Well it's a new year and with the beginnings of years thoughts of times past and futures to come are ever present. It occurred to me that I used to adamantly say that I don't make New Years Resolutions, but in thinking about it and being honest with myself, I do.
This year is an exciting year for me going forward and I look forward to each new day and what gifts it bears for me. I have a lot of things that are rumbling around in my noggin, but some I just can't share here in a forum where people know me.
I do want to put them out there as they might help someone in some way but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do that with out it being linked back to me. Shrug I'll figure something out, even if it's as simple as putting it in a journal.
Anyway I've taken enough time from getting back into the swing of things at work that I have to get back to it.
More later ....
maybe.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tattoos and the Geek
I've been called a Geek, a Nerd, that dude that knows stuff and even the one I, for some odd reason, am proud of, "Egghead". When you really think about it, having a head shaped like an egg or easily cracked and have all this gooey stuff inside unless you stick it in a fire is kind of an odd thing to be proud of, but well then, there it is.
In a normal day I'm usually working in my home office which for most people I imagine consists of a nice desk with a computer or maybe a laptop and even perhaps both. A land line phone and perhaps a blackberry for work calls ect.
Not mine.
Here let me show you:
In any case I use a few computers. I tend to fix them for friends and family and help out in general technical matters of all kinds. Oh ya and I work in IT for a company that I've been with for 11 years.
I mention all of this because believe it or not, I traded my services to fix and upgrade a laptops memory for my first tattoo. I'm a bad ass *flex*.
I had wanted a tattoo for many years but I never really had found one that I wanted. See I had an idea in my head and I wasn't going to just get any old tattoo because it was cool to have a tattoo. If I was going to mark my body permanently, well it had to have some serious meaning for me.
At the time when this opportunity came up I was in a deep state of flux in my life and finding my own spiritual path. I was finding balance in my life and meanings, concepts and thought patterns that were beyond the biblical / Catholicism I was raised with. I was being challenged by feeling of rightness in things that had been planted in my brain as a teen in reading some books about the "New Age", the first being Shirley Maclaine's "Out on a Limb".
So when I was done fixing this tattoo artist's (Diamond Dave was his name) laptop he looked at me and said "Well how about I pay you with a tattoo?"
As things are wont to do, I said yes and we started in on a short conversation about how I've wanted one but never knew what I wanted. I explained to him that I was looking for symbolism of male balance as it was something I was growing and striving to have; Balance in myself as a young man.
An hour later and with surprisingly minimal pain, I was the newly marked man with following Tat on my left shoulder:
It's faded over the years and I've thought about having it touched up but there are 6 colors in the tattoo and it took about an hour to get. The symbolism for me in this tattoo is that we have balance, male and female (the ying/yang) with the prevalent aspect being male (the sun surrounding the ying/yang).
I've been extremely happy with it to this day and I've never regretted it.
******************
I was told that once you get your first tattoo, that your going to want more and that was immediately the case with me. I had so many thoughts and images running through my head that if you could have jacked into my brain, dropped some acid and hung on, it would have been one hell of a major trip!
All that settled down and once again I started to think about what I really wanted to express next through art on my body.
I thought and I thought.
The sun rose and set and many more full moons passed as I lived my life, every once in awhile stopping for a brief few moments in the passage of time to ponder what it was going to be. There was no doubt I was getting another one.
......10 years passed and I had grown from a young man searching out his spirituality to an adult on his journey along paths he never dreamed.
Then one day I was talking with my future wife about tattoo's and she mentioned an artist that a friend of hers had gone to in Venice Beach and before you could blink, we were there at INK INK tattoo and talking to Karina about what I had in my head that I wanted on my body.
Once again the time was just right and my words spilled out of my mouth and into Karina's ear and on to some paper. We agreed on a general design but she wanted to work on it a bit more before something final was presented so I paid her a deposit and back to Anaheim we went.
Two weeks later we were back at INK INK Tattoo and Karina brought out the tracing she had done. I immediately knew that it was exactly what I wanted. Don't change a fricken thing! That's when Karina said "Ya know what, I actually have this tracing paper wrong side up". She showed me the proper orientation but we all agreed (my future wife had come with me again) that the way it was shown to me the first time was it.
As my first tattoo symbolized balance with a male aspect, this tattoo symbolizes balance with a female aspect. It is a take off of the Man in the Moon, but the face of the "MAN" is really a blend of a female to male face as can be seen in the eyebrow, nose and lip structure as it moves from left to right. This face set in the moon (a common pagan symbol for Goddess/female) and completed for me a balance between the left and right sides of my body.
