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Some Cool Tattoo Facts & Statistics – Transforming Lives One Tattoo at a Time
Sacred Tattoo Design by Tania Marie
As our inner and outer worlds continue to rapidly change, more and more people are being drawn into the world of body art, especially with the shift in perspective on how tattoos can actually help support a new reality of experience in your life. Sacred tattoos that are consciously and intuitively chosen in a way that most supports the intentions, needs and empowered healing you desire are increasingly becoming the new paradigm of tattoos that mirrors the now. Spiritual tattoos are one of the fastest growing areas of tattoo subject matter – a recent survey of tattoo artists found that one third of those getting tattoos choose designs that reflected their spiritual or religious beliefs, which is particular strong among first timers.
The feedback I hear from clients and others who embark on a sacred tattoo journey are truly inspiring and beautiful. For those who have chosen this as their path and empowering tool of choice, they have been awed by the powerful ways their lives and those around them are affected simply by being more conscious with their choices and decisions in what they decide to create with their body art, realizing the skin can be a portal opening with many benefits. What is placed on the skin, then penetrates through to the DNA and energetic levels.
This is the basis of my book, Spiritual Skin – Sacred Tattoos: More than Skin Deep, and what drives my passion for helping to support others with custom sacred tattoo designs that they can then have inked by a tattoo artist of their choice, or now, can have created as temporary tattoos as well.
For more information on my book and the custom tattoo design service I provide, please visit: http://spiritualskin.com/ . You may also contact me with inquiries at tania@spiritualskin.com
My hands with sacred tattoo designs
I thought it would be fun to share some of the facts and statistics of the tattoo world, which demonstrate how this area of interest continues to grow. The more recent jumps in numbers are something I have myself been keeping an eye on, experiencing within my day-to-day interactions with clients and personal observations since this is my area of passion and interest. I am also seeing how a new genre of temporary tattoos are now even hitting the high fashion, Paris luxury and runway scene at the height of couture, which we know then has the trickle down effect. Having studied fashion marketing and trend forecasting, I know that once something hits the fashion world, it infiltrates not only a market once not reached, but will continue to affect the markets that take off of the precedents set in high fashion.
This is a very interesting thing to see, as this will ultimately take tattoos into a greater realm of overall acceptance, as it penetrates people’s conditioned beliefs about them, but it is my goal to help support a conscious revolution of sacred tattoos that can help benefit more than the aesthetic eye on a collective level. I just think it’s super cool to see things shifting as that is the first step to opening the gateway to unlimited treasures that will then be revealed upon stepping in.
I thought it might be fun to share some statistics, which come from http://www.vanishingtattoo.com to show the effects tattoos are having on the world in the last decade or so.
| TATTOO FACTS & STATISTICS
Tattoo Facts & Statistics has been compiled and updated since 1999 and contains the best available data on the prevalence and occurrence of tattooing and basic information about tattoo culture. This information is shared at http://www.vanishingtattoo.com as a public service and as a resource for those interested in tattoo culture and its study and research. Emerging from their often unsavory reputation of the recent past, tattoos have gained increasing prominence in the past decade. Life magazine estimated in 1936 that 10 million Americans, or approximately 6% of the population had at least one tattoo. A Harris Poll, done in 2003, nearly triples those numbers and estimates that 16% of Americans now have one or more tattoos. For a complete breakdown of the Harris Poll numbers, see below. Thirty-six percent of those ages 18 to 25, and 40 percent of those ages 26 to 40, have at least one tattoo, according to a fall 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center. The National Geographic News stated in April 2000 that 15% of Americans were tattooed (or approximately 40 million people!) Esquire Magazine estimated in March 2002 that 1 in 8 Americans was tattooed. According to the American Society of Dermatological Surgery, they stated in 2005, that of all the people they treat with laser and light therapy, only only 6% are getting a tattoo removed. The Harris Poll done in 2003, estimated that fully 36% of those aged 25-29 had one or more tattoos.A 2006 a study done by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that 24% of Americans between 18 and 50 are tattooed; that’s almost one in four. And the survey showed that about 36% of Americans age 18 to 29 have at least one tattoo! There are an estimated 20,000+ parlors