I know you mentioned books and time. Have you ever head of a writer named Robert Jordan? He writes fantasy books (they are best selling fantasy books) he has an 11 book series that all revolves around the "Wheel of Time" the characters are all apart of it and the wheel weeves as the wheel wills. Sort of like we are all apart of the bigger picture and you cannot change the wheel you can move within it but regardless of what you do eventually you will end up back where the wheel wants you.


The symbol for all this is a ships wheel with a snake going in a figure eight at the top (its head eating its tail).

Here is an image of it (only online one I could quickly find so do pay attention to the words but should give you the idea...

http://images.wikia.com/laruotadelte.../b/bc/Wiki.png

not sure if this might interest you.