The Irish Triskelion: An Ancient Symbol of Healing, Growth, and Spiritual Evolution

By Leila Briggs

There is an ancient symbol painted on the floor of our healing room. Most people never see it. It rests on the basement floor. And unless you're helping set up for a larger healing session, you might never know it was there.

It is an Irish Triskelion. A three-armed spiral painted in deep purple that stretches across much of the room.

Its presence often sparks curiosity.

Why that symbol?

The answer begins long before the paint ever touched the floor.

The Triskelion in Our Healing Room

Over the years, the designated healing room in our home has moved from room to room. As our work evolved, so did the space that held it.

My favorite will always be the room with the fireplace. There is something deeply peaceful about receiving a healing session while listening to the crackle of a fire.

Years later, however, our focus shifted toward deeper journey work. These sessions often involved multiple practitioners working together and reconnecting with lost aspects. The lower room or basement became the natural home for that work. It offered the quiet, privacy, and space those longer sessions required.

Before we ever placed a healing bed in the room, we painted the Triskelion.

At the time, it simply felt right. We weren't trying to recreate an ancient ritual or imitate another tradition. We were creating a space that reflected the work we believed healing often asks of us: returning, remembering, integrating, and growing.

That Triskelion has remained on the floor ever since.

It still rests there and when we do deeper work it rests beneath the healing beds, quietly supporting the larger sessions. It reminds me that some choices continue to reveal their meaning long after they are made.

Why the Irish Triskelion Still Matters Today

Over the years, I've found myself reflecting on that choice more often. The symbol itself has lived many lives.

Long before written history could tell us exactly what it meant, the Triskelion appeared carved into ancient stone monuments, including the famous entrance stone at Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland. More than 5,000 years later, historians still debate its original meaning. Was it connected to the sun, the seasons, life cycles, or something entirely different? The truth is, we simply don't know.

Perhaps that mystery is part of what has allowed the symbol to endure.

As cultures changed, so did the ways people understood it. The Triskelion became associated with Celtic identity, and later, threefold imagery was embraced within Christianity as a way of representing the Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I believe the symbol endured not because its meaning remained fixed, but because each generation found something true within it.

Some symbols survive because they refuse to belong to only one moment in history.

They continue to speak.

Standing in that healing room, I often think the Triskelion reminds us of something we easily forget about healing itself.

Healing rarely moves in straight lines.

We revisit old wounds from a different place than we stood before. We recover forgotten parts of ourselves. We return to familiar lessons carrying greater wisdom than we had the first time. What once felt like going backward often turns out to be another turn of the spiral, moving us forward in ways we couldn't yet recognize.

This is true whether we are healing physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. Growth often feels repetitive until we realize we are not standing where we once were. We have simply returned with greater understanding.

Perhaps that is why the Triskelion continues to resonate across centuries and traditions. Not because everyone agrees on what it means. But because it reminds us that wisdom evolves. Symbols evolve. Even our understanding of ourselves evolves.

The Triskelion has survived thousands of years because it has never been confined to a single interpretation. Instead, it has invited each generation to discover something meaningful within its spiraling form.

Maybe healing works the same way. Perhaps we are meant to spiral - to revisit, to rediscover, and to deepen our understanding each time life brings us back to familiar ground.

That is what the Triskelion has come to represent for me. Not just an ancient Irish symbol. But a quiet reminder that healing is always moving, always unfolding, and always inviting us to become a little more whole.