CONFESSION: I loooove tattoos. My mother still believes it’s the influence of my love, Marco. But I think we just share our wish to ‘be naughty’ and paint our bodies in many colors of the rainbow, paying symbolic tribute to the beliefs, values and insights we hold dearly in life.

There are some questions around it arising in me at times: is this tattooing a thing of holding on, of identifying, of trying to create a story of me for myself or the outside world…? Or is it, as a friend put it: a shamanic practice, serving spiritual development? Or is it just play?

The girl you see in this photo: I am absolutely in love with her body and the creativity she expresses through it.

The girl you see in this photo: I am absolutely in love with her body and the creativity she expresses through it.

Is my naked skin sacred and am I harming my mother’s gift to me as I came into this world by putting ink into it…? Or is life one big painting brush and my skin one of the many possible canvases?

And although I don’t intend to be all covered in tattoos, I do like expressing some of the teachings that have meant a lot to me in my life, through the canvas of my skin.

Whether there’s only this one life or many others will follow, I choose in this one to play around a bit.