This post is about my first tattoo and the experience I underwent through. Plus what does the tattoo means – many people have asked me what it means.
My experience wasn’t all that painful – as a matter of fact, it was pleasurable. I think that I’ve developed my abilities to channel the pain as something pleasurable due to how many times I was sewed as a kid. I also have this thought on my mind that I read years ago and I retained it for the moments that I need it: “Pain is the weakness leaving the body”. Another fact that didn’t stress or a nervous breakdown was the tattoo artist I went to. He’s very clean, and he let me know of everything he was doing and why.
“Tattooing is about personalizing the body, making it a true home and fit temple for the spirit that dwells inside it….Tattooing therefore, is a way of keeping the spiritual and material needs of my body in balance.” – Michelle Delio
Now I want to talk about the significance of the tattoo part by part.
First thing that people ask me is what does the Japanese letters around the circle means, but more on that later. I am a fighter and I practice martial arts since I was 5. Those words in Japanese are the Bushido – the life code of the samurais. Traduced it means “the way of the warrior”; being a fighter is not simply a sport, for me it is a way of life that I have practiced for a long time and I implement constantly in my daily life. The letters are the 7 virtues of Bushido: Rectitude, Courage, Benevolence, Respect, Honesty, Honor and Loyalty.
Moving on to the circle with the three identical symbols: it isn’t 3 sixes, or a sharingan, or Sasuke’s curse. This symbol is ubiquitous on Buddhist and Shinto temples all over Japan. Its name is tomoe, meaning “turning” or “circular”, referring to the motion of the earth. The tomoe is related to the yin yang symbol and has a similar meaning, representing the play of forces in the cosmos. Visually, the tomoe is made up of interlocked flames (or magatama) resembling tadpoles.
The Tattoo in my back is one of the most common tomoe emblems and haves three flames (triple, or ‘mitsudomoe’), but one, two, or four are not uncommon. A mitsudomoe reflects the threefold division of Shinto cosmology, and it’s said to represent the earth, the heavens, and humankind. It is often associated with the Shinto war deity Hachiman.
To wrap it up, the circles with the dot on the center of the tomoes. That symbol is utilized in many ways around the world, many of them in a religious sense. Called a “circumpunct”, it represents the sun and a Sun God (called Ra in Egypt), gold (as in alchemy), a (unbiblical) archangel (Kabbalah), emotional restraint, and the creative spark of divine consciousness within people linking everyone to the creative mind of a universal “god” thus making each persona “co-creator” (astrology). In the complex symbolic system of Hinduism and Buddhism, the bindu (dot) represents the male force. Together, the circle and the bindu symbolize the spiritual merging of male and female forces.
I utilized with the significance of the three. The first one is called An Ordi, the symbol of the Divine Order, representing chaos, light, life, freedom, good, happiness, infinity, and existence. The second is The Huichol Indian’s Eye of God. The third circle’s meaning is more symbolic and deep to me. It symbolizes emotional restraint: tending to keep one’s thoughts and emotions to oneself: controlled, noncommittal, reserved, self-controlled & will power.
“When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.” – Michelle Delio
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