The Ouroboros

The Ouroboros is a very ancient symbol, depicting a snake in the shape of a circle, eating its own tail.

Yeah, that’s great Josh.  So what?

Well, to me it represents something else, that I’d like to share with you.

Traditionally, the symbol signifies the cyclical nature of things.  The eater is also eaten, and is reborn through the process.

Jung saw it as the feedback process of life.  In human psychology, it would be the assimilation of the “shadow” side of the personality into a cycle of continuing psychological rebirth.

But, just as a hammer only sees nails, I see “systems” in this symbol.

The only reason that a human being would create a symbol like the Ouroboros (and it wasn’t just one, many cultures used this symbol), was if they saw it in nature.  Of course, the “ancients” paid much more attention to natural cycles than we do now, and put much more emphasis on those cycles in daily life (often of necessity – farming requires delicate attention to changes in annual cycles).

The only way they could recognize the cycle outside of themselves, was if they experienced it on some level internally.

The Ouroboros represents the nature of any system.

Any energy fed into a system, automatically is used to reinforce that system.

Now, here’s a “for instance.”

Production (in terms of industrial production, as we use it now) increases the incidence of cancer.

In the system that is the concept of life-via/as/through-production, the solution to cancer must be…

production.

That is, a solution must be produced!  Something must be made to cure the cancer!

The “cure” in such a system is found in pharmaceuticals, radiation treatment, etc.

But those systems require “production” – in a very real, very industrial sense.

They feed directly into the systemic pollution that (actually) caused the cancer to begin with.

The snake eats its tail.