Looking around for ideas for a new tattoo, I was struck with, given my personal circumstances, that 2011 would be a ‘new’ year, a year of change, growth, reinvention and all that deep thoughtful stuff I’m prone to spend a little too long pondering. Then I spotted this tattoo, which I really liked for the simplicity and because it’s a little bit different.
Off I popped to Custom Inc, where I showed Ema the photo, and asked for something similarly but maybe in a Japanese brushstroke style, something a bit softer and more organic feeling.
The design she came up with I accepted without change.
It’s bloody lovely, and some very fine work. As I said to her when it was finished, “it’s awesome!”
But what does it all mean? Well it’s part Ouroboros which “often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end”, part Yggdrasil which in Norse mythology is the “world tree” and can be said to represent as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the earth, and, through its roots, the underground, and finally, and this is the part of the design that Ema came up with, the geometric shapes echo the Flower of Life (sacred geometry) which is a visual expression of the connections life weaves through all sentient beings.
And to me it means all that and more. Plus, it’s fuckin gorgeous.