Front
The beginning
At the very center, an embryo curled inside the spiral. Every life starts this small.
The meaning · From the first breath to the last
The philosophy behind this coin.
Every life is a spiral. It starts at a single point, small and curled, and widens with every year: first steps, school, love, work, children, grandchildren. The circle keeps growing until, at the outer edge, it closes.
The Life Spiral Coin puts that whole path in your palm. At the center, an embryo. Along the curve, a child with a kite, a graduate, a soldier, a couple, a father with a briefcase, an old man with a cane. At the end of the line, a skeleton and a grave. Around it, two old Latin warnings: Memento mori, remember that you will die, and Tempus edax rerum, time devours all things.
The other side
We come with nothing. We leave with nothing.
Turn the coin over and the message is plain. We arrive with empty hands, we spend our years fighting for things, and in the end everything stays behind. The cross and the two hourglasses frame the only question that matters: if none of it comes with you, what is worth your time?
Who you heldThe people you loved and carried.
What you gaveYour time, your attention, your care.
How you livedPresent, honest, awake to the day.
Tempus edax rerum.
Time devours all things. Ovid, Metamorphoses.
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The spiral is an old image of time: it keeps turning, but it never comes back to the same point. Each year looks a little like the last, yet you are further out on the curve. The hand that was once held becomes the hand that holds.
The coin is not meant to frighten. Seeing the grave at the end of the line makes the middle of it feel precious: the walk with a child, the dinner you almost skipped, the friend you keep meaning to call. Hold the center with your thumb, trace the path outward, and ask where on the spiral you are today and what you want the rest of it to hold.
Be here. Be present. Be alive.
