I have a shop online — http://www.tattoo-fashions.com — which features handpainted garments. Actually nothing there even remotely resembles a tattoo. Why the title, then? Seemed like a good idea at the time.
As you see, I’m sporting some pretty picturesque and unusual Celtic tattoos here; this is not what is commonly called the Tramp Stamp.
Please note that the “tramp-stamp” concept went out back in the 70’s, when the ass-crack tattoo became popularized as the “available” flag, which it wasn’t, but got perceived that way by the public — but the fact is that ALL fashions, cosmetics, hairstyles, jewelry, perfumes, piercings and tattoos and social dances and spring breaks and sock hops and hip-hop dances and zumba and belly dancing and speed dating are sexually based, and why not? Love makes the world go round.
I can prove the sex thing, if you’re ignorant of the facts, but that’s not my point. I’m not defending the tattoos I’m wearing. I’m trying to make you aware of several related factoids:
Tattoos are sometimes ritual, sometimes cultural, sometimes personal. In any and all cases, the end result is to make the population grow, even in ritual usage; for the tribe, it’s all about population and expansion and expansion and expansion.
Infant Mortality and fertility have always been the concern of all animal populations including human, and until recently, when the human infant mortality rate was radically reduced to a small fraction from a much larger percentage, by modern medicine, that has always been to the good.
“May your tribe increase” is the general good wishing. Fecundity, Fertility and other things as well. There were Gods and Goddesses in charge of baby-making and baby-surviving.
Reproduction and sexual gratification are big these days, but then, they always have been. You think ancient Rome was anything? Holy doodad, you should have seen the folks who were there before the Romans came in and took over the territory — the Etruscans.
Horny bastards, every one.
Believe me, I knew these guys and, of course, they knew me. But the fact that in over 10 billion lifetimes I’ve been around the block more times than a New York taxi has nothing whatever to do with the tattoos on my Avatar’s body.
They’re strictly ritualistic, but again, that’s not my point.
They imprint something on and underneath the skin. If you saw this same imprint on an Intel chip, you’d see immediately what the circuits are, and what they might be expected to do. In short, I am a radio. Don’t let the Tramp Stamp fool you.
Speaking of Tramp Stamps, I happen to know more about them than most folks, because of a study I did to teach a socio-economics class at Claremont back in 1972, I think it was.
My uncles and their friends were in the Navy. They had tattoos. My Dad, Horace, was in the army. He didn’t have tattoos.
Is this the universe trying to tell us something about water elementals?
Tattoos and other permanent marker skin ornamentation goes back a long, long way, ever since people discovered they could do it, sometime around 30,000 B.C., if I recollect rightly.
We early jewelers also discovered that we could wrap metal around fingers and toes, and stick metal things through our earlobes and other body parts. I have some examples of ancient body piercing gear. It differs not at all from the modern equivalent.
Body enhancements are always about the same thing, if they aren’t cultural or religious. It’s a way of saying hello and indicating availability.
Availability is the key. Seduction is bullshit, never actually happens. It’s all a cover game for the direct drive to the bedroom.
Tattoos used to tell all; they’d reveal the favorite sex game, the modes, even the positions, but that all ended back in the 1970’s.
People who get ass-crack tattoos hear others call them “Gramp Stamps” because the women who sport them are…well, older; in their youth, they sported these as “dares” and to be considered cool.
But the asss-crack tattoo hasn’t meant what it used to mean since way back in 1974-ish, so what’s the deal now?
Tattoos now are now being used more in the spirit of ritual, rather than a blatant advertisement of sexual promiscuity.
Sure, the number of spiritual tattoos is small and the appreciation for this rare use of tattoos is equally small, but the number is growing due to the popularity of some of the more flamboyant and “out-there” practitioners. This is a good thing.
Americans and Canadians don’t really understand the significance of tattoos in other cultures, much less their own, so they associate tattoos with the sex games of the very young, and this is very wrong. Older folks have sex games, too.
The stars in my body stainwork are a bit too strongly drawn for my taste, but they are in fact not bad pentacles. I need this array in order to turn my body into a Ghost Radio, more or less…are you following me here?
