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Each item includes the name, region/culture, brief meaning, and psychological semantics (how the symbol can function in the context of experiencing eternity).

Visual Symbols of Eternity

Europe and the Mediterranean

1. Ouroboros – Egypt → Greco-alchemical tradition.

Meaning: a snake biting its own tail – eternal circle, self-generation. Psychology: an image of completeness and cyclicity, the «closing» of life narratives.

2. Spiral / Celtic spiral – Celtic and prehistoric Europe.

Meaning: development, growth, inner/outer dynamics. Psychology: a guide toward the center of the personality, movement toward wholeness.

3. Triskele (Triskelion) – Celts, British Isles.

Meaning: three-part dynamics (life cycles, times of day, triads of meaning). Psychology: a felt sense of moving through different levels of time.

4. Greek meander (Greek key) – classical ornament.

Meaning: continuity, flow. Psychology: a linear yet closed structure that gives a sense of stable continuation.

5. Lemniscate / infinity symbol (∞) – early modern Western emblem (mathematical).

Meaning: infinity as abstract continuity. Psychology: a cognitive symbolization of «boundlessness.»

6. Armenian symbol of eternity (Arevakhach) – Armenia.

Meaning: symbol of eternity, the sun, continuity of national memory. Psychology: collective continuity and a historical «self.»

Middle East, Egypt, Iran

7. Ankh – Ancient Egypt.

Meaning: key of life, eternal life. Psychology: hope of continuation, a symbol of life transcending death.

8. Ancient Persian and Zoroastrian circular motifs

Meaning: eternal return, cosmic orderliness. Psychology: a felt sense of a cosmic axis and constancy.

India and South Asia

9. Mandala / Yantra – Buddhism / Hinduism.

Meaning: sacred map of the cosmos and core wholeness. Psychology: a tool for centering, a «path to the center,» an experience of out-of-time wholeness.

10. Sacred swastika (pre-20th century use) – many ancient cultures of Asia and Europe.

Meaning: movement, cyclicity, solar rotation. Psychology: symbol of renewal; requires caution because of 20th-century historical stigma.

11. Sri Yantra / geometric symbols of infinite order

Meaning: mathematical and symbolic representation of the infinite structure of the universe. Psychology: a support for contemplative practices.

Tibet, China, East Asia

12. Endless/Eternal Knot (Shrivatsa) – Tibetan Buddhism.

Meaning: interweaving of causes and effects, absence of beginning or end. Psychology: experience of interdependence and the absence of linear causality.

13. Yin-Yang – Daoist symbolism.

Meaning: continuous interaction of opposites. Psychology: cycles of shifting states, wholeness through dynamic balance.

14. Tomoe – Japanese spiral emblem.

Meaning: rotation, cosmic movement. Psychology: contemplation of cyclicity and rhythm.

Africa

15. Adinkra: Sankofa (Ghana)

Meaning: «Go back and fetch it» – learn from the past. Psychology: connection of generations, the eternal wisdom of ancestors.

16. Adinkra: Gye Nyame (Ghana)

Meaning: supremacy of the divine, eternity of God. Psychology: reliance on a transcendent factor in human experience.

Oceania and Polynesia

17. Koru – Māori (New Zealand).

Meaning: fern frond spiral – birth, growth, and return to roots. Psychology: cyclical renewal and connection with lineage.

18. Polynesian spiral and interlaced patterns

Meaning: continuity, memory of the tribe. Psychology: collective identity as a path to experiencing «out-of-time» states.

The Americas (Indigenous Peoples)

19. Medicine Wheel – North America.

Meaning: cycles of life, four directions, wholeness. Psychology: a model of time as circular experience and restoration.

20. Peruvian—Mesoamerican images of the serpent and rebirth (Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan)

Meaning: serpent as a symbol of cyclical renewal and connection with the cosmos. Psychology: archetype of rebirth.

Universal / Modern

21. Labyrinth (not a «maze-escape,» but a symbol of the path to the center)

Meaning: path to the center/source. Psychology: metaphor of the inner journey, experience of stepping «outside» linearity upon reaching the center.

22. Tree of Life

Meaning: vertical axis, connection of worlds (underworld – middle world – upper world). Psychology: axis-support, a way to link past, present, and future with an eternal foundation.

23. Nautilus shell spiral

Meaning: logarithmic spiral as an image of infinite growth. Psychology: representation of development that does not break off but continually expands.

24. Möbius strip (modern mathematical symbol of infinity)

Meaning: one-sided surface without boundaries. Psychology: a contemporary visual metaphor of infinite unity.

25. Solar symbols (wheels, discs, circles)

Meaning: cycles of nature, eternal return of the sun. Psychology: biorhythmic support, a sense of constancy within change.

How to Use This List When Designing an Ornament / Emblem

1. Choose 3—5 motifs – more will reduce legibility. A good combination:

– 1 frame motif (circle/ouroboros),

– 1 central knot (endless knot/mandala/pattern),

– 1 dynamic element (spiral/triskele), and

– 1 semantic «anchor» (ankh, Armenian eternity sign, tree).

2. Consider context and audience. Some symbols (e.g., the swastika) require explicit historical and cultural disclaimers – it is better to avoid them unless you are ready to address this reflexively and clearly.

3. Visual hierarchy. Make the frame the largest element, the central knot the focus of attention, and dynamic elements the radial «rays» of movement.

4. Possible uses.

– Medallion for a title page;

– Border ornament for a page;

– Small emblem in the header/footer;

– — Working meditation card (black-and-white and sepia versions).

5. Ethical note. When using symbols from world cultures, it is helpful in the text to briefly indicate their origin and meaning, so as not to erase cultural authorship and not to fall into cultural appropriation.

The Eternity Experience Questionnaire can be found in the appendix to Chapter 9.