Snake

Transformation, and attention to what stays hidden. The snake sheds its skin and keeps moving, which is why it sits closer to change than to danger in the Chinese symbolic vocabulary. As one of the twelve earthly branches it holds the sixth position and carries Fire.

In the traditional vocabulary it is not read as a warning. Transformation, and attention to what stays hidden. The animal is treated as a description of a situation — usually involving timing or a person — not as a prediction. Snakes appear most often in dreams during periods when a role is ending — a job, a living arrangement, an identity — and the dreamer has not yet named what replaces it.

Traditional readings treat the snake as a signal about timing — something is finishing and something else has not shown itself yet. It is rarely read as an omen of harm; the emphasis falls on patience and on watching what happens beneath the surface. It is grouped under Fire (火) in the five-element system.