where there is needles, pain

Back in 1989, I'll guess, I made the stupid though not original mistake of having a boyfriend's initials tattooed on my upper arm. Even more telling was the fact that I thought it might save our relationship. Yeah, it was already there. For many years I walked around with this embarrassing ink stain on my arm, a statement of failure, of reckless impulsivity.

When I first moved to Austin, I was heavily into meditating, and was going regularly to the Shambhala Buddhist Center here. There was a flag displayed on one wall that eventually became my follow-up tattoo, née my cover-up tattoo. It's a big symbol, a circle of sword tips around the Morse Code for the letter V, which stands for "Victory Over the Poisons of Ego," at least that's what it means to me.

The flag has a more specific purpose, it is used by the Kasung, a sort of Secret Service for Shambhala higher ups and meditiation retreats. That's a super simplification of a 212-page book called True Command: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung by the founder of the Shambhala tradition, Chögyam Trungpa. I co-opted the symbol as my own reminder for the struggle over the poisons of my ego, and those for me, as for the Kasung (and everyone, perhaps), are:

• attachment
• aversion
• aggression

The Morse Code letter for the V (three dots and a dash), when placed three over one, looks kind of like a Leggo block or a castle piece, particularly inside of the the sword tip circle. The dash part of the symbol is what was used to cover over the rectangle with my ex-boyfriend's initials in it. But the original tat wasn't applied straight, so the new one had to be enlarged to cover it up, which was fine by me.

More recently, I went back and added a red trim around the outside of the tattoo and a yellow and gold texture inside. The "gold," which is really just a slightly orangier yellow, isn't really showing up yet, so it's still a work in progress.

COMPASSION

Before the additions to my Victory tattoo, I had Compassion written out in script on my inner left arm, more as a reminder to myself than anything. It's my most popular tattoo! It has inspired others to do similar or dissimilar things to their bodies.

REFLECTION

A year after the Compassion tat, I had Reflection written out in script on my inner right arm, in mirror image (you know, all backwards). That is to remind me to send out the compassion I receive for myself. The left side, I tell myself and others who ask, is incoming, the right side is outgoing. Little lessons printed right onto my body.

I would like a Windhorse tattoo; I saw a really wonderful watercolor in Shambhala Sun magazine years ago, and have tried extensively to find it again, without luck. The Windhorse appears in the middle of most Prayer Flags, and comes originally from the shamanistic tradition in Central Asia. Its appearance is supposed to bring peace, wealth, and harmony.

Another tattoo idea I had was to get a string of prayer flags tattooed across my back. There are actually some very beautiful pictures of prayer flags on mountain sides, flapping in the wind, frayed and faded, their colors blending and making new colors. That's a big project.

But for now, this afternoon, I'm going to get "sized" for my next tattoo, my forty-fifth birthday present to myself. I'm moving away from the Buddhist symbology and am going more Catholic, as it were. But really, it's for the message, by that good ol' fellow animal lover, St. Francis of Assisi:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

It won't be in rows like that. The plan is for it to be in one continuous line down my left side, from about heart level down onto my foot. It's a good thing I'm 6'4! I'm excited about it. And have decided that I would like to have other messages scrawled into my body. Some of my favorites:

PEACE IS EVERY STEP
THE SHINING RED SUN IS MY HEART
EACH FLOWER SMILES WITH ME
HOW GREEN, HOW FRESH ALL THAT GROWS
HOW COOL THE WIND BLOWS
PEACE IS EVERY STEP
IT TURNS THE ENDLESS PATH TO JOY

That's a Thich Nhat Hanh poem that I was inspired to set to music right around the time of 9.11.01; S and I sang it in concert a couple of times. I want to get that one near my foot, maybe my right thigh, probably the right one because the left one will have St. Francis on it.

Also, this famous one by Mahatma Gandhi:

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.