A Living Canvas

Someone, today, posed the following question:

"While we're doing 'why's', why do you paint on your body."

And so I pondered.

Why do I get tattoos?

It began with a tiny red Sanskrit symbol on my foot- the symbol of OM, the universal vibration.  I wanted it for a specific reason.  I wanted a permanent reminder to myself that I am worth it.  That I am worth life, that I deserve to be amongst the living.  More than anything else, I wanted to see something profound on this body that I have (and had) so abused for so long.  OM, to me is grace.  I put the symbol on my foot so that I could be permanently grounded in grace.

Unfortunately that tattoo is an epic fail.  That's not to say that the theories behind it failed.  Or that I want to fall off the face of the earth without a trace left behind (albeit… sometimes these are both true).  It failed because I was about 89 pounds when I got it, frail and sick, and my body simply did not have the physical capacity to heal itself.  So now it looks like a brand or a scar more than anything else.  Which, I suppose, is fitting in its own way.

Here is what I wrote back to my someone with his question:

I paint on my body because it gives me pride in my body (in a very vain sense, it does make me feel a little beautiful, which is not to say that I think I am… but you know…).  It gives me a sense of wonder and love for this vessel- that it can be used as a canvas and it has such lovely potential to silently and beautifully project belief and art.  I have a flying witch and dancing witches.  Flight and dancing, movement and joy and REMEMBER KATE, YOU ARE STILL WORTH IT.  I feel like my tattoos are little celebrations of alive-ness.  I have the stag entwined on my ribs (that one… oh man, so beautiful and so much meaning behind it), runic text and symbols running down my forearms.  I see them and I feel present. And a part of something bigger than my own little self.
Does any of that make sense?

The Beginning of the Stag
Entwined. 

I guess the point that I tried to convey is that since beginning to get tattoos, my body has become something other than a body.  It is a living canvas, a breathing work of art.  Under the watchful eye and steady hand of Lee Greene, tattoo artist extraordinaire, I am a moveable gallery.  It is beautiful to behold these masterpieces on my self.

And I want people to know that I believe in grace.  That I am a witch, and an alchemical air symbol, and I love flight and dance and all things that are good.

Until Next Time, my Dearest Darlings.

Ps. I do have an upcoming consultation with Lee.  Little does he know...