What do your tats mean to you?

[emohawk]

alrighty, though my mind is ALWAYS on the subject of tattoos, it's been more so than usual in the last few days, because i got my let tattoo coloured (well, most of it). It got me thinking,

if you have tattoos why? do they hold any special meaning for you?

and if you don't have tattoos, what would you get? and what's the reason behind that specific design?

getting the last of my leg tatt finished in a couple weeks, i'll get the pictures up.  

[phallumontis]

on my 18th bday i sort of tricked my mom into getting me a tattoo.
i was soo excited, that i just kind of randomly picked one off the wall.
stereotypical metalhead ink ... skulls.
but i love them, i named 'em. redface spunk and crowley.
doesnt really have meaning, but it'll be forever the day my mom sort of said 'OK, your abnormal, but im down.' heart

and my otherone, is still in progress, but itll be a strangler fig around my upper arm.
i grew up in rural minnesota, always outside.
then i moved to south florida. and GADS! i hated it down there. its all money and pavement and oooold people.
and then i started going to state preserves and parks, and realized that natural florida is actually pretty damn great. (if a little deadly.)
the strangler fig is almost alien looking. and its life cycle is rather interesting. (biology nerd sweatdrop )
so, yeah. the strangler fig made me fall in love with florida.
and hehehe... it looks cool.

and what about yours?
(i love hearing about other people's stuff)  

[emohawk]

i got my first tattoo right after my 18th birthday as well. It's a design that has a mosquito superimposed on an iris flower. It's to represent me (the iris) and my grandmother (the mosquito).

my work in progress is a leg tattoo that my tattooist designed for me, I started out with the idea of an anklet tattoo with 7 stones to represent my immediate family. and it kind of mutated from there. Now is a kick a** design that i can't WAIT to have finished (two weeks yay!) pics to come later.  

[Dragon Queen Kimiko]

PoppyTea

on my 18th bday i sort of tricked my mom into getting me a tattoo.
i was soo excited, that i just kind of randomly picked one off the wall.
stereotypical metalhead ink ... skulls.
but i love them, i named 'em. redface spunk and crowley.
doesnt really have meaning, but it'll be forever the day my mom sort of said 'OK, your abnormal, but im down.' heart

and my otherone, is still in progress, but itll be a strangler fig around my upper arm.
i grew up in rural minnesota, always outside.
then i moved to south florida. and GADS! i hated it down there. its all money and pavement and oooold people.
and then i started going to state preserves and parks, and realized that natural florida is actually pretty damn great. (if a little deadly.)
the strangler fig is almost alien looking. and its life cycle is rather interesting. (biology nerd sweatdrop )
so, yeah. the strangler fig made me fall in love with florida.
and hehehe... it looks cool.

and what about yours?
(i love hearing about other people's stuff)

woahoo!!! minnesota <3, ok back on topic, mine is on my wrist, its a sort of tribal heart with wings n a crown over the top of it, it was really just freedom from my parents I guess, its really pretty though and I adore it blaugh  

[popcornsharingbox]

I have a really small 3 point celtic knot on my back that was a DIY in the basement of someone's house when I was 16. Hah. Not the best idea I ever had, but whatever. Now it just kinda holds meaning for that time of my life when I did things just to rebel. It's nostalgic.

My chest one is basically just there to remind me to do what I love. It's large and obvious and could potentially prevent me from getting certain jobs. But it forces me to be myself. To realize who I am and do what I love.

My arm one... I really just like Giger and wanted the tattoo. Hah. Nothing deep about it, really.

And that mistake behind my ear? ... We dont speak of that. >.>  

[phallumontis]

emohawk

i got my first tattoo right after my 18th birthday as well. It's a design that has a mosquito superimposed on an iris flower. It's to represent me (the iris) and my grandmother (the mosquito).

my work in progress is a leg tattoo that my tattooist designed for me, I started out with the idea of an anklet tattoo with 7 stones to represent my immediate family. and it kind of mutated from there. Now is a kick a** design that i can't WAIT to have finished (two weeks yay!) pics to come later.

heh. i want to get an iris on my arm to remind me of my grandma. biggrin she was all about those. my one arm is going to be all plants. and some morel mushrooms. and if i can figure out a way to get a largemouth bass and a pheasant in there, those too xd my minnesota arm.  

[Artimus_Twitch]

oh the list... its big...

