First Tattoo

So this seagull tattoo was a combination of inspirations. It started a couple of years ago when I read "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse. In it the title character goes on a quest from his parents house and the life he'd known as the son of a Brahman to find meaning in his life, he goes through a series of lives from studying religion in a large following to living as a kept man with his wealthy lover to living as a ferryman by the river and as I remember, he made reference many times to the bird in his breast, the voice of joy and his sense of life. Sometimes he thought it was dead and other times it felt alive and gave him hope. I really liked that symbol, it jumped out to me and stuck with me ever since. I knew someday I would get a bird tattooed on my chest somewhere in honor of the bit of myself I see in Siddhartha.

Then a few months ago I read "Johnathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach. This was about a seagull who wanted to learn to fly, to really fly, not just for the sake of getting to food fastest like the rest of his flock but for the thrill and the challenge of flying with excellence. So he was shunned by the great flock because he refused to be one of the hundreds squabbling over scraps of food and because he insisted on flying better each day than he did before. He got hurt over and over pushing his limits and still continued. Eventually he reached a higher state of consciousness and found a sort of seagull heaven where other seagulls have gone, only the ones who fought for perfection in flight, and so he learned from his teacher and from the other seagulls and was eventually able to get back to his own flock, the one that cast him out, to encourage other like-minded seagulls to keep fighting for what they want to learn. Then I decided that the bird on my chest would be a seagull.
Clearly it is a seagull in flight and if you notice the the silhouette of this bird is a bird changing course. One wing up and one wing down with eyes always on the ground (the blacked in silhouette though makes it impossible to tell which direction it is going). It is also facing left, towards my heart. So it is that the tattoo is the Johnathan Seagull in my breast, drawn to be forever changing direction and forever following my heart.



Myriam Fallon is the wonderful photographer to document my tattoo session. Happy? :-)


Update 4/13/2017: I lost my job just 2 months ago. The day after my crushing defeat of being fired, I realized this bird has been silent for many years. Here's hoping I can make him sing again.