operating in the United States, according to a U.S. News & World Report article, which said, on the average, an establishment is being added in the country every day. The article ranked tattooing as the sixth fastest growing retail venture of the 1990s, right behind Internet, paging services, bagels, computer and cellular phone service. Tattoo industry spawns popular outgrowth:*Search Engine Lycos, ranks the Top 50 search terms every week. “Tattoos” was the third most popular search term in 2002, the fourth most popular search term in 2001, seventh most popular search term for the year 2000, and the eleventh most popular search term in 1999. “Tattoo and tattoos” is one of only seven search terms to never fall out of the Top 50 Search terms in the 199 weeks since Lycos has been keeping track. The other six are Dragon Ball, Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Las Vegas and the WWE/WWF. *In July of 2002 “tattoos” reached its highest ranking ever, coming in as the number two most requested search term on the internet. “Tattoos” was requested more often than Britney Spears, marijuana or Kazaa, illustrating that skin ink is more popular than “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll!” Lycos dropped the term “tattoos” from it’s Poll because the term was so popular. According to Lycos, tattoos rarely drops out of the top ten search terms requested on the Internet and Lycos dropped the term because they wanted to make room for other searches. Search engine Ask.com found these stats about tattoo searches:
A Third of Americans With Tattoos Say They ROCHESTER, NY, Oct 8, 2003 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — A recent Harris Poll finds that 16% of all adults have at least one tattoo. The highest incidence of tattoos was found among the gay, lesbian and bisexual population (31%) and among Americans ages 25 to 29 years (36%) and 30 to 39 years (28%). Regionally, people living in the West (20%) are more likely to have tattoos. Democrats are more likely to have tattoos (18%) than Republicans (14%) and Independents (12%) while nearly equal percentages of males (16%) and females (15%) have tattoos. How do tattoos make people feel? Among Americans with tattoos, 34% said having a tattoo has made them feel sexier. Interestingly, more tattooed females (42%) feel this way than males (25%). Over one-third (36%) of those with a tattoo, however, say having it makes them feel more rebellious, up from 29 percent who felt this way in 2003, and three in ten (31%) say the tattoo makes then feel sexy, while others said a tattoo makes them feel more attractive (26%). One in five (19%) each say having the tattoo makes them feel attractive and strong. Not many regrets: Do people regret getting tattoos? |
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Potent Year – A Potent You! Supporting the Life You Desire, One Transformational Tattoo at a Time
It’s a new potent year – time for a new potent you. One tool that has been extremely supportive in aiding my ability to self-create this personal intention is that of symbolic and sacred body art. It’s something many have and are discovering, and I’ve had the honor to assist with.
One way you, too, can assist your own intentions and shift your experience at the DNA level is with a sacred tattoo specifically designed with your energy in mind and what you desire to create as the experience of your life. What energy footprint would you like to step forward with and ground into being?
This and many more important questions, are the doorway into understanding, exploring and empowering YOU! And these are some of the questions I ask as an intuitive designer, when I work with a client.
A new wave of symbolic tattoos is sweeping across the world, as more people come to understand the gifts this art form can provide.
For more information on how this sacred art can alter your experience please read my article: http://journal.tattoo.com/article/sacred-tattoos-%E2%80%93-personal-portals-genetic-rewiring
For design examples potently shifting people’s lives click here:
http://taniamarie.com/NO-CARTgallery6.htm
And for information on what you can expect from a personal consultation with me to support your sacred creation process:
http://spiritualskin.com/whatisatattoodesignconsultation.html
I look forward to supporting your personal journey into creative and sacred personal empowerment for this potent year of 2012 and beyond!
The Evolution of Tattoos Mirroring the Evolution of Life – Inspirational Support for Tattoo Artists Embracing the Path of Spiritually Sacred Tattoos
As things keep shifting in the world, this reflects and dominoes out into all realms creating a transformational revolution of consciously empowered living and loving that is infiltrating all nooks and crannies of life. The more your awareness heightens and you embrace new perspectives and experiences, realizing you can choose more freely, creatively and with empowered intention, the more you start to shift focus and choose more authentically and start letting your beautiful gifts out. The journey becomes one of magical self-creation in every moment, rather than doing things, both reflective or nonreflective of yourself, but not knowing why.
