing atop the freshly mowed grass.

I woke then. In the pre-dawn light I wondered about the copperhead I had killed earlier that night. Had there been a clutch somewhere? Are there even now eight or ten tiny copperheads out in the creek behind my house?

Something I had not thought about in 20 years popped in to my mind. When I was little I actually had a pet copperhead for a while. I caught him, spitting and furious on a sandy bike trail not far from my house. I kept him and played with him for a while, until my grandfather realized what it was and he killed it while I watched. I was heart broken.

That little snake had calmed down and even swam on the water in my bathtub. He never meant to harm any one and yet my wanting him as my own had ended his young life.

And now I had brought about the death of another snake. With out thinking.

I wish I had let the snake alone. Brought in my family and told the girls to just back away when they see snakes, to leave them alone.

I wish I had left the first snake alone all those years ago as well.