The Ouroboros in Culture

       

       The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol that originated in Ancient Egypt.  In Ancient Egypt, the Ouroboros symbolized the union between Ra the sun god and Osiris the god of the netherworld.  Later the symbol occurred again in a work by Plato and described as a serpent feeding off of itself.  This was the symbol given to the universe by Plato and was said to be the perfection of the universe and is constantly spinning in place.  It was later brought into alchemy and was associated with the philosophers stone.  At this point in time it was held as a symbol of the duality of life with the one end constantly consuming being the “evil” and the other end that constantly supplies the other with life or sustenance being the “good” and that neither could exist without the other.  In Norse tradition the Ouroboros is known as the serpent Jörmungandr or the world serpent.  It was said to surround the world and will eventually consume the world.  In South America there are people who believe that at the edge of the world an anaconda is in the waters biting its tail.  In India the serpent can be visualized as the body energy or the energy of the universe in an everlasting loop.
In each of these the serpent or ouroboros is depicted as biting its tail and supplying a constant life source and infinite loop.  In most of these cultures the ouroboros is said to bring about the end of the world, via consuming the world, constricting the world, or some other method of destruction.  While not all of these myths are promoting the symbol of a serpent as evil, a vast majority were brought about as a warning about the dangers of snakes.  Most of these “evil” snake myths are in locations with a poisonous snake population, or adopted the myth from an older civilization that did have that problem.  These cultures may have been wrong about labeling snakes as evil, but they taught safety and to be cautious of serpents.  Therefore, it is necessary to be cautious of snakes as some may be deadly, but this is true of most animals on this planet.