Etched In Ink.

Last week I got my ninth tattoo. Three circles stacked vertically running down my right forearm, each a different symbol. The first, a sigil I designed derived from “know no shame.” The second, the symbol atheopagans adopted for themselves, the Suntree. The third, one of many variations on a rose by Scottish turn-of-the-century designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  

Each of these small circles has a story behind it, and brought together they look fucking gorgeous. As I walked through the park with my dog 30 minutes later, I would glance down at my arm and think, good lord, how did I ever tolerate just blank skin staring back at me instead of this beauty? 

I’ve had the same experience with all of my tattoos. The rush of looking in the mirror once you get home, and feeling shocked that the piece of artwork shining back at you is actually on you is one of the best parts about the whole process.

 

This surprised me as much as anyone. Had you known me before 2006, you would have never guessed that I’d start getting tattoos in my 20s and then basically never stop (at least not yet). When I was growing up, tattoos were far more rare than they are today, and so associated with those occupying the fringes of society, which, being an upper-middle-class white girl, I was definitely not. Nor did my political instincts and inclinations help out very much; I sneered at tattoos as one of so many poor decisions made by weak or stupid people. Yes, I was a bit of a bitch back then. 

 

Somehow that had changed by the time I graduated from college, but I still felt trepidatious about permanently putting anything on my body. After all, I had been through enough personal change to know that what you love or think today may very well make you cringe tomorrow. So it had to be something that represented an idea I held so dearly that I had no doubt I would ever abandon it, and I couldn’t think of anything in my first year of graduate school that fit the bill.

 

Then my sister stumbled on the solution. In 2008, the same night that Barack Obama was elected, California also passed Prop 8, stripping the right of gay and lesbian people to marry that a federal court had granted them a few years earlier. The contrast between these two events was stark, and called to my mind how even when I struggled under the false consciousness of a conservative, I had never questioned the right to equality for all people regardless of sexuality. It was the only subject, actually, I had yet argued with my Dad about, being brought to tears in a moment of trying to explain what it does to a person when the state marks you out as different in some undeserving way. In the middle of my office hours, my sister and I talked about our sense of powerlessness to do anything about the 51 percent of California residents who didn’t understand. She suddenly suggested we get matching equal sign tattoos. I immediately agreed.

 

We would have to wait a few weeks, however, because she no longer lived in California. Fortunately I was set to visit her in Portland after Thanksgiving, so we picked our designs and made our plans. I was the one going home to Mom and Dad, however, for the big meal, so it fell to me to break the news. 

 

Looking back, it’s an indication of how much my relationship with my parents has changed since then that I now find it rather silly that I never questioned that I needed to inform them -- as if bearing difficult but important family news -- about this matter. After all, I was 24 years old, in graduate school, a supposedly full-fledged adult, and it was my body. But back then Dad could still regard me as a kind of spin-off of himself when it came to political and cultural issues, even if we disagreed about a few things. This, really, would be the first indication to him that that was changing; that a whole different set of principles and inclinations were now guiding me to become someone he was going to have difficulty relating to. I knew it was not going to be pretty. 

 

It was worse than I thought it would be. Dad refused to talk to me for a day. When I finally forced the issue, he told me how disappointed in me he was, and said a few choice homophobic things that I imagine he’s not proud of now. The conversation brought him to tears, and I nearly left, telling my Mom that there was no reason for me to be there if Dad could barely even look at me. That broke his determination to stay angry and eventually we put a fragile patch on the fight, but nonetheless a rupture had cracked open which, to be honest, has never fully healed. 

 

Because we did go through with our plan. When I think of that first ink, I remember gripping the back of a fold-out chair as I experienced only the pain and none of the pleasure of getting your back repeatedly stabbed with a needle. My sister, who had previous experience but only with a very small tattoo, came back from getting cash out of an ATM and stood watching the artist finish before I was even aware she was there. Once it was over and I did look up, she said “I’ve been watching you grimace, so you can’t tell me it doesn’t hurt.” 

 

It did hurt. It hurt a lot. But once I got home and it started to heal – I remember being fascinated by the black flakes that would come off in the shower – I had no doubt it was worth it. 

