What is uroboros?

An uroboros is a serpent with its tail in its mouth. Dating back to at least Ancient Egypt, and very popular with medieval alchemists, the uroboros is said to represent eternity.  It also symbolizes both self-sufficiency and self-destruction (depending on which end of the snake one identifies with).


I beg to differ. As a writer of memoir, I am an uroboros, chewing on my past to survive the present, to make a thing of beauty for the future. Problem is, I will eventually eat myself up and disappear.

>Memoir is a bitter genre—the realm of writers with business unfinished and words unsaid.
>A netherworld, if you will.
>Between the spoken, the written, the thought out and willfully forgotten, lies a liminality.
>This is where we—I?—dwell.
>They say a ghost cannot cross over until the conflict that keeps them here is resolved.
>What if the ghost cannot find the conflict? Worse--what if the conflict doesn't want to be found? What if it will stop at nothing to escape?

If you were to get a tattoo, what would it be? And where would you put it?

I would get an oroboros mermaid across my back, with a few differences:
1. Instead of being circular, this oroboros would be shaped like the infinity symbol.
2. Instead of having her tail in her mouth, the mermaid would be cradling it, almost as if she is using it as a pillow.
3. The mermaid will have my face.

Its significance: The oroboros is a cyclical symbol of both self-sufficiency and depression (eating oneself). The fact that she is using her tail as a pillow (instead of eating it) means she is comfortable with this aspect of herself, and gains nourishment by acknowledging her weaknesses. She used to be self-destructive, but is now self-nourishing.

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