Tree of Life Jewelry | Pendants, Earrings & Rings

Roots you can't see doing most of the work.

What the Tree of Life means

Nearly every culture that has ever looked at a tree has made a symbol out of it. Norse mythology has Yggdrasil holding the nine worlds together. Kabbalah has the Sephirot. Celtic tradition has the crann bethadh, planted at the centre of a settlement and never cut. Buddhism has the Bodhi tree. The shapes differ; the idea doesn't.

The idea is that everything is connected downward. Roots, trunk, branches — one organism, and the part doing the most work is the part nobody sees. It's a symbol about family, about ancestry, about the slow kind of growth that doesn't announce itself. It's also, quietly, a symbol about patience.

Why it's given as a gift

This is the piece people buy for their mothers, their daughters, and for each other after something hard. The branches read as a family; the roots read as where you came from. It carries meaning without carrying a declaration, which makes it one of the easier symbolic pieces to give someone whose beliefs you don't want to assume.

It's also a common marker for a new chapter — a move, a graduation, a recovery. If that's the register you're shopping in, our new beginnings collection sits alongside this one.

Choosing a piece

Tree of Life designs are almost always circular, with the branches filling the frame. That means the detail is fine and the piece reads better at a size that lets the branches breathe — very small pendants tend to lose the pattern from any distance.

Open-work designs catch light beautifully and are lighter to wear. Solid-backed designs, sometimes set with a stone disc behind the tree, are sturdier and show the silhouette more clearly. Neither is better; it depends whether you want texture or contrast.

What you're buying

Pieces here are sterling silver or gold plate over base metal — each listing specifies. Where a stone is set behind or within the tree, the listing names the stone and discloses if it is dyed, treated or lab-grown.

Open-work trees have fine branches that can catch on knits. It isn't a flaw, it's the nature of the design; store the piece flat rather than in a tangle and it'll hold its shape. Our jewelry cleaning guide covers cleaning detailed open-work without bending it.

Mystic Soul Jewelry — Canadian small business, Calgary, Alberta, since 2008.

Common questions

What does the Tree of Life symbolise?

Connection, ancestry and growth. Roots, trunk and branches as one system — the idea that what holds you up is largely underground.

Is it religious?

It appears in Norse, Celtic, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian traditions, which in practice means it belongs to none of them exclusively. It's readable as a family or nature symbol without implying a faith.

Is it a good gift for a mother or grandmother?

It's the most-given piece in this collection for exactly that reason — the branches read as a family without anyone having to say so.

How do I clean an open-work tree pendant?

Warm water, a drop of mild soap, a soft brush worked gently through the branches, then dry fully. Don't scrub hard — fine branches will bend before they'll break.

Will sterling silver tarnish?

Yes, and it's meant to. Tarnish polishes off and often looks good settled into the recesses of a detailed piece. Store it in the pouch it arrives in and it'll darken more slowly.

Do you ship to the US?

Yes, from Calgary, with duties calculated at checkout.