And for 7 years, that was my only tattoo. 

 

Why the break? A lot of things. One was that I was still in the process of becoming myself, and my politics still developing from the incoherent mix of social libertarianism and liberal economic assumptions they were to the fully left-wing, anti-capitalist position they would end up at. So for a long time, nothing that presented itself to me with the same unquestionable righteousness as the gay rights struggle really pressed on my consciousness, at least not to the point where I felt it was urgent to mark it down on my skin. At the same time, I was in a relationship with someone who consumed most of my emotional energy and space, delaying the springtime of exploring and expressing myself for several years. Also, I still had the memory of the pain. 

 

But by the time I got married to my husband, I knew I wanted another one, and I knew what I wanted it to be about: dogs. The problem was I couldn’t quite come up with something I felt was interesting or unique enough; I wanted something to represent my love for all dogs, but a conventional paw print design just wasn’t doing it for me. So one night I sat up hitting “next” on the google menu for “dog tattoo” and on something like the 29^th page, I found it. The timeless silhouette of a person wrapping their arms around blank space that, like an optical illusion, formed the shape of an equally timeless side profile of a dog. It actually had been designed as the logo for a dog charity. I immediately knew this was it. 

 

A few weeks later, my husband accompanied me to a local tattoo parlor in our neighborhood and snapped pictures as I winced and clinched my teeth. But even though there was still pain, the second experience was very different from the first – I realized I was also feeling elated, and even the most painful moments felt like a kind of delightful challenge that made me feel victorious once they faded. And once it was done! I felt as though I’d never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. And now, there are on my shoulder, was this statement of how much dogs meant to me, and it would be beamed out from my skin until the day it rotted away. We went out into the night and met some friends at the bar, who I ecstatically through myself on with joy while showing them this new part of myself and getting properly trashed. It was an exquisite high, and I knew I would be coming back for another fix soon. 

6 months later, I got 1789, the year of the French Revolution, inked in the center of my upper back. That was the first one I designed on my own, although all that really involved was picking out a font. Likewise eight months later, when I got a famous William Faulkner quote on the inside of my right forearm, all that really needed be decided was placement and font. My love for the passage – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” – had nothing to do with Faulkner, but with my passion for history and what guides my pursuit of it. 

My next tattoo, however, would involve a lot more work. Running across a graphic that combined the anarchist A with the socialist hammer and sickle, I wanted to create a combination of the symbols representing the leftist traditions that I most cherished. So starting with the original graphic, I added iconography from pirate flags (the spear pointed at the heart), the anti-fascist three arrows, and the Irish socialists' Starry Plough. This made for my largest tat, sprawling across my back left shoulder. It’s one of my favorite still; it condenses everything I think worth fighting for – equality and freedom – into an interlocking declaration of solidarity. 

By now, I had gotten four new tattoos in a little over 2 and a half years. All of them had been clear declarations about things I loved or believed; symbols in the most straightforward sense. And it was because I felt I had exhausted that category that I wasn’t sure for several years what to do next. Even though I had come far from my original conservative stance – both in general and towards what would make an acceptable tattoo – I was still stuck on the idea that permanently altering my skin and appearance required something communicating a clear and logical idea. 

 

And that’s where atheopaganism comes into this story. For many years, I had struggled to satiate my desires for a deeper, and often darker, form of self-expression. This had taken some creative forms – such as work on a personal video project and a joyous cultivation of my dress and appearance – but not knowing how, or where, or with whom to share these sides of myself had also led to fights between me and my husband and a sometimes ambiguous relationship with alcohol. These frustrations led me to interrogate some of the prejudices that were holding me back from embracing all the healthy ways I could cultivate and care for this part of myself, including the idea that any tattoo I got had to have a clear and universally recognizable meaning. And so I worked out a design that represented all of that other stuff – that emotional stuff, that sublime stuff, the stuff that filled me with wonder. This new tattoo – a double-lined oval with dot-work neurons on the inside – represented everything I wanted to start expressing regardless of my fears of rejection or misunderstanding. To me, neurons are the perfect representation of the beauty and mystery of being; when we feel joy or despair, it’s our neurons that are on fire, and our neurons which allow us to experience the rich emotional evolutionary heritage we all are products of. 

