This is for Sister Seeking Maat!
There is one poster here who has attempted to make issue with my signature, raising stupid questions and making stupid statements concerning what he thinks. I have largely ignored his ignorance and will continue to do so upon his return. The following will serve to make the connection between the question you asked my Sister, as well as giving some detail in regards to the deity known as the Feathered or Plumed Serpent. There is a deeper meaning to all this, some of which I have shared in the Astrology forum in reards to the zodiac, Ophichus, and the significance of the number 13. This same symbolism is also connected to the the so-called Greek Aesclepius, the spiritual art of Heaing, and my inner-standing of one of my Birth names "Michael", which is the Hebrew form of Macha-El, or Ra-Herukhuti, the "Lord of the Two Horizons".
The
Ouroboros (or
Uroborus)
[1] is an ancient symbol depicting a
serpent or
dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language;
οὐρά (
oura) meaning "tail" and
βόρος (
boros) meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail".
[2]
The Ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life, and infinity[citation needed] the eternal return, and represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality, as in the phoenix.
It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished[
citation needed]. 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[
citation needed]. It is also often associated with
Gnosticism, and
Hermeticism[
citation needed].
Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having an
archetypal significance to the human
psyche.
[2] 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.
[3]
Historical representations
Antiquity
Egypt
The Ouroboros is contained in the Egyptian Book of the Netherworld.[4] The Ouroboros was popular after the Amarna period.[5]
In the
Book of the Dead, which was still current in the Graeco-Roman period, the self-begetting sun god
Atum is said to have ascended from chaos-waters with the appearance of a snake, the animal renewing itself every morning, and the deceased wishes to turn into the shape of the snake Sato ("son of the earth"), the embodiment of Atum.
[5][6][7]
Greece
Plato described a self-eating, circular being as the first living thing in the universe—an immortal, mythologically constructed beast.
The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself.
For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet.
[8]
In Gnosticism, this serpent symbolized eternity and the soul of the world.
India
Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe
Kundalini energy. According to the 2nd century
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). Another interpretation is that
Kundalini equates to the entwined serpents of the Caduceus, the entwined serpents representing commerce in the west or, esoterically, human DNA.
Mexico
The god
Quetzalcoatl is sometimes portrayed biting its tail on
Aztec and
Toltec ruins.
A looping Quetzalcoatl is carved into the base of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, at Xochicalco, Mexico, 700-900 AD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros