I read Persephone's poem 'Pegasus has Landed' and began to think about the imagery and subsequent self-imagery it represents.
The arrival of the winged horse well conveys Persephone's path of transition and her feelings about it. The freedom and beauty that equine flight has brought to Persephone's life is well described therein.

Naturally I fell to wondering how my life has panned out and how it will progress from now to the end.

Because of my early years of 'flip-flop' gender appreciation and the ensuing middle years of 'gender secrecy', and deception that caused the 'real me' so much tension and introversion I am only now able to take a long, hard assessment of what my life is and what it was. Many, many times, when life became almost unbearable, my spirit seemed to curl up into a tight ball and seek to be impervious or invisible.

So what animal do I think best represented my mid-life spirit?

I think it has to be the Ball Python - secretive, defensive and camouflaged. All those middle years seeking to slip by un-noticed, sliding by and using the least obtrusive avenue of arrival or departure or waiting silent and undetected until escape or sometimes even attack was made viable.

Those long middle years when my spirit remained twisted and curled up deep inside me avoiding torment or injury. Just as the ball python curls up into a tight ball when danger threatens so did my true nature, my inner spirit.
That's what I was for all those lost years, a Ball Python.

I wonder how other readers might see themselves.

Beverly.

A Ball Python in a human hand - relatively small and harmless.