A warning, this is a place for me to dump all of the symbolism of my tattoo in one place so I can just direct people to it. If you thought this would be something else, feel free to click away.
Update: This is my Dec 2019 update, since I got the upper half back in summer.
I have had proto-designs of this tattoo since about 2009. That would mean, since its inception, it has taken a decade for me to feel comfortable enough to tattoo it. As of this week, it is finally complete.
2019 has been a year of a lot of work but also a lot of stability. I’d argue that it is hard to do a lot of work without stability. In 2019, I finally achieved tenure at the school of which I teach. I am financially the most stable I have ever been, with a salary, a budget, a (meager) savings. I have a retirement fund, I travel multiple times a year. I live and eat simply, but well. I am confident in my body and its abilities. The discovery of and the consistent regimen of EMDR therapy has transformed me from my body’s passive bystander into my body’s partner in its healing and empowerment.
It’s with these things fresh in my mind that I got the first half of my back tattoo. After a lot of this hard work, I have gone from having crippling psychosomatic pain 24/7 to having 1–2 hours long episodes a month. The rest of my month I am pain free, back to the way I was before its onset in 2014. Still, I struggled to finalize the bottom half of my design, but then my partner told me he had found tickets for a brief layover in Cairo before returning to his family’s for the holidays. I knew I had to get the rest of my tattoo before the year ended. Egyptian mythology is what has inspired all my tattoos, a lot of my artistic style, and my faith since I was 11 years old. This pilgrimage has been anticipated for 16 years or more. After our brief visit, it only made sense to finish the tattoo after. So I did, in Sheffield, UK.
As a child, I was pushed into performing arts and musical theater. By six I knew I hated it, but I was violently pressured into it to the point where my voice was literally pressed out of me at 16. I lost my ability to sing due to crippling, excruciating stage fright and I would be beaten until leaving home. The voicing of my abuse would go unheard until years after I was disowned.
Despite my apathy towards my performing arts past and disinterest in its place in my future, I gained a lot of skills from that art form that I use constantly in my job as a teacher. Skills that I value deeply. Chief among them, my ability to command a room with a volume and depth that is simply accepted.
My ability to turn the power of my oration into the written word is part of that power, I think. And for a long time, I have considered my words my weapon of choice. For I have found the pen is, quite often, mightier than the sword. It is with those truisms and experiences in mind that I forged my Sword of the Spirit. This is:
The Elephant Djed & Visshuddha Sema
A. Sword of the Spirit:
This symbology starts with the 5th of my 6 pieces of armor from the book of Ephesians. 6:17–18:
“And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. /Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition.”
It is, in it’s simplest form, a sword, in its sheath on my back, the elephants can even symbolize its hilt, ready to be pulled at any time. Even in the verse, the sword is the word of God. And for those words, I chose the Hebrew phrase …
B. Tikkun Olam
Tikkun Olam is not necessarily out of God’s own mouth, but rather the mystical interpretation of how to live all mitzvah: That all that God communicates to us, all it wants is for its people to “repair the world”. And if there is one thing that I live for really, it’s that. A kind of healing justice. You can call it the “backbone” of mystic philosophy, not just in the Jewish Kabbalah, but in other mystic faiths as well, like Sufiism.
In fact, if you were to use the Kabbalic chakras, I would align it with…
C. Chesed/Vishuddha Chakra
Chesed is the chakra of “Universal Law and Justice” and the Vishuddha, if we were talking Hinduism, is the chakra associated with communication, that rests in the neck and shoulder area, (note: body placement).
This command for justice permeates all faiths, which is why I call it the “backbone” of faith, and also justifies my reasoning for the…
D. Djed Hieroglyph
The Egyptian symbol for the backbone is what stretches down my own spine. It’s symbol was of stability, which has been the crux of this year for me. The djed was often depicted as a god, with its own arms and you would have jewelry and amulets of this symbol with you both in life and buried with you in the after life. Tied around it is my…
E. Sema Heiroglyph
The “sema” or respritory system hieroglyph tied around it. Used in Egyptian symbology, it meant the unification(or separation depending on how it was illustrated) of Upper and Lower Egypt.
In my tattoo, I intend for it to symbolize the unification of my body and soul, as I have been working so hard to do this year.
This symbol was also used in ancient Egyptian medicine to understand the lungs’ bronchi and trachea/windpipe which is why I used it to also symbolize my
F. Throat Chakra
I embed all the different Sanskrit petal vowels in the buds of the lotus and papyrus plants blossoming in my bronchi. There are 8 notes and 8 mantras and they help root my backbone and power my sword of the spirit. So to does my…
G. Yin and Yang
The two elephants sitting on top of the djed are acting as my yin and yang symbol for this peace. The unification of the male and female aspects of myself, as well as what the yin and yang symbolize outside of gender. They hold each other for support but also out of love.
There has been a lot of work done this year on forgiving my younger self and embracing the softer, or feminine aspects of myself that I culled or numbed for survival in my younger years, and I wanted to illustrate that reunification with these elephants. I’m so glad I was able to finish my 2019 tattoo and I am so ready for all 2020 has to offer me.
If you are new to this and want to read about my other tattoos, please go adventure:
2014: The Omega Pomegranate Peacock
2015: The Compass Rose Lioness
2016: The Hand of Khepri
2017: The Infinity Ouroboros
2018: The Cosmic Triquerta Turtle
