This mural is painted using lime paint, a limestone based material with no VOCs, all organic compounds and colored with natural pigments. Lime paint is carbon sequestering as it continues to cure over time, pulling carbon from our atmosphere and “breathing” with age. These snakes hide behind the rocks of the Ruins in their camouflage prints, made from stone itself. 
As snakes are symbols across many cultures around the world with several different meanings, I leave interpretation up to the viewer. My own consideration in this design revolved around the snake’s role as a symbol of transformation, healing, and ancient wisdom. With their bellies in touch with the vibration of the planet, or wrapped around the sturdy limbs of the forest canopy, these snakes speak to us of Earth’s ability to regenerate itself in cycles of creation and destruction. 
Their large size, potential threat, as well as their tangled nature along a narrow corridor, also warn us of the predicament we find ourselves in. By continuing to poison the earth with less than friendly processes for our expansion, we are the threat of our own collapse. Rather than a simple ouroboros, this is a puzzle that is hard to solve from a vantage point that is far too close. Perhaps the snake can help us find our way out, beckoning back to more ancient practices, reclaiming the use of natural materials to represent and honor Earth itself. 
I chose four colorways of snakes, each with four colors within, to nod to the four elements of earth, water, wind, and fire, and to the four cardinal directions. May we be guided on our path with greater awareness of what is within us as well as around us.