Pagan Tattoos: How to make any tattoo a ritual tattoo....
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- I'm a tattooed person. I love tattoos, and they've formed a big part of my spiritual journey. But how to make the experience spiritual for you if you're in a nice, clean modern studio? Here's my journey, my tattoos, and how I craft my own tattoo ritual.
Links to my tattoo artists:
Martin Crosthwaite (My Green Man upper arm): www.instagram....
Bethan Lientie (My Baba Yaga lower arm): / lientietattoos
Historical Tattoos:
Princess of Ukok: www.thearchaeo...
Amunet: blogs.ucl.ac.u...
Ötzi: en.wikipedia.o...
#witchy #witchcore #witchcraft #witch #tattoo #pagan #tattooadvice
![TIMETHAI - ไม่อยากให้เป็นเขา (Why tho?) [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/o2qYlGVVtOw/mqdefault.jpg)
I agree with you about wanting my tattoos to be personally and spiritually significant. I too have no argument with tattoos as decoration and in fact I often admire them. It’s just not what tattoos are for me. I feel that thinking about what you want reveals layers to yourself and committing to your skin is committing to yourself or your Self in a concrete way. I really thought long and hard before my triskele tattoo which I did in my 60 th year. It was to mark my Crone phase and to honour my maiden and mother phases. I have never regretted it. Ten years later I am getting a bit itchy to have another, I’m feeling a need to reclaim more of my bodily landscape, to symbolise my later life love of my Self.
I need to get my sleeve finished. I need to do more planning. Any idea what you fancy?
@@GrumpyOldCrone There are a few ideas percolating in my brain pan. Since I lost my wedding ring , I would quite like to have a ring tattoo. And I was thinking of having a standing stone around my triskele. The Green Man has been luminous to my imagination for a long time. I am also attracted to a pentagram for it's protective sense. So many choices! Lucky I have a lot of skin!
@@kathleenpainter4389 Oooooh, all excellent ideas! As you know, my Green Man was my first, and very beloved. I want to see if I can lure a ritual tattooist I know up here to do me a pentagram at some point....
@@GrumpyOldCrone Would be very interested. X
"Find someone who holds a ritual space for you, but also a sterile space", cackling
That was interesting, Annie, thanks for sharing your tattoos with us.
I had my first piece of ink done six or seven years ago. It took all morning and my husband took me and waited in the telly area while i was being tattooed. It started early as we had to pickup the children from school at 3.15. It all went really well, except for one little incident when my husband popped to the loo and had a run in with the very dodgy toilet seat lid that sort of fell on your back as you sat down. I had experienced the exact same thing just half hour before. When he came back out, he made a comment about this "possessed" toilet lid in such a funny way that i got the giggles and the poor artist had to keep stopping. I've got one little black line in my tattoo that shouldn't really be there but it's a brilliant reminder of that day which was a really Good one and i always smile when i see it cos it reminds me of how my Lovely husband has been making me laugh every day since we first met in 1992 and still does Now 💕.
Thanks for the great video, Annie.
Love, Mel in Devon x 🍰🌻
Oh, I love that! A memory of a laugh is perfect
Every time we've spoken about your tattoos, you just light up with praise for the artists and the way to came to them, so it's entirely unsurprising that this is the least grumpy Grumpy Old Crone video. Lovely stuff.
Very much looking forward to the sweary one too.
I've just recorded and edited it. Will schedule for halfway through the week, as it's not a full length crone rant, but it does make me very cross.
I like the vintage look of her Greenman tattoo. The thick lines and almost cartoony images are a throwback to the tattoos from the 1940s. No way I could ever get a tattoo. One, I'm indecisive and have a multitude of interests that change from year to year and sometimes month to month. I could never commit to one image. And two, my pagan path is against tattoos, so it's just as well.
Just curious, why is your pagan path against tattoos?
