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It is the circle of life, and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, ’till e find our place, on the path unwinding’

—Elton John, British musician and composer, born 1947

No symbol is more profound than the ancient Ouroborus.   Dating back to 1600 BC, supposedly around the time of Moses, the concept of Ouroborus comes from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus of ancient Egyptian times.  The idea of the Ouroborus shows up continuously across the world as a symbol of duality in all of its forms.   Ancient Greeks named the Ouroborus, but the same symbology appears in Aztec, Chinese, Hindu and Gnostic philosophies as well.   The Ouroborus swallows his tail in a never ending circle.  The Ouroborus is known as the tail swallower.   Some beleive that the Ouroborus is a depiction of a star and cloud configuration in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Numerous peoples say we may be living in the end days of a great cycle.  The Maya called a cycle a Baktun.  The Mayan calendar ends abruptly on December 21, 2012, indicating the end of this cycle and the beginning of the next. The Hindu cycle is a called Yuga as they speculate periods of relative darkness and light.  The cycles together form one “Great Year” as our solar system winds its way across our galaxy circling the central sun of the Milky Way.  Today, we are leaving the midst of the Kali Yuga, or deepest period of darkness.  The dark ages.  Still.

Fundamentalist Christians claim that we are in the end days of our current cycle and that we should expect the Rapture as some leave this earth in a catastrophe.  Others believe that the return of the Messiah is imminent.  Some religions and believers expect us to enter a Messianic age, the Age of Aquarius.  Some people speculate fearful scenarios with fire, earthquakes, and plagues that represents the end of the world as we know it.  Other speculations are spiritual ecstasy theories.   No one really knows.

I will not posit a theory as it is just conjecture stemming from my own intuition and mind.  But, I will say that I believe that we are a part of this great cycle and that we are observing considerable awakening, invention and positive growth starkly contrasted by serious issues of greed, war and poverty.

The Ouroborus is a representation of the change and is the symbol of the great cycles of time on a grand scale.  Birth and Death.  Night and Day.  Creation and Destruction.  Light and Dark.  Good and Evil.  Male and Female.  Ouroborus represents the bringing together of duality in all of its forms.

Perhaps some of this duality would be alleviated in a great return to wholeness.  Androgeny.  A blending of both sides.  All is one again.  What would that be like?  Where this earth represents a little bit of heaven, born from nature, “As above, so below.”

Perhaps we are very, very lucky to be living on this earth at this time, despite all of its problems. Because we are living here now to see what will happen next in this great drama playing here called life.  Each of us has taken our role, each of us has a seat in the theater with a unique view.  And, there have never been more people alive at one time as now.  As if we all wanted to come to this particular show.   But, what?

It is clear that there have been great cycles before us even though we have no recorded history for them.  Rumors of a previous civilization destroyed in a great flood about in every culture and in the Bible’s 5 Books of Moses.  The cave men roamed the earth and the dinosaurs before them.  And we know very little about what went on because our history only goes back 5 or 6 thousand years.

Born from nature, we are brought here with nothing, remembering nothing.  And then we grow, change and age and as we do we go back through the same process nostalgic for the life we led.  If we are lucky to live long enough, we may lose our faculties again, memory, wet our pants, need help dressing and walking and then leave this world, as we came, alone with no possessions.

The incredible predicament that the world find’s itself in today does not meet the criteria that the doomsday sayers thought….it is economic. And driven by greed.  The greed of a few today is no different that the greed that fueled the French or Russian revolutions in the past.  Despite the various mechanisms provided for distribution of wealth in different nations, all of them are failing.  The Chinese Communist system has a huge disparity between rich and poor now that they have the fastest growing economy in the world.  The Russian system of government has made billionaires of a few, leaving the masses in poverty.  In Africa, the same.  And the American system of government is clearly breaking down.   Economics affect everyone, everywhere.

At the end of any cycle we see the effects of aging and entropy.  Systems that once worked break down.  Today, we see all sorts of systems breaking down.  From individual people to corporations, governments, and belief systems the toll is mounting.  Some people resist the change and fall prey to depression as they cling to the remnant of the past. The closely held ideas of how life should be has not come to pass.

Generally speaking, there is not much we can do when the circle of life comes to pass before our eyes.  So grand is the scheme upon which the universe is pinned.  Humans look frail and small beside these great works.  We do not own the system:  we do no control the workings.  We are a part and parcel of the dynamic that is in play. As said Hermes Trismestigus, “Speak not of this to men who have not the mind of God, for to them we seem as liars and charlatans.”

As said Hermes Trismestigus, “Speak not of this to men who have not the mind of God, for to them we seem as liars and charlatans.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Ancient Mysteries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.