My take on naturism, managed promiscuity, sexual expression, and social intimacy is expressed in The Circle. The people of the island consider covering the body a form of castration. It is based on anthropology, neolithic/bronze-age archaeology, and studies of successful cultures isolated/protected from European infiltration. I have avoided reading alternate literary perspectives til I'm finished. Then I'll be insatiably curious. Imagine being invited to an island of beautiful, nude, sexually receptive, sensuously expressive people. Imagine leaving because you weren't having any fun. If you go there and face yourself, you may never want to leave. If you can't, you'll leave regretting it for the rest of your hollow life. Either way, you'll be a different person. I would happily stay for just the sensual intimacy. It lasts longer - a lifetime. Back to OP, I would keep my wedding ring.
I've been trying to think what I have that I'd consider a talisman or charm, and the only thing I think would fit this is the small jasper elephant my sister gave me a few years ago. I named it Hector and sometimes I touch it when I leave, but mostly he just watches over me. I do have a Boondock Saints poster with the prayer written on it and that goes above my bed everywhere I live. Then I say, "all the saints preserve us" when I leave my room in the morning. Does that count? Does the teddy bear I've had for my entire life count? He keeps me safe at night.
As in tattoos? I have three so far, and I believe there is a measure of protection in them. I haven't self harmed since I got my first one, which was meant to be a reminder that I am above that, and no internal pain is worth destroying my body over. One is for moonmanmad from FP, and I trace it when I miss him. I believe in balance and I think the ink in my skin balances the ink I use on the page. Of course I'll run out of skin before I run out of words on a page, but yeah.
All of those things count. They are, each in a slightly different way, extensions of your self into the world, and points of contact with the world. What I find fascinating is how we imbue material objects with some aspect of spirit. Spirit by itself - invisible, impalpable, unpossessable - is insufficient: we need something we can touch to house the spirit.
I used to have several, but I can't think of anything now. In pre high-school days I had a couple of black light posters, the kind with 'black velvet' (glued-on flocking really). First there was a very cartoonish and very colorful cobra, and after I ritualistically destroyed it I replace it with a goat-legged devil. When bad things happened, I would blame the posters and punish them by savagely scribbling on or cutting them up. Scapegoating. I suppose it's a form of deferred self-harm.
I would suggest, rather: externalized and harmlessly discharged rage. Your posters were your lightning rod. Your effigy of The Evil One made a much safer and socially acceptable scapegoat than, say, the Muslim kid in your class or the eccentric old lady who talks to her roses.
Wow, meesa jealous of thy world-building skill. Just the history of the island and its peeps was difficult for me.
It's supposed to be difficult! If it's easy, you haven't thought it through. I had to make up four related worlds, two in detail. Of course, I started the damn thing 40 years ago: it's had time to ferment. Anyway, it was the imagining of those belief-systems that got me thinking about talismans, totems and the transition from an item of personal significance to the iconography of religious institution and cultural shibboleths.
I have a 102yr-old woman, Bwelita ('dear old woman'), making talismans for the five c0-MCs (lovers' tuple). They come with a ward, a blessing, a prophecy, a promise, and a price. But who pays? Maybe no one... They are instructed to pray and destroy them in three days. The reward is greater than they can imagine and the price is higher than anyone knew, save one. That subplot(?) came to me as I had them sitting in a taco shop for lunch. Building a world out of the wacky real one is fun too. It's only been about a decade for me.