@@PumpkinLeaLeas Only barbarians marred their skin 😋The culture of my ancient religious path did not tattoo themselves. It was for slaves, prisoners. A punishment.
@@benjalucian1515 To each their own. Pagans were often referred to as barbarians throughout history. The Greeks and Romans came up with the term and it pre-dates Christianity eventually taking over the Roman Empire, but after it did those who still practiced pagan beliefs were referred to as such.
@@benjalucian1515 What a very Abrahamic interpretation of something that humans have done since they were human enough to understand self adornment. What a gross way to look at other people and make judgement upon them. Yikes. Hope you work through that. (Tattoos tell a story, it's like a book, you may not be on page 6 anymore, but you can look back on page 6 and see how you got to page 12. It's not about commitment at all.)
I loved this talk. I love all my tattoos. Not all of them turned out the way i wanted them to, but they all have meaning to me. Some are in memory of those I've lost, some are reminders of journeys I've been on, and some represent things that are important to me. I will never be done decorating my canvass of flesh😊❤
I’ve wanted to get pagan tattoos forever. I’ve had at least three ideas stick with me for a good couple of years. I just need funds and good artist at this point 😅 I found your channel recently and been having a wonderful time watching the rest of your videos💕 I loved this video and everything you had to say
I can honestly say I don't regret mine even slightly. I do regret the fact that I haven't come up with a good enough idea to finish my Slavic sleeve though!
@ I happen to love Slavic folklore so I look forward to seeing when you do get a good idea💕
Was just talking with my friend about possibly getting a tattoo today and then this video came up on my TH-cam! What a sign. (Have liked and subscribed ❤)
Welcome!!!! You should totally do it. I don't regret my ink at all. I regret taking so long to get it, and all those years of tattooed baddassery I missed out on!
O have two tattoos. A tribal turtle on my right legs. The intention is that every step I take is a prayer for all of human kind. The bear paw in a Celtic torque on my upper right chest is in remembrance of the Bear Mother warrior women of the Isle of Skye, Scotland.
I love the meaning behind both of those!
Always delightful to hear what's on your mind. I'm not tattooed, but I do love to hear the stories.
On one of your vids you got me thinking about which God's I feel suit me and I them. The Green man has been drawing me for a few years now.. Beautiful Tat chica. 👍👏👏I have non ... I'm such a yellow belly needle phob💗🐏👩🏫✨
Love this video discussion! Tattoos are fascinating and wonderful. Yours are lovely! I've been slowly collecting mine for 30 years, little ones here and there. I have had a similar experience of using tattoo to move on from divorce and healing - almost like reclaiming my own skin. Side note; I have fallen asleep during a tattoo! Mind you I was jet lagged and at the end of a long trip with two small children, but I did! ;)
Lovely to hear your views on spiritual tattooing x
Thank you, loved what you said about tattoos. Found it very interesting indeed
Thankyou! So pleased you got something from it 😊
Depending on the person, the pain from a tattoo varies a lot. The only places I found uncomfortable so far were the elbow, on the ulna nerve - and on the sternum, because it made my whole body vibrate and gave me a headache.
I intuitively did the inner journeying during the process, it is interesting to learn that it was some sort of magical practice because I would not have labelled it as such despite the symbols being magic themselves. Turns out, I do a lot more magic than I thought, it's just that I am a lazy bum and always do it in some informal way.
my daughter and I are getting matching tattoos this year, of a sort of witch ladder with different plants and symbols representing my grandmothers and their mothers - I came up with the concept and she drew it.
someone I used to be friends with ran out and got the same deer tattoo as the princess of ukok after she was discovered. she thought it was super cool to bring the tattoo back to life as it were; to me, not knowing what the design meant to the original bearer, I felt like it could be a stolen valor situation or she could be calling something she wasn't prepared to call. anyway, she got it in 1993 or whatever and she's still alive as far as I know so I guess it was ok.
So awesome, my son is a tattoo artist here in New Zealand ❤
Some of the coolest people I know are tattoo artists!
