The Dark Avalon Scrolls

Note :: All thumbnails are clickable for larger images in my tattoos gallery, except for the first image, which will go to the page where I got it from.


The last time I got a tattoo was on 6 September 1995. I got the butterfly. At the time, the butterfly symbolized the point I was at in my personal path, as punctuated by a comment from my first ex-gf. In a nutshell, she'd told me that I was a beautiful butterfly that was struggling with coming out of its cocoon, that I needed to emerge from that cocoon to be the person I was meant to be.

The fact that I got the tattoo based on what she'd said 3 months after she'd dumped me is kind of significant. The fact that I'd paid for her first tattoo that same day [because it had been a promised birthday present while we were still together] seems oddly significant now, too. I mean, it kind of ties us together in a weird, fucked up, karmic kind of way. And no, I don't think that's crazy to say. She was my first love and there's a part of me that still loves her, despite how fucked up everything ended up.

Anyway… Moving on with the story.

So I've been wanting another tattoo for about 10 years now. Pretty much ever since I first came out to Portland for a visit back in July of 1998. It's always centered around being some sort of tramp stamp tattoo involving my various totem animals. I've never been able to stick to one design for more than a few months. It always evolves and has been quite fluid. In the last year or so, the design has taken a bit more of a serpentine direction, but is still fluidly changing.

The very first time I saw the Pacific Ocean was 23 July 1998. I did a very specific vow of chastity for a year and a day to my two primary deities, Poseidon and Ariestess, that day on the beach at Lincoln City, henceforth known as "my beach". It was a very emotionally exhausting day, but worth it in the long run.

Each year after that, I've celebrated my "x years & x days" anniversary of that date. This year, on 2 August 2008, I hit my 10 and 10. To commemorate this anniversary, I decided back in May that I'd get my second tattoo. So I started debating exactly what I wanted to get. I'd wanted to get the rattlesnake design done on my back, there wasn't enough time or money, nor would the design solidify completely for me. I also wanted something with either a sea turtle or a harbor seal. Ultimately, I'll have "matching" tattoos on my calves of these animals.

So I started looking for seal designs for shatterpath to modify. This was important that she have a hand in the design. I don't want my tattoos to be something that anyone can find and print out/purchase/whatever. I want my ink to be original and unique to me.

So I started with this picture from The Graphic Works of Susan A. Point.



I liked the basic design and how it looked like the harbor seals that I'm so enamored with. The face in the circle was interesting, but it wasn't quite right. So shatterpath started designing and came up with this great similarity for the seal. Then she started futzing with what would go in the circle. I wanted something to deal with my two primary deities and came up with a trident for Poseidon and the golden serpent for Ariestess. The first option was the trident with the snake twined thru it, but that ended up being too detailed for such a small space.

Note :: This is a placeholder for those original designs as the haven't been scanned in yet and are currently AWOL.

Then, shatterpath started morphing the design a little more, making it look more Salish in design. She also made the serpent be the focus of the circle, with the trident a separate, secondary focus. There were a few minor tweaks here and there, until we agreed on this design...



Once this was done, shatterpath pulled out the pens and began the work of coloring in this beastie. We talked A LOT about the colors I wanted represented in this design. Pretty much every step of the design process was a collaboration between us, which is how it was meant to be. Even if she came up with something while I was at work, she'd tell me about it on our phone calls on my breaks and show me the progression when I got home. And she was willing to take my constructive criticism on changes to be made. Until we ended up with this colored final piece.



We contacted Crossover Tattoo Studio down in Corvallis to set up the appointment to get my tattoos done on 1 August 2008 at noon. It seemed quite appropriate to be getting my tattoos on Lammas and the new moon for my 10 & 10. Quite appropriate, indeed. They gave us their email address to send the outline and colored versions of the tattoo so they'd have it ahead of time.

I didn't send along the info for my other tattoo, as it was such a tiny thing, and I knew they could do it that day. The big tattoo was the one to worry about. Obviously. So I'll put in a little pause here for info on the little tattoo before I finish the big story. The little tattoo is one I've been working on and doodling since May of this year. I'd bought and read Sea Magic: Connecting with the Ocean's Energy by Sandra Kynes and completely fell in love with the book. In it, I saw there were 3 different ogham symbols for 3 different kinds of creativity. So I ended up creating a bindrune [for lack of a better word] of these three into the following image to be done in dark purple on my right inner wrist…



So back to the story… On the first, I shaved my legs [first time in like a year!] and went to get my tattoos done. Tigger [the tattoo artist] was really a neat guy. I'd brought my iPod with me to play my "heavy shit" that shatterpath doesn't like, as it seemed appropriate for getting my tattoo. Turns out, I never ended up using my iPod as Tigger was playing some really kewl rap/heavy shit that worked just fine [tho' the show Phil Collins tune that popped up randomly at one point kinda threw me for a loop]. I knew there'd be some pain involved, but I think getting tattoos is like having children. You forget the pain with time. Anyway, the full time, from start to finish, was 2 ½ hours. That included set up of equipment, finalizing ink colors, a couple smoke breaks for Tigger, and the final pictures and covering up the tattoos.

