When I turned 34 I got a tattoo. My life had been transformed by yoga, Buddhism and Eastern thought, and I felt powerfully drawn to the symbol of the lotus flower and it’s story. I wanted to carry it with me always.

A lotus flower lives below the water’s surface, roots resting deep in mud. Each and every day it rises up from darkness and opens itself to the sun, basking. Then at night it curls up and returns to the dark again.

For me it’s a story of regeneration, marking the idea that every day is a chance to start anew. That to grow up we must also grow down, embracing both darkness and the light. That everything, the mud and the sunshine, is intended to be here.

I didn’t take getting a tattoo lightly. It was just for me, a serious choice, meant to become a reminder forever of the path I’d chosen.

So I had it etched in a place where really only I would ever know. A place that, to me, signified submission to it’s meaning, that I would bow always to the weight of the responsibility I’d accepted. That I stood humble, ready, open-hearted.

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relic

old friend now
I find you written
still there awake
lingering, after
so much time
unseen, blazing
I feel you always
phantom, ghost
gentle reminder
leftover lover
memory, journey
to another time
another place
some other me

our first meeting
pained me well
but there you were
newborn, fresh
the only scar
I ever gave myself
I need you close
longing never
to forget, neglect
a lesson learned
you won’t let me
we stick together
skin on skin
hand in hand
keeping promises