On tattoos, ancestral healing, love, loss and being a lamp unto ourselves

Our ancestors can help us heal the hurts we may have endured and absorbed. To move beyond them. To let them scar. And in recovery, to remember with fondness rather than despair.

One of the reasons I love tattoos is the intensity of feeling, of sensation, of commitment - to remember, keep remembering and keep looking. The feeling doesn't linger but the effect does.

In this case, adding to my body of art is a memento and a reminder to keep looking up and seeing into and then beyond the depths of darkness, where the darkness is the portal to the light. The light of stars specifically. Which wouldn't be visible were it not for the depths of the night sky on a clear night. 

Which is what my Uncle Salim told me before he died. For years I carried sorrow, guilt, and unexpected sadness for the connection that got cut short when he left.

Why didn't I do more, say more, reach out more, share more, open up and listen more? 

As though I could have changed things. The folly of hope. The illusion of control. The fate of the wounded ego. The confusion that seeds through misunderstanding and desperate projection. The intensity of love and loss. An inevitable inheritance. One that we can transform and live through a different lens.

There is more than one story

I realise now that it was what it was, no point narrating alternatives to a past I can and never could have changed. He didn't want or need me to save or fix him. He was perfect as he was. The right people saw that, the ones he loved and who loved him.

We, he, saw beyond the pain.

He wanted us to see clearly. I'm grateful he taught me how.

He didn't get to grow old but maybe I will, and in doing so, I'll continue to carry his wisdom and insight, to live by it, to keep my eyes towards what glimmers, especially when the gloom feels like it might otherwise eclipse all hope.

He was a huge part of the experiences that shaped my path, spiritually and in terms of how I live, love, listen and look, through caring for connection and expression.

Yes, he suffered. We all do. He was also full of wonder and awe. He felt the joy that was/is beyond suffering, as the Buddha's metta bhavana prayer reminds us to do, and to wish for, for all beings.

It's never too late

"Be Happy Today", he told me, written by his caring hand, on one of the most strange days of a long-ago period where I faked so hard the life I trapped myself into living for all sorts of complex and messed up reasons (that's another story for another time).

The point is, Salim Janjua knew I'd make it out, that I'd find a way back on to a more aligned path. And I did. I took a wrong turn, but ultimately it led me in the right direction.

He had gone by then.

I was devastated on mulitple levels by grief and regret. I've carried him with me ever since, through my own journey of recovery and healing.

He went 24 years ago now, but he's still with me, guiding me. He believed in me and I do too.

Every time I look towards the starry sky, I think of him. And I remember, there is more than this right now, and this right now is everything.

“Even a small star shines in darkness” - Salim Janjua

Words really do matter

I'll carry his words in my heart and now etched on my arm. And I will continue, while I get to, to live by the truth of seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, the nirvana in samsara, while they and I wrinkle and change. Such is the magic and the beauty of even the toughest life.