Updates and learning how to share more of me.
Writing a newsletter is one thing, making it more personal is another.
Before I became a tattooer I was in college to become a journalist. I wanted to write for Rolling Stone Magazine and I loved to write. I wrote poems, short stories, songs and the like. I loved to express my creativity through word. Now that I have been in the tattoo industry for over 20 years, Tattooing professionally for 16, I have forgotten what it is like to express myself in the way I most loved when I was younger. Substack is a reemergence of this, a place, like live journal or Tumblr, where I can write whatever it is that I would like…..but will my subscribers read it.
What do most people want to read, is it Travel updates to where I will be tattooing? Is it my discoveries on the path of the Great Work as I study Western Mystery Traditions? Would you prefer weekly tarot pulls straight to your inbox? I am a multifaceted being with many talents, but what is the talent you are most interested in? Do I write my Substack posts as a means for capitalism or a means to connect to a community that I wish to build?
These are the questions I woke up asking myself. I drink coffee and stare at my computer screen wishing to connect with people, but how……
I want to tell you all that Portland, my new home, is amazing and I am so happy to be here. The seasons are changing and it has awakened something new within me. A feeling of wholeness I was truly missing when living in LA but had completely in New York. In a lot of ways Portland reminds me of the East Coast with its seasons and food and communities. The shop that I tattoo at , Anatomy Tattoo, is a house, a home and I am so excited about building with the family there. What I am most excited about is being able to share the knowledge of my career and what I have learned through out it. To nurture the future of tattooing, something that corresponds so well with the work I am doing esoterically. A tradition which does not evolve is not a living tradition but a dead one. I will spend most of the summer in Portland with very little travel plans back East.
But of course, plans were laid before I decided to move, so I will be back in New York at Estuary Tattoo April 27th-May 5th. I have two available appointments left at Estuary in Early May and I would love to do some of my new woodblock flash!
I will then be attending the Pagoda Tattoo Convention August 1st-3rd in Morgantown, PA.
These will be my only summer travel plans back East.
I will be creating even more images form old esoteric and alchemical emblems so stay tuned for that. This is the connection of my Magical Practice and Tattooing that I love, a way to share with others images with true magical meaning and potential.
If you had ever wanted to visit the PNW, the summer is the absolute best time to do so. This gorgeous Rose City will be in full bloom with all sorts of wonderful activities that you can do outside. I encourage you to visit, come see me at Anatomy Tattoo and pick up a magical tattoo of your own.
Magic as an Act of Self-Discovery
As I study the Western Mysteries the more I get to know myself and as I am in a state of conscious becoming the more I get to merge myself into my art. That is truly what art is all about.
“What you contemplate, you touch. What you enter into in imagination, you make yourself one with.”
― Dion Fortune, Principles of Esoteric Healing
This is one of my favorite quotes from the Magician Dion Fortune, a published author and amazing woman of the Western Mystery Tradition. I have it hanging on a post-it note in my office so that when I feel ‘stuck’ in any sort of artistic or mundane way I am able to take into consideration that there is so much more out there than what sits in front of me. I am a creator, I create and there for I am the creation.
I was able to go back to LA for just a few days at the beginning of April to attend 22 Teaching’s Fool’s Day Holiday. It was such a joyous occasion, a time for magicians to come together to share and do ritual. It is a free offering for honest seekers to learn more about what we do at the school and I encourage anyone who is interested in the Wester Mysteries/Path of The Great Work to check out the school. I was able to connect with my fellow Magi and tattoo them. It’s so special for me because I truly get one on one intimate moments with each of them. Doing Blood Ritual in a way I only know how. It’s exciting to share the magic of tattooing with them and I look forward to being asked back each year.
I will have more magical updates as we continue the study of the Tree of Life through the Path-working ritual. We are just three workings in and it has already opened up so much more of my subconscious that I ever thought possible. The healings and teachings, the remembering of many life times. I feel so fortunate to be walking along with path with so many others.
So I guess this is what it will be like. A little of this and a little of that. Most importantly, All of Me. I hope you’ll stick around and that I will be able to work with you one on one as well.