What Makes Talisman Jewelry Meaningful?

Pay Attention to What Beckons

What makes a piece of jewelry a talisman?

For me, it isn't simply the symbol stamped into the silver, the gemstone set into it, or a list of meanings someone else has assigned to either one. A talisman becomes meaningful through the relationship we form with it - through memory, intention, association, and the things an object comes to remind us of.

I've come to think of a talisman as an object we ask to remember something for us.

Sometimes we deliberately give an object that job. Sometimes it carries a symbolism that reaches back hundreds or thousands of years. And sometimes we're simply drawn to something long before we understand why.

The meaning isn't always something we choose from a list.

Sometimes it's something we recognize.

An Object We Ask to Remember Something for Us

One of the objects that first taught me this wasn't jewelry at all.

Years ago, a leader at a Weight Watchers meeting handed me a piece of a drinking straw. Not even a whole straw - maybe three inches of one. It was meant to represent my "last straw," a physical anchor for a decision I had made.

Objectively, it was almost comically insignificant. A tiny piece of plastic cut from a drinking straw.

I kept it for years.

Somewhere along the way, that scrap of plastic had stopped being merely a scrap of plastic. When I saw it or held it, I remembered what I had asked it to represent.

And eventually a thought occurred to me:

If an ordinary object could become an anchor, jewelry could become an anchor too.

Jewelry might be particularly suited to the job. We wear it against our bodies. Our fingers find a pendant without our thinking about it. We catch sight of a ring as we move our hands. A necklace can accompany us through an ordinary Tuesday, a difficult conversation, a celebration, a loss, a new beginning.

The precious metal isn't what makes that happen.

The relationship is.

Symbols Have Histories - But They Don't Dictate Our Stories

Humans have been giving objects protective, spiritual and symbolic significance for thousands of years. Symbols have been worn and carried close to the body, sometimes as expressions of faith, protection, identity, hope or intention.

I find that history fascinating. But when I'm making jewelry, I'm equally interested in what happens when an old symbol meets the person living with it now.

A symbol can arrive already carrying centuries of human meaning and still become something intensely personal.

The Scarab: An Ancient Symbol That Still Feels Magical

I've always been drawn to ancient Egyptian imagery, and later to Egyptian Revival design - that wonderful meeting place where ancient motifs mingle with Art Nouveau and Art Deco sensibilities.

The scarab appeals to me before I even get to its symbolism.

There is the symmetry of the beetle itself, the lyrical shape of it, the glint of light across an iridescent exoskeleton. I've also developed more affection over the years for insects and other creepy-crawlies - those creatures we often recoil from before stopping to really look at them.

And frankly, there is something delightfully improbable about watching a beetle take flight. I feel much the same way about bumblebees:

How the hell does that thing fly?

Long before I knew much about the scarab's history, it already felt magical to me.

The ancient Egyptians saw something extraordinary in it too, although for reasons rooted in their own observations and beliefs. The dung beetle rolling its ball became associated with the movement and rebirth of the sun, while the Egyptian word connected with the beetle was related to "coming into being." The scarab became one of ancient Egypt's most enduring amuletic symbols, associated with rebirth and regeneration. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a wonderful example of an ancient Egyptian scarab amulet and an explanation of this symbolism.

I didn't need to know that history to be drawn to the image. Learning it later didn't replace my response to the scarab - it added another layer.

That's one of the things I love about old symbols. They had lives before us. We don't have to erase those histories to allow them to have new lives with us.

The Thistle: I'll Grow Where I Want

The thistle carries a particularly strong association with Scotland, and many people are drawn to my sterling silver thistle ring and other thistle jewelry because of Scottish heritage.

That's part of the symbol's story.

It isn't, however, the part that feels most personal to me.

I think about the thistles and other stubborn little plants that appear in places where nobody intended them to grow - in pavement cracks, beside roads, at the edges of neglected spaces.

There is something wonderfully audacious about them.

I'll grow where I want.