My tattoos didnt not hurt or maybe i just like the pain a bit but i did doze off through all 5 of mine. It is so relaxing to me.
Loved this ❤❤❤
Thankyou!
this has spurred me on to finally contacting my preferred parlour for a retouch, and the next one, or two...
More ink... More ink... More ink....
My son's first tattoo covers his forearm and he said that it felt like tickling. The tattoo artist was surprised at how he didn't have any pain. I'm going to start with a tiny one. LOL
I consider my 4 tatoos as ritual tatoos, that is more about the state of mind you are in when you do it and what it means fou you. And, yes, pain is part of the price to pay for a ritual tatoo. I think every rite of passage comes with an intimate cost.
Loved this video. Thank you.
Thankyou so much!
I've tought about tattoos because I've seen some really lovely ones (including a huge beautiful mermaid all the way up a lady's arm on one of the darts teams in the league I'm in) I'm in the seaside town of South Shields so nautical tattoos are common with older generations of all genders.
I would like one, but I'm indecisive, I just know it would need to be something I'm very certain about and would have to be ritual I think. I like the idea of a penticle somewhere so I'm always protected, maybe that's the route to go down
Hi. 99% agree with everything you said..but, people saying they fell asleep, I'm one of them. I had one one my right shoulder and did fall asleep, it was the tattooist coughing that woke me. I also have one on my left shoulder that I felt every second of, both roughly the same size, one of a fae and the other a depiction of 'the devil' I see them as light and dark energy that we all carry within. Neither are small. Blessings from Greece
Love it! There's no way I could sleep through mine, but I guess pain tolerances are very different. Love the fact that your skin having ink driven through it by needles didn't wake you but the cough did :-). I love the idea of a fae and devil on each shoulder
I also almost fell asleep during my hip tattoo! It was calming and lovely I was beginning to snooze!
Depends on where the tattoo is. And frankly how much weight you're carrying. Extra pounds cushion the needle and softens the impact.
I’ve slept through many, many hours of tattooing, but there have also been a handful of hours with my fingernails embedded in my palms. Don’t worry too much about the chest. I couldn’t have slept through that one, but I wouldn’t describe it as pain. Worst for me was over the kidney. I always say the first ten minutes hurt, then I’m golden for three and a half hours, as long as I slept and had a good breakfast. After that it becomes a test of endurance and the ability to remove yourself from physical sensation. Most I’ve managed in a day is nine hours, but I borrowed from the next few days for that one.
I want to put a Gryphon on my left shoulder or upper arm and then there is the pose. Ah well, I will figure it out. I have trouble deciding and too many other places to use the money.
Where does 'Litha' come from? I've always called it the Summer Solstice. 💚
it comes from an anglo-saxon word for midsummer.
Ötzi's tattoos are interesting. There is a theory that they are in the positions that would correspond to the positions an acupuncturist would use to attempt to treat or alleviate Ötzi's various conditions. (Ötzi was not a healthy man.) We tend to regard religion and medicine as quite separate these days but it's entirely possible that Ötzi's people didn't so his tattoos may also have had religious, ritual or spiritual significance.
If I assume that Ötzi's tattoos were (at least in part) medical then I feel that mine are a link over five and a half thousand years to him. If you get radiotherapy you may well be given dot tattoos so that the radiologists can line you up consistently each session. (They are administered during the preparation session, using a stick and poke method and, as they're on the ribs, they are just a bit ouchy.)
One of my ex BF had childhood leukemia. He had radiotherapy and had the dot tattoos under each eye, along his cheekbone. Yes, I think I also read Otzi's tats were probably medicinal. I wonder if the technique they used to make them had a similar physiological effect as acupuncture does nowadays.
I hadn't heard about the medical theory of Otzi's tattoos. That's amazing!
