The Ouroboros

an introduction...
 
The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.  It is a symbol that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and of coming full circle.  It is an ancient whisper that speaks of the eternal return: the cycles of life, death and rebirth leading to immortality.  Like an old and ancient beautiful thread, the colors of the Ouroboros are woven throughout time in the Stories of phoenix, dragons, serpents and snakes. 
 
I have come to believe that inside the belly of this ancient snake whom eats its own tail, lies the ooze of primordial unity.  Primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force and qualities it cannot be extinguished.  Within that ooze lies the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual.  The ooze from an ocean from which all is born and where all is One.  It is from this ocean of ooze that my Story, my tale is born.  It is a Story born in a place far away from the concerns or constraints of ticking clocks and time as we have currently come to know it.  This tale is seeped in an embryonic fluid that moves through time.  Past, present, future and the unknown all swimming together in non-linear form and function.  It is from this place that this tale has been woven.
 
As I followed the trails of this Story, I found myself wondering; could our lives, our personal Stories, our collective Stories, the Stories of all mankind, the Stories of all kind and beyond be from the vast waters of this primordial ocean, from this place which, like the Ouroboros, has no beginning or end?  Is it possible that the waters from this ocean swell and rise within us giving rise and fall to our memories and the memories of our origins?  Do these waters direct the rhythm and flow of our Stories and our lives?  A perpetual pumping of liquid memory that flows through the vessel of our beings in a way that allows us to be continually reborn.  If we are reborn in this manner does our birthing hold the possibility of remembering the source of our origins and the agreements that we have made with the source of our existence?  Could this liquid, this memory, be a form of Medicine that could benefit humanity and the magnificent world that we all share and which is in desperate need?
 
I wondered if it is us/we who navigate the rivers and oceans of our lives or are the rivers and the oceans the captains of our sailing and sinking ships, navigating us on a journey that reveals our individual purpose within the Story that we are all a part of?  Are we like that ancient snake, both swallowing and disgorging ourselves in an all consuming yarn: each of us following our individual threads in order to be lead to our collective and shared story; a beautiful, expressive unraveling?  If we become aware of our relationships with these waters, if we become aware that we are not separate from these waters, are we then able to see its and our own passage through time and space?  Are we then able to see that we are all swimming in the same primordial water?
 
I began to think that perhaps the answers to these questions were unimportant.  Perhaps what matters, what is of importance, lies within the seeking of these questions and their answers? Perhaps what matters is being willing. Willing to enter into the mouth of the serpent knowing that you will eventually become the tail that will spiral its way back around and enter into the mouth once again.  Willing to become part of the food and part of the Story.  Willing to acknowledge our individual responsibility and part in an eternal return.  Willing to live a life that is an honoring and remembering of the cycles of life, death and rebirth that leads to immortality and the feeding of an incomprehensibly beautiful dance. These are the question and thoughts that line the trail that I have been following.  It is this tale that I have followed in seeking the trailhead.  It is this tale that has become the tail of the Ouroboros which is forever seeking the mouth.

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