So when I’m in ritual mode in the Druid, she’ll be in tune more or less exactly to the exact corresponding Matrix I’ve made in the flesh-and-blood world to go with this garb.
Tattoos are important to us Druids, although we don’t use them as bait for street trolling or anything that exciting. For us, the tattoo is a way of creating a bond between ourselves and the Invisible World.
The ink used in the tattoo process leaves residue of carbons, which causes a localized nPn/pNp reaction, in turn creating a carbon-chain diodal effect resembling what happens when you micro-tune a superheterodyne receiver with a Vernier dial.
In short, your body becomes an InterDimensionally Equipped Radio, just as it would if you needled this pattern onto a human flesh and blood body with radionic inks, like the ones I used to use back in the day. The tattoos produce cross-patterns of radio wave interpolations, interrupted wave-forms and complex compound waves that reduce down into Third Force waves.
Without dust particles in the air, there’d be no reaction, but there are, so there is.
Gosh, just like we used to do back home.
I refer, of course, to Babylon and Ur, my old haunts and hunting grounds on Planet Urth. That was when I had that house by the Susa, where I made little round beads all day out of white, black and reddish stones, and you did too, if you were with me then.
That house by the Susa; ah, those were the days. Nice hot sun, plenty of work to be done in the nice hot sun, too. Luckily, I had a house with very thick walls, or it would have been total hell for me; I’ve been used to air conditioning for billions of years.
Population III stars had their own brand of planet, and I once ruled one of them, not all that well. I never did get the hang of Thursdays.
You want to know what Inter-Galactic politics is really all about?
Handshakes.
Not who. How.
It’s a pity that tattoos got embroiled in the world of sexual preferences, but it’s totally consistent with the ancient practices. In those days, if you had a tattoo, you were interested in sex, right now, and hard, please, but if you didn’t have a tattoo, it meant you hadn’t yet managed to get over to the tattoo parlor.
We didn’t have ass-crack tattoos in those days. Didn’t need them. If you could see that much, she was already on all fours.
I’m making some patterns for ritual tattoos for your flesh-and-blood bodies and for your Second Life Avatars. If I’m right, I’ll be able to fashion up some body tats and piercings that have XD qualities to them.
Naturally, I’ll need some vict…..uh, I mean, I’ll need some volunteers, upon whom I can experi…uh, I mean, try some things out.
I’ll draw the Ritual Tats on with Henna; I don’t do ink and I don’t pierce skin. I’m just a rolling stone in search of a henge.
I’m making plans to create a number of Astral Projection and Dance Movements Henna Tattoos for future workshops. I’ll create a series of dye-transfers and other methods of transferring the image designs over to your skin and you’ll be able to apply them at home.
I actually prefer the henna to the real tattoo for one important reason:
With henna tattoos, you can change them every week.
Yep, and they look and feel great, don’t get into the bloodstream and most of all, don’t outlast you. The fact that you can change them every week — the henna lasts about 7 or 8 days, sometimes more — means that you can conduct different levels of ritual at different times of the month, see?
Does the henna work as well as the ink?
No.
Don’t be an idiot. Of course the ink works better. But ink is permanent. It doesn’t really remove, although it mostly does, leaving a light blotch in its place. Disgusting.
The problem with ink tattoos is that it doesn’t leave you with that “change lens” factor, so to me, all things considered, I’ll take slightly less power in favor of more choices of TREs (Tattoo Radio Elementals).
Tattoo Radio Elementals are the whole point here. They’re what gives the whole operation its juice, and offers variation in destination and choice-points, and that’s what you want, and that’s why I’m making tattoos again after all these centuries.
It isn’t sudden; I did a few Henna tattoos a couple of dozen workshops ago, and I did them in the Grass Valley Street fairs many many years ago. I wish you could have seen the line that formed for that little gig!
Well, I’d better jet out of here now; my snack has arrived and it’s looking better and better every minute. I know this is an important subject, and I’ll get back to it soon, but right now, the snack is waiting, and gosh, it’s only about tattoos, anyway, right?
See You At The Top!!!
gorby