Friday, August 29, 2014

Inside Story: My Tattoos Part 1

So way back when, almost a year ago, I got my sixth tattoo and shared the story behind it with you all.

Here's a refresher for you.

I realized that I haven't shared anything of my others with you or why I chose to have them done. So, in the next few posts, I'll open my personal world with you and share some stories.

Since my first post was about my most recent tattoo, I'll go backwards from the fifth to the first.


Pardon the bad photo quality. Taking a pic of your own ankle is a tad difficult.

Spirit. What does it mean and where does it come from?

Well, let me give you some background information. There's a book series that I love. Not many people know about it; it's kind of got one of those cult followings. It is called the Sword of Truth Series. The author, Terry Goodkind, is an amazing writer. Detailed, emotional, complicated plot lines, character development (even for the minor ones), love, war, death, life, celebrations, magic, dragons, wizards, witches, sorceresses, philosophy, religion, etc. It's wonderful. Look into it.

If these books are of interest to you, caution! There will be some spoilers!!

At the very end of the fifth book, Soul of the Fire, one of the main characters that you follow from the first few pages of the series is in trouble. She's a powerful woman who's above kings and queens, and people of magic, and regular folk. She is also a being of magic,not a witch or anything, but a living weapon created from powerful magic many years ago (that's summing it up a Lot). Anyway, a negative part of her lineage is that she cannot bear a male child. If so, he will become evil. In an earlier book, a witch predicts that if she ever becomes pregnant, the child will be male. So, to prevent this from happening, she tries not to become pregnant. Due to a failed magical item, she becomes pregnant, but doesn't tell her husband right away because she knows she has to abort the child to save the future.

She gets a potion that will do the trick, and walking back to the place she's been staying at, she decides she's not going to do it, that it's her kid and she's going to try to raise him so he doesn't become evil. So she dumps out the liquid, ready to tell her husband the amazing news, and she's attacked. Jumped by a group of men willing to do anything to kill her. They beat her senselessly, to a bloody pulp, so much so that she's on the brink of death and once discovered is no longer recognizable - by her husband. He's a nice guy though, takes care of her for a bit, and after a few weeks, realizes it's her. (Crazy!)

In the sixth book,  The Faith of the Fallen, he takes her away to a secluded area to care for her until she's better again. This spans the time of about 6-8 months (about 18 chapters). At one point she wakes and asks if the baby's okay. It died in the beating and that's how her husband finds out that he was almost a father. (How sad is that?) Anyway, she's been in pain for so long that once she's actually better, she doesn't believe it and feels absolutely worthless; she wants to die and stop being a burden. She's afraid that if she tried to move or get up, she'll be in pain again. While she's feeling sorry for herself, her husband widdles out a wooden statuette for her. He tricks her into getting up one day by leaving a glass of water out of reach for her. Afterwards, he gives the statuette to her, she connects with it immediately.

He names the statuette Spirit. In the book, it says, "it invoked in her some visceral response, a tension that was startlingly familiar. Something about the woman in the carving, some quality it conveyed, made Kahlan hunger to be well, to be fully alive, to be strong and independent again." From there, she committed herself to gaining her strength and muscles back, to be 100% again and take back her life.

This book, especially that chapter, was just so inspirational that I was taken aback by it. The name of the carving held so much meaning and power it just resided in me ever-so-strongly. I had to get it.

The reason for putting it on the bottom of my ankle was for symbolic purposes.

"Kahlan could see Spirit standing in the bedroom window, looking out at the world, 
her robes flowing in the wind, her head thrown back, her back arched, 
her fists at here sides in defiance of anything that would think to bridle her."

To stand your ground, to fight for your life and what you believe; it starts with putting your foot down. Feet have to move forward in order to carry the rest of you with (for the most part), so Spirit starts from the sole of your feet and moves through the rest of the body, hence why I chose to place it there.

Thanks for reading today!

<3 Tawny

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