For years, I never thought I’d get a tattoo. I’d decide on one and then be fickle and think I couldn’t live with it, what would it look like when I'm 50- the usual bullshit. Despite being in a band with a lovely tattooist for a couple of years now, I still held out.
I decided to get one a few weeks ago, on my 25th birthday. Turning 25 was very odd. An arsonist stalked London, burning chemical plants, factories and historical monuments alike and one of my dear, dear friends lay cold in a police morgue, awaiting release to his family.
This was what spurred me, as I felt such a painful void in my life that I needed something physical to hurt worse, to try and distract me. In short, I needed to bleed for the sake of catharsis.
I went up to my friend’s studio with a copy of the
I Ching and with three dirty two pence coins tainted by the ugliness of the world, I consulted it. The question, relating to my friend, was answered with hexagram 45.
Gathering/Massing.
There were so many things that spoke to me- friends gathering together, not being cheap with offerings and most importantly mourning the dead without blame. How I find the book works is that you take from it what meaning you need, and this had it in spades. There was no way I couldn’t get this done, as a constant reminder of Alfie and all my other friends, of my family and of the Tao.
So there it is. In one of the most painful places I could get it done, apparently.
No regret, no blame.
Thanks,
Tom
