Recently in Tattoos Category
The always enlightening ModBlog offers this divine tattoo from Art-n-Soul Studios, located in Allentown PA (just a few miles from where I grew up).
If you're in NYC and into tattoos, the place to be this weekend is the NYC Tattoo Convention, featuring artists from around the country as well as local stars, such as the designers at Manhattan's renowned Sacred Tattoo.
Above: Black Metal Milhouse by Mike at Sacred Tattoo.
In the climactic clip below, Sarah Marshall pronounces judgment on her boyfriend's ecumenical taste in tattoos. On a related front, check out the final Q&A in the latest Dear Prudence on Slate, which reaches a similar conclusion.
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I have fun memories of hanging out with the Jesuits at Fordham back when noted author & fellow Russian class member Andrew Krivak was a Jesuit in training. Tonight, getting back to the BofG after an intense week of social enterprise-related projects, I noticed that we a bunch of jesuitical click-throughs thanks to a Good Jesuit Bad Jesuit post on tattoos.
The subject of the post: this meditation by a student in nonprofit management (!) on tattoos as an expression of Ignatian spiritual principles.
It's a fascinating subject. Marshall McLuhan, a devout Catholic as well as a media theorist, would have seen the direct connection between spiritual tattoos and the Church in an electronic age.
Earlier Jesuits, though, might have been more puzzled:
Numerous brief references to tattooing are found in writings of 17th century Jesuit missionaries whose reports were forwarded to Paris each year and compiled in volumes titled Jesuit Relations . Jesuit missions were scattered throughout eastern Canada, and missionaries reported that tattooing was practiced by almost all of the native tribes they encountered. In 1653 the Jesuit missionary Francois-J. Bressani reported:
In order to paint permanent marks on themselves they undergo intense pain. To do this they use needles, sharpened awls, or thorns. With these instruments they pierce the skin and trace images of animals or monsters, for example an eagle, a serpent, a dragon, or any other figure they like, which they engrave on their faces, their necks, their chests, or other parts of their bodies. Then, while the punctures which form the designs are fresh and bleeding, they rub in charcoal or some other black color which mixes with the blood and penetrates the wound. The image is then indelibly imprinted on the skin. This custom is so widespread that I believe that in many of these native tribes it would be impossible to find a single individual who is not marked in this way. When this operation is performed over the entire body it is dangerous, especially in cold weather. Many have died after the operation, either as the result of a kind of spasm which it produces, or for other reasons. The natives thus die as martyrs to vanity because of this bizarre custom.
The Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has banned spoken references to Yahweh in songs and prayers. Ostensibly it's out of respect for the sensibilities of observant Jews, who, now that the word "Yahweh" won't be uttered aloud, will presumably be cool with all the references to Jesus and the Trinity.
My guess is the crackdown is more likely a subtle way of targeting post-Vatican II worship songs and prayers, which are more likely to use the term.
Still, it's kind of funny--Catholic leaders have been rather vocal about God's removal from the public square, yet here they are, with a similar appeal to pluralism, taking God out of the Church!
Photo: Yahweh tattoo from Check Out My Ink!
Miss Clare sports spiritual symbols from a range of traditions--and a Sacred Carrot!--in this pic from the BMEZine.
Ethereal style takes foot & wing:
Swastika Freakshop via BMEZine. Be sure to check out the SF homepage for more, as well as this cri de coeur prompted by burgeoning internet fame:
the spirit of the ritual give me the energy to do what i do...
please read this... Effectively immediately, I am gong to stop doing body modifications. I no longer offer things like implants, scars etc... So please do not request any of this from now on. I need time to concentrate on my tattoo work and on my own life. Body modification IS my life - but not all in my life. And, right now, for me, tattooing is more important than the other stuff. So I will take a one-year break from promoting. I won't upload new pictures and try to take a break from being an internet celebrity. Please respect my decision and don't ask me about anything else than tattooing. When you want a tatu, please contact me via my homepage (www.swastika-freakshop.de).
