The Eye of Horus tattoo happened about as impulsively as a tattoo can happen without alcohol involved; I was in San Francisco April 1992 for a week by myself, and woke up in the hotel one morning with the thought, "I want an Egyptian eye tattooed on my right wrist"--and by that afternoon, it was done. I didn't even know what the symbol really meant, only that I wanted it and that I was happy to have it. The design was thick and solid, not fine and scrolly like many Egyptian eye designs can be, and I'm left-handed so my right wrist made sense--as if it could do the watching, while my left hand did the doing--and all I thought about it was, "It's there to keep me honest."
Later I found that when the curly bit under the eye goes in one direction it's the Eye of Ra, and in the other direction it's the Eye of Horus, and Horus is the Falcon God and there is a myth tied in with Osiris and him being raised from the dead by Isis, and so on and so forth, but I can never remember any of that. All I know is I still like it, the ink has held up beautifully, and I have never covered it up with a wide watchband as a nurse manager told me I would end up having to do, "nursing being a very conservative profession." (Since then we have had nurses with pink hair and nose rings, so times they are a-changin'.)
People always ask me, "What does it mean?", and I am always at a loss. I usually default the question with a weak "Oh, I just like it", and the next question is "Did it hurt?", and I say, "Yes, along the bone, there, but it's not right at the bend of the wrist, so it wasn't too bad, not like the back of the neck...I hear that REALLY hurts." This is a conversation that has been repeated countless times through the years.
A few weeks ago my friend and colleague Jerry asked me, out of the blue, "What does your tattoo mean?" Jerry is a dear friend, and our conversations get deeper and more cosmic than conversations generally go in life, so I tried to answer his question, but could not. "To keep me honest" had been the starting point all those years ago, but my tattoo meant different things to me than that, and the eye was never one of reproach or judgement. I didn't talk to it (that would be rather psychotic, eh?), I didn't get an otherworldly vibe from it, I didn't even think of it as "a tattoo"...those were what other people had, with their colorful sleeves and the initials of dead loved ones embedded in roses. Mine was part of me, like a fanciful looking birthmark.
I babbled a bit about the Falcon God, and the rebirth of Osiris, and blah-blah, and then I said, "I don't know. I just woke up one day in San Francisco and wanted it, so I got it. I just liked it...and I still do."
It bothered me that I had no answer to that very reasonable question about a symbol I had permanently etched on my body. Why couldn't I answer that? What did it really mean?
It so happened that April of 1992 marked the start of what was the worst year of my life. I returned home from that trip and jumped immediately onto a runaway train of drama, danger, mental torment, and bad, bad choices far beyond what I had ever dabbled in before. That sickening ride ended with a whimper in March of 1993. One dreary morning, looking out my window in a sort of freeze-frame of activity, the thought came to me, "There must be another way," and just like that I was off the crazy train, never to return.. Life has been life since then, for sure, but it has never been so dark and ugly as that particular year.
The day after Jerry asked me, "What does your tattoo mean?" my bosses sent me to a nursing home to do an admission. I was at the nurse's station copying meds and various tidbits of information from the chart, when the charge nurse on the floor--who was very friendly and chatty toward me, not at all like the typical nursing home charge nurse who finds us hospice nurses to be superfluous pains in the asses--said, "What is your tattoo? Is that the Eye of Horus?"
"Yes, it is," I said in surprise.
"What did you get it for?" she asked, looking at me keenly.
"Um, I don't know, it's pretty old, actually. 1992. I just liked it, and the ink has held up really well..."
"That's a sign of protection, you know."
I was shocked. With all the explanations I had heard, and all the images of it I had seen on this and that piece of jewlery at the New Age stores in my city (and my city is a Mecca of New Age stores, by the way), and knowing that a very typical place to get a Eye of Horus tattoo is on the back, I had never realized that it symbolized protection.
"It is?"
"Oh, yes! People carry it for protection, the gods keeping an eye out for you. It's interesting that you have it on your wrist...tell me, did it hurt?"
I have meant to tell Jerry, "Here's the answer to your question...your question, and mine!", but work has been too busy and I forgot. Maybe he'll read this instead.
a link: http://www.squidoo.com/the-eye-of-ra-tattoo
the Eye of Horus on the back of the neck (ouch, better her than me)(and mine looks WAY better):
No comments:
Post a Comment