This also speaks to my ever evolving understanding of the importance and roles that both aspects of life play in my spirituality. To put it in simple terms and without delving into philosophical discussions what is a man with out an understanding of a woman? The converse is true as well and both are needed, in my opinion, in order to have a firm foundation of balance in ones life.
It's been 6 years since I've received that 2nd tattoo and I've got the idea of my third in my brain. Now for the universe to present me with the artist that can pull it out of my head.
Oh ya and the money to get it done because I don't think it will be cheap.
In a normal day I'm usually working in my home office which for most people I imagine consists of a nice desk with a computer or maybe a laptop and even perhaps both. A land line phone and perhaps a blackberry for work calls ect.
Not mine.
Here let me show you:
In any case I use a few computers. I tend to fix them for friends and family and help out in general technical matters of all kinds. Oh ya and I work in IT for a company that I've been with for 11 years.
I mention all of this because believe it or not, I traded my services to fix and upgrade a laptops memory for my first tattoo. I'm a bad ass *flex*.
I had wanted a tattoo for many years but I never really had found one that I wanted. See I had an idea in my head and I wasn't going to just get any old tattoo because it was cool to have a tattoo. If I was going to mark my body permanently, well it had to have some serious meaning for me.
At the time when this opportunity came up I was in a deep state of flux in my life and finding my own spiritual path. I was finding balance in my life and meanings, concepts and thought patterns that were beyond the biblical / Catholicism I was raised with. I was being challenged by feeling of rightness in things that had been planted in my brain as a teen in reading some books about the "New Age", the first being Shirley Maclaine's "Out on a Limb".
So when I was done fixing this tattoo artist's (Diamond Dave was his name) laptop he looked at me and said "Well how about I pay you with a tattoo?"
As things are wont to do, I said yes and we started in on a short conversation about how I've wanted one but never knew what I wanted. I explained to him that I was looking for symbolism of male balance as it was something I was growing and striving to have; Balance in myself as a young man.
An hour later and with surprisingly minimal pain, I was the newly marked man with following Tat on my left shoulder:
It's faded over the years and I've thought about having it touched up but there are 6 colors in the tattoo and it took about an hour to get. The symbolism for me in this tattoo is that we have balance, male and female (the ying/yang) with the prevalent aspect being male (the sun surrounding the ying/yang).
I've been extremely happy with it to this day and I've never regretted it.
******************
I was told that once you get your first tattoo, that your going to want more and that was immediately the case with me. I had so many thoughts and images running through my head that if you could have jacked into my brain, dropped some acid and hung on, it would have been one hell of a major trip!
All that settled down and once again I started to think about what I really wanted to express next through art on my body.
I thought and I thought.
The sun rose and set and many more full moons passed as I lived my life, every once in awhile stopping for a brief few moments in the passage of time to ponder what it was going to be. There was no doubt I was getting another one.
......10 years passed and I had grown from a young man searching out his spirituality to an adult on his journey along paths he never dreamed.
Then one day I was talking with my future wife about tattoo's and she mentioned an artist that a friend of hers had gone to in Venice Beach and before you could blink, we were there at INK INK tattoo and talking to Karina about what I had in my head that I wanted on my body.
Once again the time was just right and my words spilled out of my mouth and into Karina's ear and on to some paper. We agreed on a general design but she wanted to work on it a bit more before something final was presented so I paid her a deposit and back to Anaheim we went.
Two weeks later we were back at INK INK Tattoo and Karina brought out the tracing she had done. I immediately knew that it was exactly what I wanted. Don't change a fricken thing! That's when Karina said "Ya know what, I actually have this tracing paper wrong side up". She showed me the proper orientation but we all agreed (my future wife had come with me again) that the way it was shown to me the first time was it.
As my first tattoo symbolized balance with a male aspect, this tattoo symbolizes balance with a female aspect. It is a take off of the Man in the Moon, but the face of the "MAN" is really a blend of a female to male face as can be seen in the eyebrow, nose and lip structure as it moves from left to right. This face set in the moon (a common pagan symbol for Goddess/female) and completed for me a balance between the left and right sides of my body.
This also speaks to my ever evolving understanding of the importance and roles that both aspects of life play in my spirituality. To put it in simple terms and without delving into philosophical discussions what is a man with out an understanding of a woman? The converse is true as well and both are needed, in my opinion, in order to have a firm foundation of balance in ones life.
It's been 6 years since I've received that 2nd tattoo and I've got the idea of my third in my brain. Now for the universe to present me with the artist that can pull it out of my head.
Oh ya and the money to get it done because I don't think it will be cheap.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
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