Celtic
Symbol · The Ancient World
Triquetra
The Celtic Trinity Knot
Three arcs, one unbroken line: distinct forces that hold only because each relies on the others.
What it meansThree arcs drawn without lifting the pen: the figure is one continuous line that looks like three things. Whatever triad it has been used for — and it has served several — the reading is always that the parts are distinguishable and not separable.
Symbol · The Ancient World
Triskelion
The Spiral of Life
Life as motion, not state — spiralling out and back, at the risk of losing the centre you turn on.
What it meansThree arms in rotation, all turning the same way, so the figure has no rest position — it reads as motion even when still. The reading is of life as process rather than state: always going round, and always around a centre that is itself empty.
Symbol · Esoteric Symbols · 1792
Awen
The Three Rays of Light
A druidic emblem of three converging rays, signifying divine inspiration and the balance of opposing energies.
What it meansThree rays for the three shouts of the divine name, and the light falling between them as inspiration that arrives rather than being produced. The modern druid tradition reads the outer rays as the poles and the centre as their reconciliation — a balance drawn as illumination.