THE TATTOO GRATITUDE SERIES

This poster celebrates the incredible knowledge and moral understanding that we arrive with when we land here on earth. The double-headed eagle has adorned countless flags and crests across Europe for most of the last thousand years—usually symbolizing empire and imperial power.

It’s a beautiful image, but it’s largely associated with deeply anti-democratic forces and sentiments—forces that believe that human beings need controlling. Chapter 19 of the Tao Te Ching, on the other hand (the passage on the inside of the composition) is an optimistic read of the nature of human beings—one that lends itself very well to the philosophies at the core of democracy. Trusting in the goodness and order inside people often produces order. This is what the American founding fathers and those of the French revolution believed.

Chapter 21 of the Tao Te Ching wraps around the perimeter of the piece.

Stay centered and move toward the best version of yourself residing inside.

Every year around springtime, there seems to be a lot of chaos and upheaval. Perhaps this is partly because of the change of seasons as we recover from the darkness of winter and begin our return trip toward longer days. Springtime is a violent and destructive phenomenon first, before it gives way to birth and nurture.

This fourth piece in the Gratitude tattoo series depicts a dragon, a cat who has caught a snake and a peacock. The words for this print are chapter 35 of the Tao Te Ching, reminding us that we have tools to center ourselves and stay clean-minded regardless of what happens outside of us. Good advice for such a time. I like this chapter because it describes this kind of clarity as utterly boring and ordinary.

Stay alert, stay ready and always draw from the well of calm inside you. That well cannot run dry. It’s inexhaustible.

Mahakala is a character that is a fierce, chaotic form of Shiva (husband of Kali) in Hinduism and plays a significant role in Tibetan Buddhism. Like his wife, he is a symbol of time and thus is bound by no rules or structures of morality that we comprehend. Facing Mahakala is the most alarming and frightening event in the life of any consciousness, but it is important to remember that he is not our enemy.

Buraq is the brilliant, beautiful, being that carried a number of prophets, including Muhammad, to Heaven in the Islamic tradition. This drawing is inspired by the Indian and Persian depictions of him.

The text from this print is pulled from the Finnish epic poem “The Kalevala” (as was the text from the last two pieces in this series). In this section, a character receives instructions on how to conduct himself when he embarks on his first spiritual journey.

These instructions are also very basic, good advice for all of us when in the scary, disorienting, psychological spaces that we occasionally find ourselves.

Love.