Fantastic video thank you 🙏 I had a 2 inch acorn just to see…. Baba next 😮
You're getting Baba???? Oh, I really want to see that!!!!! Please link when you get it done and have pictures so we can all rejoice with you
I layed for 10 hrs for my shitty chestpeice and also had to get some of it covered later. It’s the worst. I’ve given birth twice. But nothing will prepare you for the upper chest. Sorry to tell you but be prepared for that nerve pain going up your neck. It’s like being sawed on with a hand held saw. But that was me. It can be different pain for different people. The second worst are fingers. And the fingers you need to do more than once because of the technically.
Thank you for sharing your story and the history and your point of view Annie. I really want to get my chest covered with a big black bird. The money and the bravery is not there tho. What is your view on covering tattoos? I think it’s important if there is some kind of in your way of things. I don’t have the worst tattoos but the two that I did myself are still my favorites. I don’t have many cus it’s very expensive. And for many years I just hated tattoos tbh. Someday. Someday I will do something about it but there are so many other things to spend money on. Like rent 😅
Your description of a chestpiece is terrifying! It's not an area that appeals to me, but my husband is very keen. He has a ridiculously high pain threshold where skin is concerned due to some ongoing medical rubbish, but still....
I'm a fan of coverups if needed! One should never have to live with bad ink.
@@GrumpyOldCrone it’s painful but it’s a sort of a rite of passage and yeah in my opinion it’s a sacred thing. There are so many people that have endured a lot of shit while being, whilst? tattooed and in this state of pain and discomfort a calm mind and a good experience to look back on is important. So when younger women get tattoos have a mate with you. Tattoo artists are more likely than not to make a move or be rude.
Ooooooooh 🙌
Only. trouble with recording this is that I'm itching for more ink now....
Not to be negative, tattoos can be great, but I would advise caution especially if you are younger, or in your hunnymoon phaze with you spiritual journey or calling, getting a religously themed tattoo can be a bit like getting a partners name 10 years on it could be your greatest joy or .... Not. I speak from experience not snobbery! I don't hate my little spell tattoo, but 20 years later its just a pretty pattern to amuse my kid with nothing more, I grew, I changed. It's just an observation.
Baba Yaga will always remind me of childrens TV cartoons we watched in Russian.
I don’t know how you can declare that coloring which focuses your attention cannot be magical, but getting a tattoo is magical. I get that tattoos are like fruitcake in that either people love them or they don’t but coloring. Is you coloring in an image a tattoo? Is somebody else coloring an image on you? I don’t see why the tattoo is at a higher place then coloring in.
OK, so I'll dive in here, because I hear a real question.
I'm going to guess that you didn't watch the video, so I'll quickly try to cover it here.
Why is a tattoo "magical"? I don't believe that the tattoo itself is magical. The ink and the image don't have properties in and of themselves, and the artist is simply a tool on the road to an end purpose.
What *is* magical about a tattoo is the intent, and the power channelled *through* it. If you manage the pain correctly, it can be channelled through the process to give the tattoo extra meaning for *you*, the person receiving it. If you develop a terrible infection in the arm with the tattoo on, and it has to be amputated, does it become a magical severed limb? No, it does not. But if your arm is well and attached, can it make you feel just a little bit more badass and stronger in your practice? Yes it can.
My issue with these colouring books is not that the colouring is a nice thing. People obviously enjoy them. But the claim that they are educational and magical is just not right. One of the books in this range is called "Hedge Witchery". Looking through the pages available on Amazon, it is very obvious that the book is NOT about Hedge Witchery. It does not address what Hedge Witchery even IS. It has some recipes for herbal teas. It has a lot of pictures of cauldrons (why are they even interesting to colour? They're always black!). Doesn't appear to address journeying, rhythms, underworld path tracing, communication with other beings.... none of it. This isn't just a case of it being waffly and silly. It's actually just completely WRONG. The information is wrong. And thousands of people will buy it, colour it in and learn absolutely nothing to do with being a hedge witch.