My brother and I (not the autistic one, but the one who’s just two and a half years younger than I am) have been planning to get matching tattoos for a little over a year now. We’re both Military, and tattoos are thrown around like candy there, so it won’t be an issue career wise for either of us. Secondly, our whole family has always been very close, so we wanted a way to visibly cement that. We’re trying to get our parents to match us, too, and maybe our cousins…but small chance of that. My brother and I are the more adventurous ones of the family. It’s not very big, and it’s quite simple: just two lines of text in Latin, all lower case letters, and a sort of calligraphic script. The text says veneratio familiae, which means “family honor,” but veneratio also means reverence, respect, veneration, even worship. Furthermore (forgive me for entering linguistic nerd-mode again), the case ending on familiae is ambiguous, in that it can mean both honor as an aspect of the family and honor for the family. I love the different layers of meaning, all of which are hugely significant for us.
We just drove up to New Paltz with my running buddy, because it’s our favorite city in New York, and because we (my brother and I) wanted to make a day-trip of our tattoo getting. There’s a tattoo parlor along main street that I had been to before with my friends, although I didn’t get anything that time. We just walked in and scheduled an appointment for six that evening, explained what we wanted, and then came back right then to get our ink. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I love my little tattoo, and I love what it represents! I’m glad my brother and I are close enough that we could do this. I don’t know many other siblings who would get matching tattoos just because they share blood. Now we share ink, too! He’s grown up into such a cool guy. I’m really proud of him.
My meditation was pretty simple, and I didn’t reach any profound insights into the universe, but it was nice just to take some time and commune by candlelight with my Deities. I just set up my altar, sat cross legged on a rug, and relaxed. I tried to do some scrying, but without much luck. At least, I have no idea what to make of what I saw. I have a labradorite sphere that I was looking into, but all I saw was an airport runway and then a woman in a hooded cloak, but I couldn’t see her face. My sphere is pretty tiny. I’m not very good at scrying—I have very little time to practice—so as far as interpretation goes, I’m at a loss. At least I saw something, though. That was pretty cool, and actually a first for me. Normally I just get to the cloudy part and then nothing. I did a tarot reading after that, as I can normally make more sense of the cards, but that was kinda jumbled as well so I just chalked it up to being not my night for clarity and went to bed. I had pretty random dreams after that, too, but nothing I could remember well enough the next morning to write down in my dream journal.
As for the statuettes, they are currently nestled on my shelf with Greg the Gargoyle, my collection of candles, my bags of gemstones, my tarot cards, and my mini-Pagan library. See the pictures below of the statuettes and the progress on the costume! It’s almost finished; I just need to get my hands on a zipper to complete the bodice part. I’m really happy with the way the skirt turned out (both of them). One is a burgundy velvet underskirt, and then there’s the “leather armor” outer skirt to be worn over that one. I’ll be wearing all of that with some big black lace-up punk boots, faux leather leggings, and a “wolfskin” cloak to keep warm, as temperatures here are never as warm as I’d like. Enjoy the pictures!
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| My little Raven and Wolf statuettes! Note the new and full moon "crystals." |
Looking intense! Looks like Gregory has some friends now :)
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