me? thinking about autophagy? I still can't get the image of coprophagy out of my head. but I digress.

Also ouroboros, uroborus. [ad. Gr. oÌqob¾qo|, also oÌqg-, devouring its tail (freq. connected with dq0jxm).]
The symbol, usu. in the form of a circle, of a snake (or dragon) eating its tail.
1940 H. G. Baynes Mythol. of Soul vi. 221 Thus the uroborus symbol represents our psychic continuity with the immemorial past. Ibid., Geber, or Jabir, the most famous of the Arabian alchemists, who lived in Kufa about a.d. 776, used the uroborus to represent a closed system or magic ring, denoting the idea of an eternal process. 1953 R. F. C. Hull tr. Jung's Psychol. & Alchemy in Coll. Wks. XII. iii. v. 357 The alchemical parallel+is the double nature of Mercurius, which shows itself most clearly in the Uroboros, the dragon that devours, fertilizes, begets, and slays itself and brings itself to life again. 1957 N. Frye Anat. Criticism 157 Alchemical symbolism takes the ouroborus and the hermaphrodite+in this redemptive context. 1975 Hughes & Brecht Vicious Circles & Infinity Fig. 11 The ouroboros, the snake with his tail in his mouth, is the prototype of the vicious circle.+ The ‘Endless Snake’ depicts an ouroboros who has become one with himself. It has fallen into the mathematical sign for infinity.