How I got into (spi-)ritual tattooing

Summer 2008 in Zurich's Niederdorf district.

I'm getting a Polynesian symbol tattooed on my forearm. I've been coming to this studio since my 18th birthday two years ago to get tattoos from M. It's a hot summer day, and the window in our room on the first floor is open.

Suddenly, Spirit whispers in my ear: “You can do that without a machine.”

“What?” I ask inwardly.

“Tattooing, of course. Don't you remember? We did it so often. But back then you had a different body.”

I think about it. I read somewhere that prisoners tattoo themselves with indian ink. There's a stationery store on my way home, and I should have sewing needles lying around somewhere.

As I'm already forming my plan, Spirit whispers again: “And everything that someone walking down the street thinks when they hear the whirring of the machine goes into your tattoo.”

I think about it. Energy follows attention. So that makes perfect sense.

“Can we close the window, please?” I ask M. He shrugs his shoulders and does as I ask.

Back home, equipped with fresh sewing needles and indian ink, I sit down. Didn't it say that you should wrap a thread around the needle because sewing needles are not made to hold ink? Yes, that makes it easier.

Typical young Dada, I don't bother to engrave a motif. I want to create small, fine lines – practice.

A short time later, I get the tip to ask Pullmann if they can supply me with real tattoo supplies (at that time, only studios were allowed to buy them), and from then on, thanks to their generosity, I work with “real” tattoo needles and ink.

Five years of self-study pass before I meet my human handpoke tattoo mentor in India and book an apprenticeship with him.

Only to hear words from him that somehow sound really familiar:

“You can do that already. Don't you remember, we did this together many times. We just had different bodies back then.”

To this day, I proudly wear those first practice lines from 2008 on my left forearm. They are neither very straight nor very black (it's indian ink, after all). But they remind me of one of the moments that would change my life forever.