I am seeing these shifts in many realms, but since I have specific focus in certain areas with the path I am on, these are ones I specifically take extra note of and am really excited to see the infiltration of conscious movement in.
One in particular is the realm of sacred tattoos and seeing how people are moving more into desiring spiritually conscious, integrated and symbolic tattoos. I receive a lot of emails with questions about spiritually sacred tattoos, not just from those seeking tattoos, but from tattoo artists as well. There are some wonderful spiritually focused tattoo artists out there, and I am so happy to see that more and more are embracing this as their next stage of evolution in their journey to offer and start channeling through their trade.
What I offer in supportive words to those on this path – tattoo artists especially that are embracing this new direction – is simply this:
It pleases me greatly that you are feeling moved in this new direction with your work and life. If you are feeling this call, it is likely that you have always experienced and possessed natural healing abilities and spiritually rich experiences in some way in your life, but perhaps had not given them much focus, yet it would be a natural process for you. Likely you have experienced and been in touch with these elements and been utilizing them much already in your life. Now is the time when these decisions to shift into new experiences can happen swiftly. It is very empowering when we actually embrace our innate gifts and put them into conscious use as service to others. I love that you are feeling the nudge to go this direction and support your choices. Know that you are not alone. There are other tattoo artists out there that also specialize in this and I feel, more and more will be moving into this direction. More and more people are looking for and in need of these specialized services and so the timing is divine in your feeling this call.
I am not a tattoo artist, but am a sacred tattoo designer and visionary artist, as well as have many sacred tattoos in my own personal body art collection and have had the opportunity to work with artists to create them and to understand this process and how empowering and sacred it is over the 14 years of being involved with this art. This is what led me to share my book, Spiritual Skin, which has been supporting many people to embrace a whole new personal journey and perspective with tattoos. If you feel called to, you might find this book inspiring to your journey – Spiritual Skin
But for now, my advice would be to follow your heart and those intuitive nudges you have and learn to trust them with your work and life. Seeing the body as a sacred temple and understanding the significance of potent symbolism, placement, chakras, researching ancient civilizations and cultures’ symbols and images, and allowing your visionary creativity to integrate with these from your heart and in connection with your intuitive healing guidance, etc. is helpful.
If you start putting this energy out and focusing on this more, you will start attracting more clients looking for you for this exact thing. You can also start helping them in this vein with their tattoos by helping to ask more questions on what they want to achieve with the tattoo, bring into their lives, symbolize, empower, etc. and do research into symbolisms that would help benefit that. This is a beautiful co-creative experience that can have powerful effects both for artist and client.
Many blessings on your journey.
Sacred Tattoos – Personal Portals to Genetic Rewiring
The more I experience the effects of what I find to be life-changing information, the more I feel driven to share those discoveries with others. This is what took place after over 13 years and 100 plus hours of tattoo work, leading me to write “Spiritual Skin” and make available what I found to be profoundly empowering and healing. The more I saw the valuable gifts as integrated pieces to the bigger picture support of the new collective shifts, it became clear there was something powerful being revealed that others could also benefit greatly from. Personally learning how sacred tattoos were potent transformational tools made me realize the significance of what this information held and it was something that felt like a disservice to keep to myself.
And so “Spiritual Skin” came into creation and has been well received in ways I hadn’t even imagined – aiding a new paradigm of experience that mirrors the New Earth energy. I just knew I needed to share the information and heeded the nudges, but have been deeply moved at the powerful ways that the information and designs I’ve helped to create have been affecting people’s lives. It’s one thing when you know something for yourself and it’s quite another to experience and share that through, and with, others.
What “Spiritual Skin” has managed to do is take something seemingly simple, which is vastly rich in ancient history, but misinterpreted through enculturation, and expose a plethora of provocative insights blended with practical guidelines on tattoos and the tattoo process in ways never done before. People are learning how the vehicle of symbolic, intentful tattoos can alter a person’s total life experience – a concept that Dr. Masaru Emoto’s findings in “The Hidden Messages in Water” unveiled, but “Spiritual Skin” expounds on with unique perspective of the body as a portal.
