I got my third tattoo. Much smaller, much more visible and certainly not lacking in heavy embedded meaning.
I have been working a lot on parts of myself that have been kind of left on the shelf for most of my life in this new year. Including but not limited to: my dermotillomania/excoriation disorder, reclaiming my identity and my agency as a writer as well as my seemingly chronic digestive health problems.
Considering we have just entered the fourth month of the new year, I think I have made a lot of progress, not without a lot of help though. Part of that effort has been me, trying to create a sort of positive reinforcement system to reward positive changes to my behavior. This tattoo is, in part, a big reward I’ve been working up to.
I have had an excoriation disorder since I can remember. It is only recently though, that there has been enough research done to come up with potential solutions. Solutions I have never tried. Essentially, my form of excoriation is an addiction, like drugs or alcohol, or sex. I get a high every time I exercise something from my body, my body rewards me for tearing my skin, and so I keep doing it. This past month, I have experimented with a drug to kill that high. In effect, removing the reward for the negative, and I come up with a reward for the positive behavior.
To give you a comparison, when I started my BA, I would have an open wound on every cuticle of every finger of both my hands. My face would be constantly riddled with scars and holes so deep, I most often wore makeup just to keep people from asking questions.
I might have gotten a little better, but senior year came with a whole new level of trauma and I fell right back into my pattern. I got better, and then I moved to San Francisco, I started a graduate program, and I had been suffering from a sometimes debilitating chronic health problem that was causing me problems with work and school. The wounds got deeper, more prevalent, and it migrated to my legs. They got so bad I have been drowning my legs in iodine about once a month after one of the open wounds got infected.
Therapy has helped, marginally, but considering the amount of trauma I was working through during most of my time in therapy, it usually got pushed aside. It was no where near as important as what else I was going through.
That has changed since I moved to SF, and in the past few months I have done more research and started experimenting with solutions. I was able to work my way down to only targeting my thumbs. I had good periods of avoiding my face, though my legs seemed to be my alternative. I finally took my research to my doctor and he put my on a 5mg tablet of a kind of anxiety medication, a now more commonly prescribed solution to forms of excoriation.
In a month of this drug, along with my system of positive reinforcement, my face has healed almost completely. My legs are mostly healed, and the scars are fading. All I have left is the cuticles on my thumbs. I hope to have conquered this habit (literally, two decades later) by the end of 2016, maybe even before then.
I t might also be too soon to say, but I think I have finally found the cure to my chronic digestive problem. So this tattoo is a celebration in the body’s ability to heal. That while my body may be temporary, so are the scars and pain that riddle it. That isn’t to say life long illness, fatal diseases, or permanent disfiguring of the body don’t also exist, because they do. But from dust, to dust, as they say. Take that as you will.
This is a continuation of the series of tattoos (Pomegranate Peacock, Compass Rose Lioness) that I have been working on since I was 17, that some of you might have read about. Another part of my spiritual armor/ chakra/ syncretism religious system. Like the others, this post is chiefly to lay down all the meaning intended in the image I came up with.
The Hand of Khepri
A. Hand of Hamsa/Hamesh depending on whether you want to talk about Islam or Judaism (also see: Hand of Fatima/Miriam), this is an amulet of protection against evil. “Hamsa” refers to five, as in the five digits of the hand. You could also argue that it refers to the 5 pillars of Islam. Often seen with an eye in the palm, which is specifically to ward off the evil eye. Instead of simply an eye, I used-
B. The Eye of Horus, specifically the“left” eye which is referred to as the lunar eye. This tattoo specifically is taking the place of my Third Eye or anja chakra. I like to refer to my third eye as the eye of faith; when I cannot see with my own two eyes, the third must be opened. As such, this tattoo also serves as my-
C. Shield of Faith, the third piece of my spiritual armor. I thought the Hamsa looked like a nice shield, and its purpose as an amulet further followed that idea. This comes from the spiritual armor described in the book of Ephesians chapter 6, which I have referenced in my other tattoos. Even in this passage, the author refers to the shield as warding off evil:
“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Ephesians 6:16
D. The Star of David is also sometimes referred to as David’s shield, as his faith in G*d was his ultimate protection. There is also an embedded meaning in this as well. The triangle with the point up is considered the male, while the triangle pointing down is considered the female in Hindu symbology. The conjoining of these two triangles, in the form of the six pointed star is considered the union of the male and female, both literally, and figuratively, in terms of characteristics. In addition to the lunar reference with the eye of Horus, I am using these symbols as a way to highlight the femininity that I often neglect in myself, a sort of worship of both those aspects in me, but particularly the feminine, as I am still struggling to accept that part of me.
E. The Scarab god, Khepri is what makes up the majority of this Hamsa hand, its front legs forming two of the fingers, it’s head made out of the Egyptian hieroglyph amenta, meaning the horizon of the sun (both sunrise and sunset), which is apt, considering Khepri is a god of the sun, particularly the god that was believed to roll the sun across the sky, from its rise to its setting. Khepri is not just any beetle, but a dung beetle. Egyptians saw them rolling dung across the ground and made the solar connection. They also watched dung beetles burrow in dung, and eventually break out of these prisons, which also earned Khepri its status as a god of mortal (dung) and spiritual (sun) rebirth. This solar reference contrasts the moon of Horus’s eye and completes the pairing of feminine and masculine aspects of six pointed star, the lunar and solar elements in this tattoo.
Considering the digestive system problems that have been plaguing me for well over a year now, I also found the scarab’s relationship to dung as…funny? Ironic? A worthy reference to this time in my life which aforementioned, has contained a lot of rebirth for me.
Amenta can also reference the Underworld, as Egyptians buried their dead in the direction of the setting sun, so I take that to mean that faith exists for me both for this life, and whatever comes next. This is not the only hieroglyphic symbology in this tattoo. Khepri’s lower legs are grasping the lower part of-
F. Feathers of Ma’at. Considering Khepri and amenta’s underworld reference, in Egyptian mythology, when you die, your heart is weighed against a feather, specifically the feather of ma’at, or truth. If your heart weighs less or equal to the truth, you are allowed passage into the underworld.
If it is heavier though, your heart is fed to Ammut the devouerer and you become…nothing, essentially. The rest of the fingers of my hamsa are feathers of truth, but are also doubling as-
G. The Sikh Khanda, one of the most common symbols of Sikhism, consisting of two kirpin; curved spiritual blades that are one of five spiritual items to be carried by Sikhs at all times, (not dissimilar to the spiritual armor), one khanda; a double-edged straight blade and an encompassing chakram, a kind of discus throwing weapon. I would argue my Star of David takes the place of the chakram, but the feathers of ma’at share virtues with and look similar to the kirpin and khanda symbols. I also like the idea of making the shield both a defensive and offensive tool.
I am currently molting off the black dead skin from my forearm, as is a part of the tattoo process. Another example of the body’s capacity to heal. In this time, I am thankful for all my body is capable of, knowing how many others make magnificent lives with much less.
I’m not saying I am back to my writing self, but this is a start.
2017 Tattoo: Read here.
