ouroboros spiritual meaning

The ouroboros stands for the course of life: humankind’s voyage through ages that begin and end in a steadily rebuilding period. or uroborus In the Aitareya Brahmana, a Vedic text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of the Vedic rituals is compared to "a snake biting its own tail."[22]. New Age spirituality, alchemy, and astrology may use the ouroboros in discussions of the cycle of life and death and of cosmic harmony. The ouroboros is depicted twice on the figure: holding their tails in their mouths, one encircling the head and upper chest, the other surrounding the feet of a large figure, which may represent the unified Ra-Osiris (Osiris born again as Ra). The identification appears to go back as far as the poems of Kalir in the 6th-7th century CE. An aim of alchemists and adepts, described as "individual self-perfection through physical transmutation and spiritual transcendence",[14] was familiar to the alchemist and physician Sir Thomas Browne. The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. Literally meaning ‘tail-devourer’ in Greek, it … In the words of Storl (2004) also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the "cycle of samsara". Varela, Francisco J. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. It presents the route of physical fatality — the inescapable fact that all life commences with nothing and concludes in the same spot that it originated. Gucci's latest jewelry lineup featuring six rings, necklaces, and pendants draws inspiration from the Egyptian Ouroboros symbol, which depicts a snake and sometimes a dragon eating its own tail as part of a repetitive cycle that denotes creation arising out of destruction. [37], Symbolic snake or serpent with its tail in its mouth, Arien Mack: Humans and Other Animals, Ohio State University Press, 1999, p. 359. In another related biological application: It is remarkable, that Rosen’s insight, that metabolism is just a mapping..., which may be too cursory for a biologist, turns out to show us the way to construct recursively, by a limiting process, solutions of the self-referential Ouroborus equation f(f) = f, for an unknown function f, a way that mathematicians had not imagined before Rosen. The ouroboros or uroboros (/ˌ(j)ʊərəˈbɒrəs/, also UK: /uːˈrɒbərɒs/,[2][3] US: /-oʊs/) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon[4] eating its own tail. [32] [33]. The cycle of birth, life and death is ever-repeating. Ouroboros Meaning The ghost serpent the Ouroboros meaning spiritual and metaphysical. The far Right is becoming a parody of itself, an ouroboros of Internet trolling and irony. What was that? Oura means tail while Boros is translated as eating. In Indian philosophy This symbol has several meanings. This Ouroboros symbol was first created in 1682. The meaning of the serpent eating itself declares that “the end is the beginning.” Yeah, this is some deep stuff. [6][7] The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. If the first use was sealed into King Tut’s tomb, it would not have been seen by humans again until 1928 and therefore could not be copied from that source. The symbolism is basically the same, with a few tweaks. The famous ouroboros drawing from the early alchemical text, The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra (Κλεοπάτρης χρυσοποιία), probably originally dating to third century Alexandria but first known in a tenth century copy, encloses the words hen to pan (ἓν τὸ πᾶν), "the all is one". Frequently used in alchemical depictions, it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. W. Ross Ashby applied ideas from biology to his own work as a psychiatrist in “Design for a Brain” (1952): that living things maintain essential variables of the body within critical limits with the brain as a regulator of the necessary feedback loops. Its black and white halves may perhaps represent a Gnostic duality of existence, analogous to the Taoist yin and yang symbol. Norse legend tells of the great serpent, Jörmungandr, who encircles the earth and bites its own tail. Laws of form and form dynamics. According to the medieval Yoga-kundalini Upanishad, "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body" (1.82). The ghost serpent the Ouroboros meaning spiritual and metaphysical. According to the Zohar, the Leviathan is a singular creature with no mate, "its tail is placed in its mouth", while Rashi on Baba Batra 74b describes it as "twisting around and encompassing the entire world". The general principle of feedback describes a circuit (electronic, social, biological or otherwise) in which the output or result is a signal that influences the input or causal agent through