The thistle is prickly. It protects itself. But it also produces this extravagant, improbable flower.

For me it has gradually become a reminder of the right to take up space - to grow where I grow, rather than waiting for someone to identify the appropriate patch of earth and grant me permission.

That isn't necessarily what a thistle will mean to someone else.

And that's exactly the point.

The All Seeing Eye: Being Drawn Before Knowing Why

One of my newer designs began with an old-fashioned wax seal stamp loaned to me by a friend.

I chose it from a large collection before I completely understood the symbolism contained in the design. I simply liked it.

The eye is surrounded by radiating lines, which immediately reminded me of drawings I made as a child. When I wanted to show that something was glowing, magical or special, I drew lines radiating around it.

There was also a botanical sprig. Tiny phases of the moon. An unusual shape among all the circular designs I work with. And, yes, it was unmistakably esoteric and witchy, which delighted me.

The center of the eye also happened to offer the perfect little space for a gemstone, so in one version I set a sapphire there. You can see that version in my All Seeing Eye sapphire pendant.

I could research every element before allowing myself to respond to it. I could look up what an eye means, what the moon phases mean, what the botanical imagery might mean.

There is value in doing that. History matters.

But my relationship with the image began earlier.

I noticed that it beckoned.

Pay Attention to What Beckons

This is something I practiced years ago while working around gemstones, and I've returned to it more recently.

Before looking up what a gemstone is "supposed" to mean, hold it.

If you can't hold it, imagine holding it.

And notice.

Does it feel quiet or energetic? Warm or cool? Expansive or contained? Does it remind you of a person, a landscape, a memory, a color, a particular moment in your life?

Maybe nothing happens at all.

That's an answer too.

You don't have to conclude that you've discovered an objective metaphysical property of the stone. You don't have to prove anything mystical is happening.

You're simply paying attention to your own response.

We live with an extraordinary amount of noise. It is very easy to fill every empty moment with something to listen to, scroll through, play or watch. Sometimes meaning needs just a little bit of room in which to become noticeable.

So before asking what symbol you should choose, I think there is another question worth asking:

What do you keep looking at?

What animal always makes you stop?

What tree feels strangely like an old friend?

What flower reminds you of something you can't quite name?

What stone do you keep picking up?

What image makes you want to come closer?

Pay attention to what beckons.

The Willow Tree: Meaning That Was There All Along

I think the weeping willow may be my favorite example of this.

I've loved willow trees since I was a child. When I was eleven or twelve, I thought they were romantic.

Years later, when my husband and I moved into our neighborhood, there was an enormous willow farther up our street. It stood beyond someone's yard over a carpet of grass, and I passed it constantly.

My heart yearned toward that tree a little every time.

I wanted to be underneath it.

"Sit" isn't quite the word. Neither is "lie down."

I wanted to be enfolded by it.

Then one day, years later, it was gone.

No ceremony. No warning. There one day and absent the next.

I missed it in a peculiar, detached but very real way. There used to be a tree there, and now there wasn't.

Meanwhile, I had been making a willow tree necklace for years.

The design was beautiful, and almost from the beginning I envisioned it as a slide pendant. I made one. It sold. I made another. It sold. Over many years I've made relatively few of them - probably more than ten but fewer than twenty - yet it has remained one of those designs to which I return.

For a long time, I didn't think very deeply about why.

Then a customer who had ordered one asked me what the willow represented to me.

And my heart opened.

The words were simply there.

To me, the willow tree is an old friend. I can lean on her. She makes me feel safe and relaxed. She bows over me to shelter and shade me. Her wispy branches gently touch my cheek. She watches me, listens to me, and weeps with me in both sorrow and joy.

I am enfolded in her.

She has seen me grow up.

And when I follow that feeling farther back, she evokes summer evenings and grass beneath bare feet. Childhood before self-consciousness, when I was aware of myself mostly through the sensation of the world around me.

And, for reasons I don't need to explain, she makes me think of fireflies.

I had been drawn to the willow for decades before I found those words.

