Tattoo | The Churning

23Nov/083

Tattoo – The Churning of the Milky Ocean

Hi Gang,

My tattoo artist finished touching up the art on my back. It's an interpretation of The Churning of the Milky Ocean, a bas relief on one of the walls of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Here's the final product:

The story behind the art goes something like this...

Without evil, good could not exist. The ancient population of Cambodia illustrated the concept as a giant tug of war. The rope in this case is a huge serpent (Vasuki) wrapped around a mountain. As each side pulls and gains momentum the mountain spins, churning the oceans of the universe. This churning creates the essence of life and immortality. Meanwhile, Vishnu orchestrates the whole thing as a sort of mediator.

The Devas (the guys on the right) are widely accepted as the good guys - and the Asuras (the guys on the left) are thought of as the bad guys. Gods vs. demons. But in this instance, neither is truly good or evil. They are in constant conflict yet they are working together. In the Churning, the two sides team up to achieve everlasting life.

Cool?

Your pal,
Jason

Tagged as: philosophy, tattoo, the churning 3 Comments

26Aug/083

The Churning Tattoo

It's taken a year, but after several visits to the tattoo shop I have successfully scarred my back with an image of The Churning of the Milky Ocean. I started with a couple of photographs from a book about Angkor Wat:

I chopped those images up in Photoshop and gave the file to my tattoo artist:

Then she created an outline and got to work. Here's the finished product (you can see it in color here if you like):

Click on the images to see larger versions. And if you're wondering, I do have one other tattoo.

Tagged as: tattoo, the churning 3 Comments

1Nov/075

The Churning of the Sea of Milk

People,

I am making progress in my plans to permanently scar my body using a painful process of injecting ink under the layers of the skin on my back. In other words, I have prepared the basis for my tattoo design.

It began with a few images of The Churning of the Milky Ocean, a bas-relief scuplture found on a wall at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I chopped and rotated and combined and accentuated the images to make a single whole image. You can check out the initial structure here. My tattoo artist is using this as a basis for her black/gray ink drawing. I hope to see a first draft of her drawing on Saturday.

I'll let you know if I get any of the actual tattoo done this weekend. No matter what happens, I know it will never be even half as cool as the best tattoo ever.

Best regards to you and yours,
JJ

Tagged as: tattoo 5 Comments

19Oct/079

Tattoo Time

Dearest readers,

I am seriously considering getting a giant tattoo across my back. The design is in progress. It will be an interpretation of The Churning of the Milky Ocean, a bas-relief sculpture found at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The drawing will be black ink only. I will post pictures once it is done.

Is this a good idea or am I losing my mind?

Best regards,
JJ

Tagged as: tattoo 9 Comments

29May/0711

No! Don’t drop me now, I’ll sink into the underground.

So, today was a major "D" day for me. My wife of 5 years and I filled out and completed our Seperation Agreement.

It isn't anyone's fault, it just seems we've grown apart. The strange thing is we're still best friends, and get along great.

I'm confused as fuck because I don't know what that means. Neither does she, really. And after talking over lunch, we're both open to fixing our marriage, but we both agree we want at least some time apart to work through things.

The hardest part was finally admitting to myself that maybe she was right and I was simply no longer attracted to her anymore. And I couldn't feel like a bigger bastard.

Will it work out? Who knows.

I want to go get a tattoo, get drunk and get high.

Tagged as: tattoo 11 Comments

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