its response to the new situation. Foremost is the symbolism of the serpent biting, devouring, eating its own tail [picture, left]. He further discusses the cybernetics in elementary actions (like picking up a drum stick), the evolution of cybernetic science from. An end that marks the beginning. [34], Second-order cybernetics, or the cybernetics of cybernetics, applies the principle of self-referentiality, or the participation of the observer in the observed, to explore observer involvement in all behaviour and the praxis of science[35] including D.J. It will usually appear in dreams when the dreamer is ready to deal with, and understand, complete spiritual self-sufficiency. As a symbol, it depicts a serpent consuming its own tail. Origins of the Ouroboros . Kauffman sub-reference: Kauffman LH. And it symbolizes the eternal cycle of things. [36], The genus of the armadillo girdled lizard, Ouroborus cataphractus, takes its name from the animal's defensive posture: curling into a ball and holding its own tail in its mouth. A gnostic and alchemical symbol, Ouroboros expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation. It is a serpent, more often a dragon, biting its own tale basing on the phenomenon that occurs in the wild. Cybernetics & Human Knowing 9(2): 49–63, pp57–58. ", Parmar, Robin. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious. [8], The first known appearance of the ouroboros motif is in the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld, an ancient Egyptian funerary text in KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, in the 14th century BC. 3. In summary, the meanings of Ouroboros can be summarized with the following concepts: Time, Continuity of life, Achievement, Repetition of the story, Self-sufficiency of nature, And the rebirth of the Earth. Ancient Egyptians also used the ouroboros to symbolize the flooding of the Nile, which occurred in seasonal cycles and was of great importance to ancient Egyptian agriculture and society. @elainethecat “Only By Devouring Ourselves Can We Find Our True Nature.” The ouroboros has been found throughout the ages in many cultural myths. The name “Ouroboros” comes from the Greek and means “tail eater.” For them, it symbolized the dual nature of existence, marked by life and death, male and female, light and dark, mortality and divinity, or Earth and heaven. Hence the snake eating its tail is an accepted image or metaphor in the autopoietic calculus for self-reference,[31] or self-indication, the logical processual notation for analysing and explaining self-producing autonomous systems and "the riddle of the living", developed by Francisco Varela. The tail eater is also a dragon, and a sexual symbol. The ancient symbol of the snake, serpent, or dragon devouring its own tail. Kybernetes: The International Journal of Systems & Cybernetics 29, no. The text concerns the actions of the god Ra and his union with Osiris in the underworld. Ouroboros definition: an ancient mythical serpent used to symbolize perpetuity | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. Other ancient cultures also incorporated the ouroboros symbol. The origins of the ouroboros can be traced to ancient Moon cults. The Ouroboros, the snake which eats its tail, is one the most ancient of mystical symbols. The Ouroboros is one of the world’s most ancient mystical symbols, having appeared in Egypt as early as 1600 BC. The ouroboros has certain features in common with the Biblical Leviathan. Fast forward to 1865, when the ouroboros was reportedly the inspiration for German chemist August Kekulé von Stradonitz in his discovery of the linked carbon ring structure of a benzene molecule. The use of the serpent biting its tail as a symbolic image must have been in somewhat common use during the times before and after King Tut. Edition Echoraum, 2016. The Ouroborus is an ancient Egyptian symbol that has been assimilated into several cultures and beliefs. Both serpents are manifestations of the deity Mehen, who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. , symbolizing the cycle of life the alchemical cycle: its venom ( acidic, corrosive water is... The son was named Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye `` tail-eater. they disappeared from gravestones in the 2nd century.! Egyptian culture ( Uroboros ) represents the ideas of perpetuity, cycles, and Machinic! Ages that begin and end in a 14th-century BCE Egyptian religious text found in the tomb of Tutankhamen same with. `` tail-eater. the far Right is becoming a parody of itself, an ouroboros internet. In all ' and the end is the symbolism is basically the,... 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