It’s the same process that Dr. Emoto discusses – that of altering our and others’ genetic/DNA code with symbolically potent symbols and images that have high vibrational intents. As we are mostly made of water and water has been proven to shift its molecular structure in mirroring response to positive thoughts, feelings and images, so then does our body respond the same way with sacred, intentful tattoo images, specifically and energetically chosen, created, and placed.
A recent survey has revealed that 1/3 of people getting tattoos choose designs reflecting their spiritual or religious beliefs and first timers are especially prone to this type on first go around. I’m seeing it more and more, especially in my Bikram yoga classes. The more energy is shifting collectively, the more people shift awareness to more conscious and intentful ways, drawing them to want to bring more of their spirituality and beliefs into prominent manifestation in their lives in ways that are meaningful to them – a way of mirroring the energy and aligning with the new choices and life experiences they are having because of their joyful awareness.
Sacred tattoos can act as tangible means to access portals of experience at great energetic depth, helping you to embrace intent, can allow you to use your body’s canvas as an artistic portal to help open, heal, support, enhance, empower, and create greater flow to anything you intend – functioning in therapeutic, talismanic, and spiritual ways. And this effect can both be experienced by the viewer and wearer, helping to energetically transform on deeper levels of consciousness.
As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words and images are universal in how they are received. It’s the same as if you view a painting or see a photo and it moves you to feel something, or stirs something inside, or speaks to you in a way you can’t verbalize, but you just feel changed by it at a very deep, core level. Take that experience blended with potent intent and energy, ancient symbols and powerful universal images, along with a personally intuited and lovingly woven design matching your vibrational desires, and you instantly increase the impactful, individual experience of what is being viewed or worn as your purposeful, sacred tattoo.
It’s a way that you embrace an energetic intent that alters your personal experience and helps align you with the new energy of the now. Again, just like Dr. Emoto’s findings with water shared how when you say and feel negative, low-vibrational, conditional and judgmental things versus saying and feeling positive, high-vibrational, unconditional and nonjudgmental things, this has a direct result on the molecular structure of the water it is applied to, either producing gorgeous crystalline snowflake forms or discombobulated, frenzied structures.
The same takes place with your human body temple, composed of mostly water, when you place intentful, symbolic, high vibe, potently meaningful images and symbols on your skin. Your DNA structure changes to integrate and reflect the energy of it. If what you are considering is not something you want to portray, emanate, physically manifest, or experience in your life directly or indirectly, then you may want to reconsider, as it will alter things molecularly and energetically, drawing in and mirroring the direct result in your life. So it is vital to choose with conscious awareness what you decide to place on your skin, likely for the extent of this walk of life, as what you seed will blossom a mirroring birth into your life experience. You deserve your whole-hearted presence in the decisions that form your life personally and collectively.
111/333 Special! 3 Custom Tattoos – 3 People & 3 Days ONLY = $333 of Compassionate Donations to Animals
That’s Right! The first 3 people ONLY who contact me between now and Wednesday 10/19/2011 for one custom tattoo (up to 3 hours of custom design time only) can get this for just a $111 tax deductible donation! All proceeds go directly to efforts that help animals on supportive, educational and legislative platforms.
Why: Because there is a surge of requests and needs for the sacred tattoo designs and some need a quick way to obtain this for the energy they need now. The animals, Earth, and our over all well-being need the help such donations support. AND every now and then I take the largest calling that is coming through from the collective and support those needs.
The Savings: Regular fee is $125/hour of custom creation time. That is some huge savings! (Note: Tattoo design you request can not exceed 3 hours of work)
The Way to Get this Special: You will need to donate $111 to the Halloween walk for animals I am doing on 10/30/2011. That’s right! donations only! I will create a custom, life-enhancing tattoo for you, as a gift of support to the animals. The donation must be received by Wednesday 10/19/2011.
Here is the link to donate to: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/tania-marie/secondannualzombiewalkandmonstermash-fundraiserinf
For more information on sacred tattoo designing and examples of designs visit http://spiritualskin.com/ or http://taniamarie.com/tattoodesign.htm
The Sacred Tattoo Process – Creating the Perfect “You” Tattoo
It’s exciting to bring to life the creations that are flowing with these sacred tattoo commissions, as it is an honor to be able to help support others with manifesting the perfect design that can help enhance their life intents. I just completed this tattoo design of The Dragon Power Symbol for a client, which was an unfolding journey into accessing deeper levels.
This image will be posted larger on the link provided, shortly, and you can also find more design examples by visiting the tattoo gallery here http://taniamarie.com/paintings.htm
I get questions a lot about the process of commissioning a tattoo design and what is entailed, so I thought I’d share the info here to help answer those questions.
As a visionary artist, Reiki Master Teacher and intuitive, I am able to tune into a person’s essence and bring to life ideas to mirror creative visions. After countless requests to do custom tattoo designs and people’s desires to have my creations on their skin, I decided to offer this service and have ongoing requests I continuously support. I then finally launched my book, “Spiritual Skin,” which had been nudging me for a few years, as I wanted to help others to understand this sacred process and how tattoo were much more than meets the eye. For more information and how to order your own copy of the book please visit Spiritual Skin ~ Sacred Tattoos: More than Skin Deep
If you have an idea and are not sure exactly how to bring it to life, contact me for help and I will be happy to support your visions, infused with spiritual potency. I will need to know what you have in mind, whether specific or abstract and anything about yourself to help me tune into what would best portray the energy and image that would be most powerfully mirroring for you.
The design process, including consulting, is $125/hour. I only charge for the actual design time, meaning pencil to paper time. The consulting (usually done through emails, sometimes phone), research, meditation, and any extra goodies I add to the process are not part of the hourly. That is just the gifts I add to the very intensive journey. The process of designing is a very intricate, deep, sacred, detailed, time and committed dedication that I take seriously and put my heart and soul into to ensure the right energy and detail that reflects your own heart. Sometimes I am creating out of thin air if a client doesn’t know exactly what they want, and only shares essence qualities, so I then need to figure out how that translates. This sometimes comes exactly right the first time and other times, it comes in stages, as it depends on how clear the energy is that is being channeled. Sometimes it takes time to go deeper and access that pearl that is hidden. It is quite the spiritual process and the more we unravel and dig deeper, the more I uncover the truth below the surface and get through the layers.
Usually tattoos run 1-4 hours to design, from my experience. Intricacy, detail and size will be the deciding factors. Whenever dealing with symmetry it can be a bit more complex and timely as well, so this all is taken into account when estimating time frames. I can usually give close guesstimates, but they can run shorter or a little longer. It is most important we get it right than to rush a process, however, I am mindful of people’s budgets and will work with what you can afford, staying within a timeframe you need, as well as can offer payment plans if necessary.
I require a one hour deposit upfront, as all tattoos take at least one hour, and the balance, due upon our agreement of its closure. Consulting back and forth is no extra charge, nor is the meditating time I do to tune in and receive. I clock my work from start to finish. After we agree, I will begin the design and then once done, email the scanned design to you to see what you think. Many times we get it the first time, but it is not unusual to have a couple tweaks and goes at it. It’s important to get things just right. I don’t charge for a couple of minutes of changes, but if it is more involved than a few minutes of change, or constitutes a redo, then I charge the same rate and of course if it’s partial hour, I charge accordingly as that equates from the normal hourly rate.
The design is done in black and white, meaning pencil, as it is up to your tattoo artist and you to incorporate colors you may desire. This is just the design template that they will use to copy and place on the transfer sheet to your skin, of which they can easily up and down the size on the copier if you end up wanting it sized differently.
The whole process is a magical one and I’m constantly amazed at how synchronously and divinely it always unfolds. It’s like being a catalyst or channel to help bring forth the visions my clients have in manifested form and in so doing, creating magical gateways or portals in a sort of alchemical process.
I am grateful for the opportunity to assist you with your own “spiritual skin” and welcome any inquiries you may have.
Inner View with Tania Marie – Inside Spiritual Skin
This morning I was honored and grateful to be a guest on The Inner View Radio Show live from Spiritual Journeys Radio Network in Dallas, TX. The Inner View is an entertainment radio talk show host featuring four women of different backgrounds, ages and paths sharing their individual insights and views to inspire others towards new ways of thinking and being in the world.
In this interview, we had the chance to discuss the book, my own spiritual journey with sacred body art, my work, how spiritual tattoos can support you and what to expect from a tattoo design consultation.
It’s fun to share about the book, the meaning behind it and the work I do, as well as to be able to express my voice from my heart in a way that others may find supportive and inspiring. So, I am thankful for the opportunities to do so and appreciative of Angie Dutton for extending the invite to join them on air this morning.
If you’d like to hear this interview, please follow the link below:
http://spiritualskin.com/mediaevents.html
More interviews and events to come!
Spiritual Skin for a Spiritual Life – Transforming Your Life One Tattoo at a Time!
“I feel so much peace from your tattoos when I look at them….I can feel the energy coming off of your tattoos. Wow, it’s powerful!….I have never liked tattoos, but I feel drawn to yours and find them to be so beautiful….they are like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt.”
The tattoos I wear are a continually profound, transformational experience that affects not only my own life, but the lives of others who experience the energy intention imbued within each creation. I hear and see it time and time again (was just reminded today by a businesswoman who stopped me in a store to express her feelings) and it moves me deeply to be able to create a mobile, living work of art, that simultaneously has personal and collective healing to share, as well as to be able to support others to do the same for themselves.
A new paradigm of transformative body art has evolved and is being revealed like never before. Ancient meets modern day potent integration! Sacred tattooing is so deeply a passion for me, which I find to be extremely and positively transformative on all levels, that the knowledge I’ve acquired would be a disservice not to share. I can’t help but do what I do and share what lovingly channels through.
Spiritual Skin is a book that has been a deeply mystical journey to bring forth – an unveiling of many rich layers intended to support many on their own empowering explorations into artistic self-expression, deeper awareness, ancient understanding and integration, spiritual healing and conscious compassion for the now. And, in the words of Tattoo Artist, Siva – “A book whose time has come!” It’s truly about creating personal portals of positive and inspirational impact.
“…The specific images and symbols you choose in a tattoo can help enhance specific things in your life, strengthen energy that is operating at less than its potential, open points that feel blocked, enhance and create potency to specific chakras, convey healing energy to specific regions, reveal your essence to others, heal karmic energy, connect with past lives, and tap into your subconscious and latent gifts. All of this can be done through the ancient art of tattooing, a means of rewriting your soul’s history, empowering your experience through “spiritual skin,” and creating an auric resonance to the energy of your choosing.” – excerpt from Spiritual Skin.
If you haven’t already heard, I am honored to announce that my book, “Spiritual Skin – Sacred Tattoos: More than Skin Deep,” is available in print on Amazon. You can now have this one-of-a-kind book at your finger tips.
“This is the BEST book about tattoos I have yet to come across!…A must read…I HIGHLY recommend this for any spiritually inclined tattoo collector and/or enthusiast!” Siva, Sedona-based Tattoo Artist. For more reviews and information please see this link: http://spiritualskin.com/reviews.html
You can now purchase Spiritual Skin directly on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Skin-Sacred-Tattoos-More/dp/1463703422/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312319146&sr=1-5 or simply visit www.spiritualskin.com or contact me at tania@spiritualskin.com with any questions or to commission tattoo design services or consultations.
With Love and Creative Magic!
The Shaman’s Way – Walking the Earth with Heart Consciousness
I am extremely connected to the animal world and power animal guides and totems are prevalent in my spiritual and daily experience. That connection runs very deep, more than I can explain in words, and I feel that they channel through me so that I may share their messages to help integrate into the healing work I do. So it is no wonder that I carry many of them on my “Spiritual Skin” body canvas art of sacred tattoos and that they consistently show up in my paintings and in all aspects of my work. I see no separation between anything and that every thing has its own consciousness equal to our own and is interconnected. It is simply the channel of manifested expression each part of that consciousness chooses to express itself as, that conveys in visual difference, but the heart of their personal petal is from the same flower essence whole. When we understand this, a whole new and beautiful experience of life opens up – and the way we walk through life completely changes.
According to shamanic belief, everything is alive and carries with it a wisdom and power. Shamanism is found in all cultures of the Earth and is the world’s oldest healing tradition. This ancient, worldwide practice involves engaging with spirit helpers and the forces of the natural world to develop relationships, solve problems and perform healing. Shamans travel to the parallel worlds where time and space have no meaning and use the powers of those worlds, the subconscious and the realities of this world to cause change.
A Walk Between Worlds - "Hatun Karpay of the Nagual" (the great initiation of the Nagual - form of very powerful shaman). An interpretation of the Incan Medicine Wheel as the World (#21) Card of the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot by Tania Marie. Original and prints available at http://www.taniamarie.com
I created a painting, the one you see to your right (which you can see larger on my website: www.taniamarie.com) to honor the energy of what I’m sharing here and to provide a healing portal that can be utilized for embracing these energies. I combined the Incan Medicine Wheel, with Tarot, seeing its connection with the World Tarot Card symbolism and created a visionary interpretation of the two synergized.
The Three Incan Laws – How to Create the New Earth
All of the work I share is heart-focused on supporting us into a more compassionate, responsibly conscious, integrated and abundantly expansive, loving, joyous, creative experience. There are many ways, modalities, tools, thoughts, beliefs, and steps people can choose to follow and practice and I in no way discount any of their validity if they feel true to, and work for you. We all find our own way through what resonates for us and all are of value.
Everything is a “tool” that can support us in reconnecting, remembering and reactivating our wholeness. When seen in this way and without attachment or used as a crutch to avoid your own divinity, but rather as reminders and awakeners, then you don’t get lost outside of yourself.
I have found that in all of my years of reading, searching, studying, practicing, listening, observing… that what we think is complex can actually be very simple and that we tend to strive for something that is already within us, feeling that there must be more or that we must attain all the knowledge there possibly is before we can actually achieve or create what we desire.
I find this, for myself, to be inaccurate and that the answers lie in the core of our hearts.
I have always been drawn back to ancient civilizations because of my resonance with their simplicity and potent symbolism and have learned to integrate the timeless wisdom of then into the now. I have many ancient symbols, images and writings tattooed on my body for this very reason – part of creating my skin as my own personal portal of sacred art, helping to heal, integrate, activate, and access – bridging physical and spiritual. In simple terms, to return to the innocence of my wholeness, embody what I’ve come to believe, and to be a beacon simply by that being – be the change.
I’ve written a book on this, which you can find at www.spiritualskin.com.
In the book I describe how I’ve utilized tattoos in this way and how my hands and arms are the one place I have ancient writings and symbols, while the rest of my body is adorned with images, which include the four sacred directions of the Inca medicine wheel as symbolized by animal totems that are guardians of those worlds.
Included in the writings I wear are the Three Incan Laws or Principles, which are simply encompassed in these three words that hold vast meaning.
I’d like to share them, as they speak to the heart of things in simplicity – how we can personally and collectively create the New Earth.
The Three Incan Laws:
1) Munay:
The energy of universal and unconditional love that resides in the heart chakra, bridging our lower and higher selves and is a consciousness of acceptance and appreciation for all creation and All That Is.
The lesson of Munay is “We are One.”
2) Llankay:
The energy of our “work” or “service” towards all living creations and the universe that resides in our physical body coinciding with the first three, lower chakras. It is a state of consciousness where each individual’s soul purpose, or path in life
The tattoos on my inner arms, where you will find the 3 Incan Laws inscribed along with several other ancient scriptures, mantras and symbols.
is in service to their fellow Man as well as the cosmos/the Divine. Shows us it is wise to live consequently and with integrity and without fear. It allows us to express our creativity through our work and can also be thought to symbolize the power of the physical body, or our animal selves.
The lesson of Llankay is “We are all Connected.”
3) Yachay:
When Munay and Llankay are in proper balance and relationship, it allows one to manifest the third Inca law of Yachay or the energy of “wisdom” and is more of an inner knowing and higher consciousness of our “authentic”, or true, selves residing in our three, upper chakras, centering at our 3rd eye. Yachay allows us to have inner peace and joy, through stillness and presence, as we release our identity with the several roles we play in life which have the tendency to bind us down and prevent us from “remembering” who we truly are. Yachay is all about living in the present.
The lesson of Yachay is “All is Well.”
Living by these three principles help to create a world of peace, balance, joy, beauty, grace, and harmony.