Uroboros, The Snake that bites in its own tail. More:
There are a number of interpretations about the logic or values behind the Uroboros snake (also called Ouroboros and Uroborus). The normal explanation: it symbolizes the recycling or renewal of the Universe.

From the nothingness shows up a specific zone with other properties than the nothingness itself. This can be a pelastration of nothingness through nothingness. For us this zone however represents our physical and metaphysical Universe.

Links:
http://www.cit-sakti.com/story/kundalini-awakening-story-chapt4.htm : Mysterium Coniunctionis by C.G.Jung: "In the image of the uroboros (the serpent swallowing its own tail) lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process... The uroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e., of the shadow...it is said of the uroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself."

http://www.geocities.com/annafranklin1/snake.html :Originally the snake was the symbol of the virgin goddess, who gave birth to the cosmos unaided by any male principle. The coiled serpent represented her vagina. The connection between copulation and conception was not made for millennia. In early myths the Goddess gave birth to the universe parthenogenically, though after the connection had been made the original Oneness of the Goddess split into god and goddess forms and from their sexual union creation was thought to arise.

Because of its obvious phallic shape and its reputed fertility the snake is also a symbol of the male principle. In the Pelasgian creation myth the Goddess created the first living creature from air, the giant serpent Ophion, and becoming a female serpent mated with it and then gave birth to the world egg. She became a dove and floated on the primordial ocean while Ophion coiled around the egg three times until it hatched out and created the heavens, the earth and the underworld.

http://zero-point.tripod.com/psycho/psycho1.html :The Uroborous dragon biting its own tail depicts the original chaotic condition, which prevails before the radical transmutation. But it contains all the refined ingredients of the ultimate state in their uncooked form—the heat has yet to be applied to the unrefined material, raw uncooked emotion.

The symbolism of the starry heaven coincides with the motif of polyopthalmia (many eyes). The dragon or serpent represents the initial state of unconsciousness, which is to be sacrificed. The inner man, the homunculus passes through the stages and undergoes transformation. In Zosimos, the homunculus stands for the uroborous and is synonymous with Ion, the self-sacrificing priest of the mysteries. Uroboros is also identified with the ego, and the division into four. As an arcanum, the egg is a synonym for water, the dragon, and World Egg.

http://www.kheper.net/realities/uroboros.htm

The worm, snake, serpent or dragon biting or swallowing its own tail is a powerful symbol of infinity, and also of universal nature, of completion, perfection and totality, the endless round of embodied existence, the union of the chthonic with the celestial. Parallels abound - the figure-8 symbol of infinity (quite possibly derived from the uroboros), the Chinese yin-yang symbol, the Buddhist wheel of Life, etc.
Ouroboros The Serpent biting its own tail appears in New Kingdom Egypt (1600 years b.c.e.). It was taken up by the Phonecians and then to the Greeks, who called it the Ouroboros (or uroboros), which means tail-devouror. They considered it the Great World Serpent encircling the earth, associated with the world-ocean. Ouroboros became an important Gnostic symbol, later taken up by Western Alchemy.

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/images/extcosmo.htm :From the Planck scale to the cosmic horizon, the visible universe encompasses about 60 orders of magnitude. The size scales of the universe can thus be arrayed around the serpent like minutes around the face of a clock. Sheldon Glashow originally suggested this symbol, with the swallowing of the tail expressing his hope for a unification of the theories governing the largest and smallest scales [8]. I noticed [9] that there are many connections across the diagram: electromagnetism dominates the bottom; the strong and weak interactions not only dominate on nuclear scales but also describe energy generation in stars and determine the composition of planetary systems; and dark matter, which is gravitationally dominant on galactic and larger scales, may be associated with the physics of still smaller scales.




© Dirk Laureyssens, 2002. All rights reserved.