It hurt while he was doing the tattoos. I won't deny that. I tensed up a few times, but never actually flinched or shied away at all. I'm actually quite proud of myself for that. I guess I can thank my bad teeth and migraines for my pain threshold. *snorts* Anyway, it only really started to bother me as we got to the last 2 colors, when I knew we were almost done. The tattoo was done in the following order :: black, green, blue, red, yellow, white, grey. After he'd gotten the outline done on the seal, he did my wrist tattoo. After the wrist tattoo was done, I got hit with the writing bug and wrote like 7 pages in my little notebook on the latest installment of LWM that I'm working on for ncis_bigbang. I was quite impressed that my creativity hit so hard. It was meant to be, I guess…

* * * * * *

The tattoo on my wrist really didn't hurt for a very long time overall. I'd say it was completely healed by the end of the first week, outside of a minor bit of peeling left. And it wasn't until a day or so after I'd gotten the creativity tattoo that I realized I'd given Tigger one of my freehand sketches, instead of the nicely done one on graph paper. So none of the lines are straight or even or matching in length. And you know what? I'm totally okay with that. My creativity isn't perfect, so it makes sense that my creativity tattoo isn't perfect either.

The seal? Yeah, that one's still healing, tho' it's mostly done now. I'm down to the second layer of peeling [not much color left] and the "bruise" sensitivity [tho' that 's mostly gone as well]. And the healing zits. Yeah, I ended up getting a FUCKTON of painful zits cropping up around the tattoos, even a couple on the wrist. My guess is that they're a combination reaction to the tattoo itself and the lotion I put on my tattoos to help them heal. I got Lubriderm daily moisture for normal to dry skin, fragrance-free as instructed. My leg just completely freaked out from all of the attention. LOL!


Yes, I know it looks like crap atm. It hasn't gotten any lotion yet today.

So here we are, 2 ½ weeks after getting my tattoos. I'm still catching myself wondering what that dirt smudge is on my wrist, tho' not as often anymore. And I'm still careful of my seal, simply because the skin's still a bit sensitive. Nothing major, just sensitive.

I'm more than willing to go back to Corvallis to have Tigger do all of my tattoos from this point forward. For one thing, it only cost $100 for both designs. Also, the man did incredible work and was quite respectful/curious about my designs and what they meant/why I was getting them. He didn't put any of his ego/ideals/etc into these designs. And I felt especially stoked to find out my seal was his first time doing Native American artwork/designs. He took a fuckload of pics of the seal to put into his portfolio.

The next day at sunset, after having spent hours watching about a dozen grey whales hunting, I went out with shatterpath and will_i_am_oak to have my new ritual with Poseidon and Ariestess to commemorate my 10 & 10. It was a more southerly section of my beach, but I wasn't honestly up to walking a mile each way in sand to get to the exact spot. The Old Man and Ariestess were okay with this particular spot, so it was all good. I couldn't get the tattoos wet, so shatterpath offered to get my water and take out the things I needed to either give to the Old Man or have blessed. He took the Poseidon figure that was going to go on my desk. shatterpath put it waist deep in the sand to get it wet and blessed, and between one wave and the next, it was just gone. And then there was the inner part of the gauze bandage from my seal tattoo. It had blood and ink on it, and seemed an appropriate offering to my deities. While she was out there, I kept seeing spirits out in the waves, mostly seals and selkie forms, and they disappeared the minute she was done. I threw out the fluorite worry stone I've been carrying around for ages, as well as a lovely bloody yellow/amber colored glass heart shatterpath found for me at a local juju shop. will_i_am_oak collected the sand for me, which will go on my altar with the water.

It wasn't until I was standing there, talking to the Old Man and Ariestess that I realized what I'd done with my seal tattoo. I'd formally dedicated myself permanently to these two deities of mine. What other meaning could there be for putting the permanent ink of their symbology for me into my skin? It literally brought tears to my eyes as the full impact of what I'd done registered consciously for me. It was a daunting realization, to say the least. I'm still humbled by that, and can't completely explain what it did to me.