Last night:
I got a new tattoo. It’s one that I’ve been wanting needing for a while now.
I’ll go ahead and answer the questions I always get!
1) Shantih. It’s Sanskrit.
First of all, it’s the final line in The Waste Land, my second-favorite poem ever (yes, I want to have the first tattooed on me as well).
It really conveys more of a sense of inner peace or serenity, lack of conflict or turmoil with the outside world. The Upanishads traditionally end with om shantih shantih shantih, an invocation for peace and understanding. My favorite translation of that concept is ‘peace within, peace without, peace to the world.’
This complements another tattoo. I’ve always told people that’s how many people I’m responsible for, but that’s not what it means to me. It conveys a sense of wholeness, of being intact and complete as an individual.
2) YEAH, it hurt a lot. It’s a painful spot. I had to just breathe for a while. It was awesome. I’m pretty sure nothing will ever be as painful as the insides of my wrists, though, so that’s kind of the standard for everything.
3) I have a thing for words.
4) My mom will find out tomorrow. She’ll be thrilled, as always.
5) Jon Sweet at Uptown Tattoo. He also designed my Minneapolis tattoo. Go see him.
OK, I am supersuper busy today so I must run. I will be back soon with more excitingness!
Jenni
Hi there! I’m sorry for the randomness, but after extensive fruitless internet searching, I figured i’d try contacting someone who has a similar tat to the one I’m looking to get done.
I want the entire Datta/Damyata/Dayadhvam wording done, potentially with “shantih shantih shantih” added on as well (I haven’t decided how large I want the tattoo to be) in sanskrit. However, I have no idea how to locate a non-weirdly-digitized image of the sanskrit lettering to show a tattoo artist. :-/
I’m rambling, but would you mind telling me if you drew out the calligraphy for this tattoo yourself, or if you found the image, or if your tattoo artist somehow replicated it on their own? Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated!!
Thanks for your time :)
-Chels
hi, chelsey! i actually found the image in a few places online after a lot of searching. i wanted to make sure it was correct, so i compared a few different drawings of it. the version i ended up with wasn’t totally clean, so my artist cleaned it up a bit himself, but primarily it was found online.
Thanks so much for your response! I forgot to check back (thought I would get an email alert) and finally thought to look back here!
I appreciate the tip, yours looks lovely/accurate so I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask :)
Thanks again!!