"The Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol
depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail
and forming a circle.
"The Ouroboros often represents
self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially
in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself,
the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles
that begin anew as soon as they end (compare Phoenix).
It can also represent
the idea of primordial unity related to something
existing in or persisting from the beginning
with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished.
The ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological
symbolism,
but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations,
where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus.
It is also
often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism.
Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having
an archetypal significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist
Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn
state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both
mankind and the individual child." Source
