Symbols - What does heaven look like
Ouroboros
The symbol used to portray the concept of Energy recycling.
The symbol is always the same with a serpent devouring its own tail, occasionally two serpents are used [yin and yang energy]. The serpent here represents the energy and there is the idea of destruction as well as creation embodied in the picture. The symbol represents the endless cycle of ordered energy recycling via construction and destruction; it is one of the enduring symbols of the recycling of energy – the dissolution of ordered energy which is then used to feed the creation process – the creation of ordered energy. See also Serpent.
In some depictions the serpent is shown half black and half white or in contrasting colours which in this case is depicting the fact that creation and destruction is based on Contrast.
A Dictionary of Symbols – J E Cirlot
In some versions of the Ouroboros, the body is half light and half dark, alluding in this way to the successive counterbalancing of opposing principles as illustrated in the Chinese Yang-Yin symbol....... there is a Venetian manuscript on alchemy which depicts the Ouroboros with its body half black ..and half white
Some examples from various cultures
Ouroboros Sophia |
The Freemason’s triangle [cone] with the eye, the sun and the ouroboros |
Engraving by Lucas Jennis, in alchemicaltract titled De Lapide Philisophico |
Orphic snake symbol
Observations
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- Ancient Egyptian - Djew
- Ancient Egyptian - The Creation Myth of Heliopolis
- Ancient Egyptian - The sceptre as a symbol
- Blake, William - By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss
- Blake, William - In deluge o’er the earth born man, then turned the fluxile eyes
- Böcklin, Arnold - Roger and Angélique 1874
- Bowie, David - Black Star
- Bruce Chatwin - Australian aboriginal – Songlines
- Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations - Ortha Nan Gaidheal
- Chippewa - Native American Indians - The Great Serpent and the Flood
- Cirlot on Pisces
- Cirlot on the Ouroboros
- Copan - Mayan - The 'Sacrificial Stone'
- Crowley - 05 The Hierophant
- Crowley - 09 The Hermit
- Dr Jordan Peterson – The Mesopotamian gods and the Creation story
- Escher - spirals
- Flamel, Nicolas - from Alchemie de Flamel by D Molinier 1772
- H Reussner - Pandora Basle 1582
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Sacred Grove
- Indus valley - Mohenjo-Daro - 09 The Seven-stranded necklace
- Isidore of Seville - Etymologiae
- Jeremy Narby – Cosmic serpent
- Job 41 - The Leviathan
- Kahuna - Bakunawa as Ouroboros
- Kekulé, Friedrich August – The Origins of the Structural Theory
- Kekulé, Friedrich August – The Origins of the Structure of Benzene
- Khunrath, Heinrich - Vom hylealischen Chaos 1708
- Lyall Watson - Aido-Hwedo
- Maier, Michael - Atalanta fugiens 1618
- Maier, Michael - Atalanta fugiens 1618
- Manning, Matthew - The Link - 12 Icy chill climbing their legs and apparitions on the wall
- Melville Jean Herskovits - The Dahomey god of snake like things
- Misc. source - Australian aboriginal – Rainbow serpent
- Misc. source - The yacu-mama
- Mutus Liber 01 Cover
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - Serpents
- Norse - Jelling
- Ogotemmeli - Anvils, hammers and the celestial granary
- Organisation of Pictish society – Roles - Knight - The Whitham Shield
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Dreams of Rings, Circles, Eggs and Stars
- Physiologus, the
- Picts – Basic truths - Ouroboros
- Plato - Phaedo - Energy recycling, streams and rivers
- Plato - Timaeus - The Ouroboros and the Abyss
- Poetic Edda - Hymir's poem [extract]
- Poetic Edda - Völuspá [extract]
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 17 Demonstration of Perfection
- Sacred geography - Korean mystic shamanism – Caves – 01 The Tomb Complex of Goguryeo
- Saint Brendan - 04 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 09 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 12 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - A summary of his 'voyage'
- Saint Brendan - from a 15th century manuscript
- Saint-Yves d’Alveydre – The Archeometer – Revelation 02
- Shinto dragon
- Swinburne, Algernon Charles – from Hymn to Proserpine
- Symbols – Picts – Sacred site - Archway [Barrow]
- Tarot - 08 Minor Arcana - 02s Balance
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - An abstract Greek absurdity has crazed the man
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - There
- Yoruba creation myth
- Zimmer, Dr Heinrich - Adi-sesa