I had even been making jewelry from its image.

The meaning wasn't something I selected from a symbolism guide and assigned to the tree.

I recognized something that had apparently been there all along.

Your Talisman Doesn't Have to Mean What Mine Does

This may be the part of making symbolic jewelry that interests me most.

I can tell you what a willow means to me. I can tell you why a thistle makes me think, I'll grow where I want. I can tell you the history of the scarab or why those little radiating lines around an eye remind me of being a child drawing something magical.

But once a piece leaves my studio, I don't get to decide what it will mean to the person wearing it.

A chickadee pendant might remind someone of their grandmother.

A thistle might represent Scotland, resilience, defiance, or the weed that grew beside a childhood home.

An eye might mean protection to one person and simply pay attention to another.

A gemstone may carry centuries of traditional lore and simultaneously remind its wearer of the exact blue of the water on one particular day.

A talisman doesn't even have to be solemn.

It can remind us of courage or grief or transformation.

It can also remind us of curiosity.

Delight.

Home.

A person we love.

The version of ourselves we are trying to become.

Or the version of ourselves we don't want to forget.

What Makes Talisman Jewelry Meaningful?

I don't think meaning resides entirely inside an object, waiting for us to discover the correct definition.

Gemology can tell us what a stone is. History can tell us how a symbol has been used. Tradition can tell us what other people have believed about it.

Those things matter. I love learning them.

But they don't get final authority over the relationship between a person and an object.

Sometimes we deliberately give a piece of jewelry a job:

Remember this for me.

Sometimes we inherit a symbol and make it our own.

And sometimes something simply beckons, and only much later do we understand why.

That is what I hope the jewelry I make can become - not an object that tells you what to believe, but something you can fill with your own associations, intentions, memories and meaning.

An anchor.

A tiny keeper of something you don't want to lose.

So if you're looking for a talisman, perhaps don't begin by asking what you're supposed to choose.

Begin by noticing.

What beckons?

Find the Symbol That Beckons to You

Many of the pieces I make begin with symbols that have beckoned to humans for generations - trees, flowers, animals, ancient motifs, celestial imagery and gemstones - but the meaning they carry when they leave my studio belongs to the person who wears them.

If something here speaks to you, you can explore my collection of handcrafted symbolic and talisman jewelry, made one at a time in my Maryland studio.

Frequently Asked Questions About Talisman Jewelry

What is talisman jewelry?

Talisman jewelry is worn with personal or symbolic meaning. Across many times and cultures, people have worn or carried meaningful objects as amulets and talismans. Today, a piece of talisman jewelry may draw its significance from an ancient symbol, a gemstone tradition, a personal memory, an intention, or simply the meaning its wearer chooses to give it.

Does a talisman have to have a traditional meaning?

No. A symbol may have a long cultural or historical meaning, but that doesn't have to be the only meaning it carries for you. A tree might represent something entirely different because of a childhood memory, while a gemstone may simply evoke a feeling you want to remember.

How do I choose a talisman?

Start by noticing what you're repeatedly drawn to. Instead of immediately asking what a symbol or gemstone is supposed to mean, pay attention to what it evokes for you. What do you keep looking at, picking up or coming back to?

Sometimes choosing a talisman begins by paying attention to what beckons.

Can jewelry become a personal talisman?

I believe it can. Jewelry is especially suited to becoming an anchor for memory or intention because we wear it close to our bodies, touch it throughout the day and carry it through our lives. Its meaning may come from the symbol itself, the circumstances in which it was given or chosen, or the memories and intentions we attach to it.

About the Artist

Amy Abrams is a jewelry artist and the founder of Amy Abrams Designs, working from her studio in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. With decades of experience making jewelry and more than twenty years working with precious metal clay, she creates handcrafted pieces inspired by nature, ancient symbols, transformation and the idea of jewelry as personal talisman.

Her work often begins with the things that beckon - an antique impression, a gemstone, a tree, an insect or a symbol whose meaning reveals itself slowly through the process of making.