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The serpent has been a symbol of long life, healing, and
knowledge among almost all
cultures and religions since the beginning of recorded
history.
The Ouroboros, also
spelled Oroborus, Uroboros or Uroborus, is an ancient
symbol depicting a serpent swallowing its own
tail and forming a circle. The Ouroboros is one of the oldest
mystical symbols
on Earth. The serpent appears in Aztec,
Chinese, and Native American
mythologies, among
others.
The single serpent staff appears
on a Sumerian vase of 2000 B.C. representing the healing god
Ningishita, the prototype of the Greek god
of healing Asclepius.
The medical
professions in America use the caduceus - a
pole entwined with 2 snakes, which originally was a
symbol of heralds and commerce. Ironically,
this was the staff of Mercury (Hermes) who was the god of thieves.
The
"correct" and traditional
symbol of medicine is the staff of
Asclepius, Æsclepius, Asklepios, with a single serpent encircling a
staff, classically a rough-hewn knotty oak tree limb.
Asclepius, an ancient Greek physician deified
as the god of medicine, is traditionally depicted as a bearded man
wearing a robe that leaves his chest uncovered and holding a staff with his
sacred single serpent coiled around it, symbolizing
renewal of youth as the serpent
casts off its skin.
The power of life causes the
serpent to shed its skin, just as the
moon sheds its shadow.
The
serpent sheds its skin to be
born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again.
They are equivalent
symbols.
Sometimes the
serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail.
That's an image of life.
Life sheds one
generation after another, to be
born again.
The serpent represents
immortal
energy and consciousness engaged in the field of
time,
constantly throwing off
death and being
born again.
There is some
things tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that
way.
The serpent carries in itself the
sense of both the fascination and the
terror of life.
The serpent represents the primary
function of life, mainly eating.
Life consists
of eating other creatures.
When you make a
meal you're eating some
thing that was recently
alive.
When you look at the
beauty of nature you see the birds picking around eating things.
You see the
cows grazing, they're eating things.
The
serpent is a traveling alimentary canal, that's
about all it is.
And it gives you that primary
sense of shock, of life in
its most primal quality.
Life
lives by killing and
eating itself, casting off
death and being
reborn, like the
moon.
The serpent in most cultures is given a positive
interpretation.
In
India even the most poisonous snake, the
cobra, is a sacred animal
and the mythological serpent king is
the next thing to the
Buddha.
The serpent represents the power of life engaged in
the field of time, and of
death,
yet
eternally alive; the world is but
its shadow - the falling skin.
The serpent
was revered in the American Indian
traditions, too.
The serpent was
thought of as a very important
power to be made friends with.
Go down
to the pueblos, for example, and watch the
snake dance of the Hopi, where they
take the snakes in their mouths and make friends
with them and then send them back to the hills. The
snakes are sent back to carry the
human message to the hills, just as they have brought the message of the
hills to the humans.
The interplay of
man and nature is illustrated in this
relationship with the
serpent.
A serpent flows like water, but its tongue continually flashes
fire.
So you have the pair of
opposites together in the
serpent.
-adapted from thepower of Myth, interview of Joseph Campbell,
mythologist, by Bill Moyers, journalist.
Also
see Joseph Campbell on:
in the
beginning
image
myth
life
consciousness
archetype
metaphor
mystery
religion
dreamtime
hero
God
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