end of one journey

              I've heard that whatever you put on your skin- your amulets, your ink, your oils- they soak in, and become a part of your souls and guiding forces. From the oldest of records to present day, we use our skin as protection, and as the place for the rituals guiding aging take form. Maori believe that tattoos follow on into the afterlife, and the monks of the tiger temple are covered in protective signs and sigils. Cultures around the world use body modification to show that a child has become an adult.

             For me, my spirit has always been wound round and round two things- jaguars, and roses.     Both have taught me, and both continue to guide me.

            I think I was 8 or 9 when I read "The Jaguar Princess" by Claire Bell for the first time.
A basic plot synopsis is that this maya/ inca/ aztec (I know they're different, but the author mixed it up for the story) little girl is captured and made into a slave, but she's not considered pretty so she's just a menial house worker. She can't swim, and she's got awkward bones. The house is a school for scribes though, and she learns how to read and write (which is seriously against caste and stuff. but she does what she wants!) and basically flows with her life, getting upgraded to cooler and cooler writing things, learning that she can't swim because she's a super dense shape shifting jaguar, the usual, until a prince falls in love with her, his father tries to marry her for political gain and maims his son, and she transforms into a jaguar, kills all the hummingbird-on-the-left priests who are a little too blood thirsty, converts the whole area to worshiping tepeyololti (the jaguar god of caves) and settles in to peace and prosperity as queen.


When I was 8 or 9, this meant I terrorized the neighborhood pretending to be a jaguar. (also, I can't swim.)

But as the years went past, it seems to me that I fell in love with an amazing story of what happens when a person does the best they can in whatever situation they find themselves in, and a classic rags to riches story.

I knew I had to have part of the jaguar on me, or in me. Jaguars are brilliant. They never stop coming, they never give up on what they want. The god of jaguars is the god of caves and quietness, which provides balance to the energy of the chase. I needed that energy to keep me whole, but I wanted to be softer than pursuing and killing and caves....

It's a good thing I grew up in rose country. My family had 24 rosebushes in our little yard. Climbing roses, dwarf roses, scented roses, beautiful roses. You may have read before my parroting of a line from Robin McKinley's "Rose Daughter" that "roses are for love. Not silly sweetheart's love, but the love that makes you and keeps you whole." And it's true. Roses don't grow where they're unloved. They take a lot of fuss and care to get established, and a lot of maintenance to keep them beautiful initially, but then, their roots dig deep and they stay grounded in that love. The more blooms you cut off, the more they give, and the air around them is perfumed with their joy of life, their ability to stand up to the storm, and their capacity to love in return. Roses were, for me, the perfect balance. I use rose water (preciously and sparingly, as my jar is my great grandmother's last jar of rosewater) to clear my face, to help with digestion, to clear my homesickness. I can't always have a physical rose to love, but there's always a rose garden in my mind...and now on my skin.

A year and a half ago, I started a journey, to imbue my skin with the symbol of a jaguar whose spots were made of roses.

Today, it's complete.

Eyes open to see where I am

the final roses

The whole piece