In 1864 a German chemist named Friedrich Kekule was struggling to model the molecular structure of benzene when one day he fell asleep and dreamt of a snake swallowing its own tail.  Kekule woke up with a start, realizing that he had his answer:  the atoms in a benzene molecular joined together in a circular chain.

Thus did modern science meet ancient religion.  The whirling, self-consuming snake in Kekule's dream was the ouroboros, a symbol of the cyclical nature of existence.  Alchemy, gnosticism, hinduism, Christianity--as if to demonstrate the reality beneath the archetype, the ouroboros recurs across a wide array of spiritual beliefs.  It also makes for rather striking jewelry.

Why is the ouroboros in our thoughts here at the BofG?  Because it happened to be the subject of today's email from About.com's page on alternative religions!  If you are fascinated by religious imagery, you can assure yourself a daily dose by subscribing to site's symbol of the day.

Now if only dreaming about an ouroboros would help me figure out how to stop the endless cycles of mailing list spam.