Following a little over a year later, my next tattoo was even more of a departure from form. A simple double-line that wraps around my left forearm three times and ends in flourishes, there is even less of a clear “meaning” behind it; I simply find it beautiful. Really, letting myself adorn myself with something that I cannot justify in any other terms than simple beauty was the point – beauty needs no justification. Even so, it wasn’t totally bereft of feelings I could articulate a bit more elaborately; with a look that, to me, reads as partially prehistorical and partially Art Noveau, the wrap around my wrist represents a combination of the two aesthetic traditions I feel most drawn to. 

And the attraction to Art Noveau and Art Deco has deeper roots, too. My favorite show – unlikely to ever be surpassed but, never say never – is Peaky Blinders. And it had also been an emotional and psychological engagement with the show that had served as one of my primary outlets for connecting to and expressing the darker, less relatable parts of myself. I had never wanted what most you’ll find if you google “Peaky Blinders tattoo”  – a variation of Tommy silhouettes or full-sized portraits. (Some of those are just astounding; if you like the show and want to amuse yourself, check it out.) But by the winter of 2021, while waiting for the final season to be released, I realized I did want something to mark how deeply the show had etched itself into my imagination and soul. So I just stole one of Tommy’s tattoos – the empty halo on his chest. My version ended up stylized differently – the artist took the time to straighten out the rays and suggested outlining them, which I loved – leaving what I will always know to be a reminder of everything Tommy represents to me, but looks to others like an abstract rising sun or halo. Only fellow Peaky fans are likely to recognize it. It is perfect. 

And then a week ago, I got my most recent tattoo. Three, equally sized circles on my top right forearm, each with a different design inside. The one nearest my wrist is a sigil I designed for “No Know Shame,” which encapsulates my primary struggle, and one of my primary goals, for letting go of the shame I felt about my spirituality. It also happens to be a key phrase from a beautiful show, Black Sails, which rests close to my heart, especially since it involves pirates. The second one, called the Suntree, is the symbol for atheopaganism itself. Deciding to get it etched on my skin expresses my joy over finding a spiritual home, and the fact that the community itself designed it makes it even better. Like my political symbols collage tat, there is something special about marking yourself as part of a larger community – even relinquishing the control over the design is a meaningful reminder of the limits of individualism. (Although I have to admit, I was really lucky in this regard; the Suntree is such a graphically gorgeous symbol. Huge credits to those who came up with it.) And the top circle is a copy of a pendant my mother-in-law bought me in Edinburgh. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s one of the “Mackintosh roses,” named for the famous turn-of-the-century designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I’ve long loved the pendant so much – before I discovered atheopaganism I actually joked that if I ever started a new religion I would use it as the symbol – and including it in the trio is a way for me to continue to embrace beauty for beauty’s sake. And as it turns out, all three symbols go together very well, looking like they came from the same aesthetic universe. 

 

I am ecstatic about how this tattoo came out. Visually it is one of my top three favorites. And being able to share it with the atheopagan community and getting such enthusiastic feedback felt really fantastic. It encouraged me to finally write this essay about my tattoos, something that has long been knocking around in my head. 

 

Because how much I love my tattoos is one of my favorite ways in which in my life, I’ve been surprised and have surprised myself. Like so many other things, tattoos were something my young self would have never thought I would enjoy, let alone adore to the point of getting (at the time of writing) 9 of them. But I do recall, as a teenager, watching a television program about a tattoo convention. One of the women interviewed said that she had come into the world naked, and after a lifetime of experience, didn’t want to leave it looking the same – as if nothing had happened in-between. To me this is still the best explanation I’ve heard for why tattoos are amazing. They are markers of our lives; our loves, our struggles, our values. After each one, I gaze at my arm or my back and am amazed I ever went through life with such a blank canvas before. Now, deeply meaningful pieces of art gaze out from the very architecture of my body. I can’t etch them into my bones, but while I’m still walking the earth, they are there to remind me – and to declare to the world – who I am, and what I believe.