What about the tattoos?

Why all these tattoos?

When I was in my early twenties, my sister and brother showed me both their newly set tattoo. I loved it, I have always loved certain tattoos and the idea of getting a tattoo myself, started to grow inside my thoughts as well.

My ego loved the fact of getting a tattoo, since my sister and brother had a good tattoo male artist already, I could go to the same with low risk and I would just need to know what I wanted the artist to tattoo on my body. It should be something serious, with no regret afterwards, since removing afterwards was not an option, that was quite clear.

When I then got a serious motorbike accident, my protection leathers were completely destroyed on my left shoulder and surprisingly my left shoulder had nothing. It was for me a good reason to tattoo a part of my leathers on my left shoulder as a kind of a protection angel.

The first tattoo was a fact. The Dainese logo identical like on my protection leathers with a tribal sun around. The artist refused to colour the logo completely unicolor, so I had to find something for inside. My first thought was the 46 logo of my personal hero of that time, after my Michael Jordan period, Valentino Rossi. I was advised to not take something that was related to a person, since my point of view overtime might change (it didn't, now that I didn't know about almost 20 years ago). Instead, I went for my animation picture hero 'Wile E Coyote' who I found so fascinating, by being the loser and nevertheless the character that makes the series so fun. When I saw Valentino Rossi with a t-shirt from 'Wile E Coyote' my choice was made, that head would come inside the logo.

After that first tattoo, I would find it over time a little small. Tribal tattoos were very popular at that moment, so I asked to extend it with a tribal under the 1st one, so the second tattoo was a fact.

For a long time, for me, that would be the only tattoos I would have for the rest of my life. There was just the 'Wile E Coyote' with which I didn't feel in sync anymore. I would not have minded to have the 23 of Michael Jordan or the 46 of Valentino Rossi on my body today, now what I currently had was not in-line with that. My first idea was unicolor again, now the artist still refused to color the logo completely unicolor.

Yellow 46 overlay would not work and so I came up with a design with the first letter of each of my kids (2) which was feasible. So after what could be seen as my 3rd tattoo, I looked like set for life and no other tattoos would be set on my body.

That was without taking my food changing habits into account.
I discovered so many great things that I wanted some of them to give a space on my body and a next evolution of tattoos would be a fact almost 15 years later.

The 4th one was my discovery that my life is mine and that it is my choice to be happy. So I drew myself a 'Happy' in tribal style, to be slightly compatible with the tattoos from my previous life.

For the 5th one, I found the open distance on my arm between the tattoos not acceptable and made a design to fill it up. A link to my soulmate on top, my lucky number 6 which I used to have at school where I quite often was #6 and which would be the number of letters in my name, the one of my soulmate and the one of my 2 children. It's something I only discovered afterwards and made it quite sure there is something special with it. On the bottom I again made a design with the first letter of each of my kids.

When that tattoo was on, it felt like complete, now on the back, I had the same space that annoyed me, so a 6th tattoo was a fact. I would go besides the tribal sun I already had, for the duality of live, the moon of Valentino Rossi, finally. Under that I would set all kinds of words in a font I like that are all resonating with me and a good overview of what I had discovered so far.

I would start writing this blog and discover even more than I would have ever imagined. I made a new drawing reflecting strong further influences on my life and the 6th tattoo was a fact.
The duality of life, visualised by the yin yang sign.
The beauty of the earth, integrated in the black of the yin yang sign.
The tree of life.
An Ohm discovered via Yoga and incorporated into the tree of life.
Love for the animals and all life on earth, symbolised by a rabbit, a donkey and a duck.

Afterwards, when looking to that last tattoo, I would find it to male dominated. It misses, the female though I have in me as well, which I never really managed to draw myself on all my drawings so far.

So it was time to change the male tattoo artist, which has been the same since my sister and brother's tattoo and opt for female one in order to reflect me completely. A female mandala design would do it, the 7th tattoo was a fact.

I learned about 'Ahimsa' via the book of Mahatma Gandhi, it is something that I want to show to the world in a fine female design, people need to know about this and so the 8th tattoo is a fact.

Is this it? For now everything is on, so yes, this is it. Now I know that I will continue to learn here on earth until my last breath and I'm very open to new experiences that cross my path. So let's say that time will tell if this was the last one.

A few weeks ago, on the vegan summer fest in Gent, I met a guy that was very colorful and stylish dressed. I liked it very much and said that to him. He smiled, and said ‘You have to do it, like you feel it’ you know, don’t be occupied with what others might think'.

I liked it and it summarizes greatly my motto for the tattoos after my food changing habits.

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