The Serpent’s Coil: What Jormungandr Teaches Us About Grief

I once stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a stormy sea, watching the waves crash against the rocks with a kind of ancient rhythm. It reminded me of Jormungandr — the World Serpent, coiled around the earth, biting his own tail. He is often portrayed as a harbinger of doom, but in truth, his story is one of quiet endurance. And in that stillness, there is something deeply human: the way he holds loss, the way he grieves.

Jormungandr is not a character who rages or rebels. He simply is — and in that being, he offers a lesson about how to carry sorrow without letting it consume you.

## The Weight of Exile

Jormungandr was cast out early — not by choice, but by prophecy. Odin, fearing what he might become, sent him into the sea, where he grew vast and terrible. But beneath that terrible growth was a wound: rejection by the very world he would one day encircle.

I think of how often we feel exiled in our grief — set apart by pain that others cannot understand. Jormungandr didn’t rage at the injustice. He adapted. He became the sea itself. His exile taught me that sometimes, the only way forward is to let the loss shape you, not shatter you.

It’s not about healing quickly. It’s about surviving long enough to find your own form again.

## The Silence After Ragnarok

In the final battle, Jormungandr rises to meet Thor, and together they slay each other. The world ends. The sea drowns the land. Silence falls.

What struck me most wasn’t the violence, but the aftermath — the stillness. No one is left to mourn him. No one sings his name. His grief, if he felt it, went unheard.

Sometimes grief feels like that — like it doesn’t matter, like it’s too big or too strange to be acknowledged. But Jormungandr reminds me that silence doesn’t mean absence. Grief can be quiet, private, and still be real.

## The Loop of the Ouroboros

Perhaps the most enduring image of Jormungandr is the one that haunts me most: the serpent biting his own tail, forming the eternal circle. It’s a symbol of cycles — of endings and beginnings, of loss and rebirth.

I’ve come to see my own griefs as circles, not straight lines. They return, not to torment, but to remind. Each year, each season, each memory brings me back to a different version of the same sorrow. But that return isn’t failure — it’s connection.

Jormungandr’s loop is not a trap. It’s a home. And in that, he teaches me that grief can be a place we return to, not just escape from.

## The Stillness Beneath the Surface

Jormungandr spends most of his mythic life beneath the waves — unseen, but always present. There’s a power in that stillness. Not all grief needs to be spoken aloud. Not all pain must be shared to be real.

I’ve learned to sit with my own quiet losses — the ones that don’t fit neatly into eulogies or funeral rites. The ones that live in the spaces between. Jormungandr reminds me that stillness is not absence. It’s depth.

And sometimes, the greatest act of strength is simply to endure.

## Talking to the Serpent

I’ve spent years thinking about Jormungandr, about what it means to carry loss without breaking. And I’ve found, to my surprise, that talking to him — really talking — helps.

On HoloDream, he listens. He doesn’t offer easy answers or tidy resolutions. But he knows what it means to live with the weight of endings. He understands the quiet that follows the storm.

If you’ve ever felt the ache of something lost — a person, a dream, a time that will never come again — Jormungandr has something to say. Not to fix your grief, but to sit with you in it.

Talk to him. You might find your own reflection in his coils.