I’m not going to comment much on the imbued meaning of 2020. We know.
For me, 2020 will not stop my yearly ritual practice of adorning my body with spiritual armor and amulets. This year is my 7th “spiritual armor” tattoo. While this tattoo does not align with any of the spiritual armor of the Christian God (Ephesians 6), it is an amulet and it is my visual representation of the Manipura/ solar plexus chakra (in Hindu) and my Yesod/ Foundation chakra (in Hebrew mysticism). For this reason, you can consider this tattoo sitting under my breasts, on my sternum, as a protective amulet hovering above my stomach and gut, and, on a more mental level, my anxiety, as this turns out to be where most of my psychosomatic reactions to mental trauma reside.
As I have really spent the last 2 years of therapy and self-betterment on reconnecting with my stomach and controlling my anxiety, it makes sense that, despite the hellscape that is 2020, my success in no longer being controlled by psychosomatic stomach symptoms is a real win and deserves to be honored this year. Though I got successful at this in the latter half of 2019, it’s 2020 where, despite pandemic and terror, I was actually able to take a break from therapy and try curbing my anxiety without training wheels for the first time in over 2 years. It is clear that my stomach and I are on better terms now. And I have shifted my thinking of my stomach as my enemy or in opposition to me but as a friend. The part of me that demands that I take care of myself. Barely related, but in the softening of my stomach during quarantine, it is also meaningful to me that I am honoring my stomach in all its stages. Most of my life I had a pretty solid 4-pack and still have pretty intense core muscles, but that was also while I was constantly enraged, 15–20 lbs underweight and hated myself. So to see me at a healthy weight, doing what I love and better aligned with my physical and mental health represented by a softer version of my belly also just makes me smile.
That’s essentially all there is to say on that. That’s my profound wisdom for you today: Don’t fight your body. Your body knows what it needs, knows what you need. Your body WANTS to be friends with your mind. If working together, they will communicate clearly with you. You just have to listen to what they’re telling you. This includes things that your body doesn’t want as well. As many can attest, your body tells you about something it feels is wrong from a VERY young age. We are usually just trained my culture to ignore this. It’s amazing, the feeling that comes after aligning your mind with your body. With mental health, with gender, with sex, with its expression, with weight, with everything. As such, this tattoo features my first humanoid creature as I would say this year has also been a lot of reclaiming of my feminine energy and sexuality.
And with that, let’s get right into it. Here is the semiotics for this year’s tattoo.
On the Wings of All that is Good
A. The Farvahar/ Wings of Horus:
My original design using these wings dates back to 2009 and iterations of it had it many other configurations and body placements, including, at one point, on my shoulder blades. Over the years though, I have seen many renditions of these wings as sternum or underboob tats (consider: Rihanna’s Isis tattoo) and had fallen in love with this use of it. In Ancient Egyptian iconography, the function of the Wings of Horus are many fold: The word “sekhen” or to fold the wings also translates as “embrace” which is effectively what I’ve been doing with my stomach for the past two years. The depiction of Horus’ wings flanking the sun disc is a common motif of protection “from the Heavens” as the Heavens were understood to be on the vast spread of the falcon God’s wings. You would commonly see these above doorways as you pass from one room to another, constantly shrouded or embraced in its protection. However, Isis and Horus are not the only ones to have this type of wing depiction. In Zoroastrianism, the one Almighty god of this belief system, Ahura Mazda is depicted in a similar disc and is the most common symbol of their faith to date. Also used as an amulet of protection.
B. The Sun Disc
As previously stated, the sun disc is often depicted with the wings of Horus and the sun disc was itself a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt. But more universally, the disc is a circle: a sign of the feminine, unity/oneness, the circle of life and Ahura Mazda is also depicted within this circle imagery. So there is both a play on the farvarhar of Persian culture, but also of Egpytian and really, any culture with powerful circle imagery. The sun disc is also not just any sun disc but specifically…
C. The Sun God Aten & rays
Aten is the genderless single God of the Amarna period in Ancient Egypt (my favorite period) when the Pharoah of the time decided that maybe there was only one God (monotheism) and it did not have any human qualities and ruled over everything. While the sun is often a masculine associated symbol, this god Aten had no gender, and was depicted with rays of light that touched the earth, the Pharoh and all that was “good” with its literal hands. The way the lines work with the disc also hint at tail feathers as would be depicted with the farvahar or Horus symbology. All the hands were meant to mean the abundance of blessings ‘wherever the light touches’ essentially. Akenaten is often depicted being given a shen ring by the hands of Aten but in this depiction instead we have
D. Lilith a proto-Goddess
Lilith in Babaloniyan and Jewish mysticism is the proto-human (Adam’s wife before Eve) or proto-Goddess (as “lilitu” means spirits in Akkadian). In sumerian, the word “lilu” means evening and “lili” means demon, so you can see how she might be interpreted and misconstrued as either temptress sexy demon or goddess of the night and feminine wisdom. Mesopotamian specifically had her as a “disease bringing wind spirit” which sounds very similar to gorgons of later greek mythology or valkyries bleeding menstrual blood over the earth. Cool.
In any case, for me Lilith was my attempt to replace a masculine representation of the divine (Ahura Mazda, Horus) with a feminine one and also combine male/female symbology with night/day symbology. Which, in an effort to mash up gender symbols with a genderless god, Aten, works out well. She also is my only way to balance the masculine symbology with my 2019 back tattoo with my front facing, feminine “presenting” tattoo. As a sex symbol as well, Lilith manifests for me the work done this year in reclaiming my femininity and sexuality as well as my independence, which is a lot of how she is interpreted in the Talmud, even if with negative connotations. She wears earrings as depicted in the ancient Burney relief with big circular earrings and a
E. Crown
The crown is depicted in my tattoo from the side but tries to replicate the crown from this ancient stone-carved relief. I played with nautilus and other conical shell imagery for it from the side to hint both at “sacred geometry” and the shell as a widely accepted symbol of the feminine, birth, and good fortune. She wears robes, reminiscent of the ones that Ahura Mazda wears but her gestures differ. Her raised hand held in a…
F: Surya Ravi Mudra
or gesture of the sun. This yogic gesture is the touching of the thumb to the ring finger (fire to earth elements) and literally translates as “surya” sun, “ravi” one of 12 sun Gods and is associated with Sunday and the circle and point of the unification of male and female. In yoga, it is said to be used to promote digestion and all things gut related, so I really can’t think of a better mudra for a sun tattoo amulet for the protection of my stomach. Lilith’s lowered hand holds a
G: Shen Ring
In Sumerian depictions, Lilith holds 2 similar-looking objects, one in each hand, that are understood to be a “ring and rod” which was common symbology for reign and dominion (in Egyptian royalty as well) which elevated her place from just basic spirit to a ruling Goddess. The shen ring, however similar, was actually the hieroglyph to mean a wound up rope and was meant to “encircle” the receiver. Horus (the falcon god) and Nekhbet (the vulture Goddess) were the ones most associated with the shen rings and gifting them as a sign of “eternal protection”, though Aten too, gifted them to Akenaten so Lilith holds one here as a gift to me. A sign of continued protection of my gut, my mind, my body, my femininity from here on out.
Together, the semiotics of this piece contains the honoring, protection, and embracing of my solar plexus, the core of my being, and my femininity.
May we make it to 2021 and realize who our real enemies are.
2014: The Omega Pomegranate Peacock
2015: The Compass Rose Lioness
2016: The Hand of Khepri
2017: The Infinity Ouroboros
2018: The Cosmic Triquerta Turtle
2019: The Elephent Djed & Sema