Tribal wings I got on my sixteenth birthday(shoulders): I had wanted wings for a looong time. Who doesnt day dream about actually haveing wings at one point? and it just symbolized freedom, and how much a free spirited person I am. of course... the idea to get them in tribal may not have been the best thing ever.. I wanted dragon wings that for sure. Maybe I will get them updated eventually.

Two celtic symbols(seahorse, & tree of life) got at 17(left arm): I am a celt, and do viking re enactment, so the tree of life does hold meaning to my haritage, the seahorse... I just always liked seahorses, he also looks like a dragon, something else I really like. Its like my interchangeable tattoo.

Spiderweb at 18(tummy): I honestly just thought it would look neat to have a spider web around my belly button. When I am done haveing kids I am getting it expanded to be a tribute to Drow. My favorate race from the fantancy novels I love reading.

lodus chest peice at 18(sturnum): this one probably has the most meaning. A lodus flower. A flower I have always loved, same as water liliys... they float on the water and are very pretty(I am a water element as well) the lodus also have symbolism for alot in spirituality. Its holding a globe of blood(I actually wanted it to be a drop of blood but my artist changed it on me) with a skull inside it. The skull is a symbol for life and/or death. I have a pretty serious blood condition that literally could kill me at any given time... so there you go.. a globe of my blood floating in an ever so delicate flower that could be tiped over at any moment...

Tribal dragon at 19(back of the neck): This one I designed myself. Its when I designed it that makes the real difference. I designed it mainly as a memorial tattoo for my boyfriend when I was 16. He was in the hospital that night.. and I could not sleep because I was so worried. He likes tribal and loves dragons so I designed this for him and would have had his birth and death dates in the wing. He actually did die on the operateing table for a few minutes, but lucky they managed to bring him back.. so I didnt have to put the date in it. But I still got it tattooed on me.. I loved the desgin and thought it would be a good thing to remember.

Dragon and koi sleeve at 19/20(right arm): the over all meaning of this one is trasformation. The koi will jump up the waterfall and turn into a dragon. Trasformed from a weak small thing into the most powerful thing in the world. Kinda the struggle I have done sine I was the shyist little thing, to.. well what I am now. I also made the dragon red for a reason. I have read alot of chinese dragon lore and the red dragons I relate with most. Plus I have loved goldfish and dragons forever... so I just wanted them.
I have also had a rasom Reiki master come up and start talking to me about my sleeve. I didnt even know the guy before this. But he started talking about how getting tattooed is a very spiritual experence of me, and that the dragon I have is a celesital dragon, not an earthly one because its tail is not showing. And that the dragon riseing is what the path to enlightenment is called, so my dragon moveing upword symbolizes my spitiual path, and how just getting it tattooed has helped me along it.
He also went into other personal things about my spirituality that was creeply accurate.
But he added alot of meaning into my sleeve.

The next three I am getting have alot of meaning shoved into them as well... but I dont have them yet so why list them xd  

[emohawk]

Artimus_Twitch wow, that's intense. :O all of them. i'm hoping to get alot of tattoos in my life. but my family and friends are advising me to take it easy after this one. i suppose i should, because if i got all my tattoos as a young adult, there'd be nothing to represent my later life.. if that makes any sense.  

[vafalla]

I have an emerald on top of a sun. Emeralds are green, and green is the color of life. The sun is also a symbol of life. I wanted this because life is all we have and to remind me that I am indeed mortal. Life is precious.

I'm also wanting to get some cherry blossom petals scattered across my body to make it look like they're falling. The cherry blossom is a favorite Japanese symbol for the brevity of beauty and life (it ties into my tat).

The idea behind the life symbol tattoos is that life is short, and we all need to enjoy it while we're here.  

[Bella Pietra]

I have a small "slave" tattoo in the center of my back, respresenting the situation that forced me to put my daughter up for adoption.

I also have a huge pheonix on my left shoulderblade, soon to have its twin on the opposite shoulderblade. They didn't start as pheonix's, my artist altered them that way. They started as simple birds. To simbolize that eventually I'll be free of this world.  

[Lili Marlene]

Peace sign- do I really gotta 'splain that one?
Eye of Horus-
...long running fascination with ancient Egypt
...protection/guidance/being watched over (the sign's traditional meaning)
...the coloration (the iris part is blue) corrolates to a tradition of having a blue bead to represent the eye of God (back to protection and all that); my one grandmother still holds onto some superstitions like that, so it seemed somehow appropriate (not that she approves of tattoos).
Feathers-
...flight/overcoming obsticles.
...nature.
...I always loved birds, wanted to be able to fly as a kid, so it's a form of wish-fulfillment in that regard.