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The ouroboros is an ancient emblem, showing a snake or dragon eating its own tail. This age-old symbol of regeneration, rebirth, renewal, wholeness, infinity … It holds so much mystic energy, it intrigues and calls for my attention.

The snake in itself, as a symbol, carries stories of danger and chaos and catastrophe. We have an enduring conception of the snake as deranged and unreliable and deceitful.

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life …

Genesis 3:14, King James Version

But in the ouroboros the creature now signifies unity and continuation, a bringer of order and stability.

 
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Engraving from Abraham Eleazar’s Uraltes chymisches Werck, published in 1735.

This dichotomy, between the snake as bringer of chaos and the snake as bringer of stability, accentuates the obvious unsustainability of the ouroboros’ action as it eats itself: you cannot survive by consuming yourself — nobody can be a perpetual motion machine! It is this tension between order and lunacy that creates the power of the imagery. And perhaps we are all drawn to the idea of the eternal. If only there was, we like to fantasize, a way to go on, and go on, and go on …

O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest? Go and take your place with the seekers after gold.

Leonardo da Vinci, 1494

In the mythology of the Vikings we hear about a serpent — Miðgarðsormr — which was one of Loki’s three sons with the giantess Angrboða. The gods learned from prophecies that the three sons would cause disaster.

Allfader sende då æsene i veg til å ta borna og føre dei til han. Og då dei kom til han, kasta han ormen ut i den djupe sjøen som ligg kringom alle land. Og ormen voks slik at han ligg midt i havet rundt alle land og bit seg i sporden.

Den yngre Edda Snorre Sturlason

… All-father sent the gods to get the children and bring them to him. And when they came to him he threw the serpent into that deep sea which lies around all lands, and this serpent grew so that it lies in the midst of the ocean encircling all lands and bites on its own tail.

Edda Snorri Sturluson

Here, too, the serpent simultaneously represents chaos and stability: a potential instigator of disaster, but also seemingly holding together and perhaps protecting the world. And the Miðgarðsormr, just like the other ouroboros, creates a symbol of unbroken continuity by closing the circle as it bites its own tail.

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