The Ouroboros - the serpent that eats its own tail - represents the eternal cycle of destruction and creation, death and rebirth. In Jung's psychology, it symbolizes the circular nature of individuation, where endings become beginnings in the spiral journey toward wholeness.
Living Ouroboros
Experience the breathing, pulsing Ouroboros as a living symbol. Watch how destruction and creation flow into each other in eternal motion.
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Personal Renewal Journey
Map your own cycles of death and rebirth. Identify patterns of endings and beginnings in your psychological development.
Your Renewal Cycles
Death/Ending
Gestation
Birth
Growth
Maturity
Pattern Analysis
Ouroboros Mandala Creator
Create your own circular mandala incorporating the ouroboros principle. Design patterns that represent your personal cycles of transformation.
Ouroboros Meditation
Use the cyclic breathing of the Ouroboros as a meditation focus. Synchronize your breath with the eternal cycle.
Meditation Journal
The Psychology of Eternal Return
Cyclic Nature of Psyche
The psyche operates in cycles rather than linear progression. What appears as regression often precedes the next level of development.
- Spiral development model
- Return with new understanding
- Integration through repetition
- Depth through cycles
Death and Rebirth
Psychological transformation requires the death of old patterns and identities to make room for new growth and understanding.
- Ego death experiences
- Identity transformation
- Letting go as prerequisite
- Phoenix principle
Self-Devouring
The ouroboros eating itself represents consciousness examining itself, leading to both destruction and renewal of understanding.
- Self-reflection as dissolution
- Analysis as creative destruction
- Consciousness feeding on itself
- Knowledge through self-consumption
Eternal Return
Nietzsche's concept of eternal return finds psychological expression in the recurring patterns and themes of individuation.
- Archetypal repetitions
- Generational patterns
- Personal myth cycles
- Timeless present moment
Jung on the Ouroboros
"The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e., of the shadow."
— Carl Jung, Collected Works
"The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles. For knowledge of the center is repeatedly lost and must be found again."
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
"The self is not only the centre, but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality."
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome."
— Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections