My New Tattoo

Much more complex than my first tattoo, my new tat' has just recently evolved from "concept" form to an actual flesh and blood tattoo. On July 6, 2000, this idea that's been percolating in my head for months now became a permanent part of my body that I can share with the world, via the wonders of the internet. Cool, huh?

The concept began as Metamorphosis.  No, not the book by Kafka, just the process by which a creature goes through struggle and difficulty to emerge as a new, different, and ideally more beautiful creature.
A new part of the life-cycle.

Originally, I had thought of an image of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon - but I discovered that this is not a particularly attractive event. And since my goal was a celebration of the good that comes from metamorphosis, I wanted the image to be vibrantly colorful, and very beautiful.

So, as the concept evolved, I decided I wanted a butterfly balanced upon a closed yellow rosebud. A rosebud blooming into a rose, a cocoon bursting into a butterfly - beauty from darkness.

Change is a part of life.  Change is scary and sometimes horrible, but it makes us stronger.
More beautiful. More complete as human beings.

Be proud of your struggle, and your suffering.  Emerge from it as a butterfly emerges from a dark cocoon.
Metamorphosize. Live.

(Final result . . . . look below for concept art.)

 I will tell you a story:
A man was watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon and saw that the butterfly was in difficulty.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened!

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.

If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.

We would not be as strong as we could have been.

And we could never fly.
Photo credits go to Chad, a fine young cannibal.

(original concept art)