The new ink

Here’s a diagram/explanation of the new tattoo. I had no intention of getting inked over in New Zealand, but something drew me to Greg Ashwell of Atawera Art in Kaikoura at the end of my trip. I met Greg and liked him immediately. We talked for about 20 minutes before I decided to book an appointment. From that initial discussion, I came away with some ideas for what I might have done.

The day of the appointment (about 24 hours later), I sat down with Greg for about 30 minutes and talked about what I wanted to represent with this tattoo. I had some general ideas and he asked some good questions. From this information, Greg drew up this tattoo using the overall design I wanted. The overall design — two spirals — is a common one around NZ. Each spiral is a koru. The koru represents an unfurling fern frond. It symbolizes new life, growth, strength and peace.

The two spirals together like this symbolize a Maori story of creation. It goes something like this: “The Maori creation myth tells how heaven and earth were once joined as Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, lay together in a tight embrace. They had many children who lived in the darkness between them. The children wished to live in the light and so separated their unwilling parents.”

Bringing it back to me, it’s the story of my creation. Each spiral represents a family. One represents the family I grew up with (my adopted family) while the other spiral represents my birth family (what I know so far). There are other elements which are described above. If you have questions, fire away. It takes me at least five minutes to answer the “What does it mean?” question

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out and I’m very grateful to have been called to check out Greg’s work. It was a very spiritual ending to an AMAZING spiritual (and geographic) journey.

Much love,
Greg