Talismans for Life and Vitality
Spinning spirals, unfurling ferns and the Egyptian sign of life: how people have celebrated the simple delight of being alive.
For vitality
7 talismans
Vitality is the simple, joyful wish to be fully alive. Talismans for life and vitality celebrate breath, growth, sunlight and movement, the liveliness people everywhere have seen in spring shoots, turning spirals and the rising sun.
Life as something to celebrate
Long before anyone spoke of wellness, cultures found words and pictures for the spark that makes living things lively. Ancient Egyptians wrote ankh, life, as a gift of the gods. Many peoples linked that spark with breath, with green growth and with the warmth of the sun.
Talismans for vitality are often bright and dynamic. They spin, unfurl, shine or simply look full of life, and they are given at moments of celebration: a birth, a coming of age, the turn of the seasons. They express gratitude for life as much as a hope for more of it. Spring festivals across Europe and Asia, from maypoles to the coloured powders of Holi, share the same exuberant mood.
Egypt: the sign of life
The Ankh is the Egyptian hieroglyph for life itself. Gods are shown holding it to the nose of a king, as if offering the breath of life, and it appears on jewellery, mirror cases and temple walls from the beginning of Egyptian history. Its looped cross is still one of the most recognised symbols in the world.
The Eye of Horus belongs here too. Its Egyptian name, wedjat, means the sound or whole one, and the myth of the god’s restored eye made it a picture of wholeness and of life made complete again. Egyptians wore it in this life and took it with them into the next.
Spirals, stars and shoots
The Triskele, three spirals or legs turning around one centre, seems always to be in motion. Triple spirals were carved at Newgrange in Ireland around 3200 BCE, and the motif returned in Celtic metalwork many centuries later. Many people today read it as a sign of movement, progress and the vigour of the natural world.
The Pentacle, a five-pointed star often set in a circle, was used by the Pythagoreans as a sign of recognition and of wholeness. Renaissance writers drew a human figure inside it, arms and legs outstretched to the five points. For many modern Pagans it is a sacred symbol of the elements and of life in balance.
The Koru is the Māori form of an unfurling fern frond, coiled tight and ready to open. It stands for new life, growth and strength, and it appears in carving, in rafter paintings and in , the treasured greenstone of Aotearoa New Zealand. A piece made by a Māori carver keeps that meaning close to its source.
Shells and silver offerings
The cowrie shell has long been linked with life and abundance in West Africa, where it was once also money. Sewn onto garments, crowns and masks or worn in strings, it is a sign of flourishing and of families continuing from one generation to the next.
In Mexico, Milagros are small offerings of silver or tin shaped like people, hearts, animals and everyday things, pinned beside the image of a saint. Each one asks for a blessing on a particular part of life, or gives thanks for one, from a family member to a harvest or a working animal. They are devotional objects, so keep them with respect.
To wear a sign of life is, above all, to say thank you for it.
Keeping a vitality talisman
A vitality talisman is a reminder to enjoy the life you have: to go outside, to celebrate, to notice the seasons turning. Many people choose one for a milestone birthday, a new baby in the family or the first days of spring.
Choose a material that suits the spirit of the piece, such as warm gold for an ankh, green stone for a koru or a simple shell on a cord. Its cousins on our page about renewal and new beginnings share much of the same hopeful mood.
taliaris describes beliefs and customs; it makes no claim that a talisman has an effect.