Bushido. The way of the Samurai. There are eight virtues of this Code: justice, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, loyalty and self-control.
Some days, I often have to wonder about my best friend, in a good way. He thinks I got this tattoo for me. The man absolutely believes I represent all these traits. Then again, he also knows me like no other. Were I to stand trial to be judged, he is the one person in this world who would be truly and uniquely qualified to give his opinion and it would be a True one, the closest to the actual me that can be. It rather frightens me that he knows as much about me as he does. I have told him things—that I don’t even tell myself. I trust him that much.
The ex introduced us. The ex wanted another couple for us to hang out with as a couple. But the way the ex worked is he wanted someone he could be in control of and in who would be in awe of him and just think he was some amazing person who had done so much and who knew so much. He picked the wrong guy. The ex thought he’d found a country bumpkin. Well , he did, but not in the way he thought. Country, yes. Bumpkin, no. My friend can be a little naïve—and I spring some really weird stuff on him at times. But he’s not stupid, and he has never since I met him allowed anyone to hold sway over him—other than the women in his life—and then only marginally. Which is to be expected when you’re in a relationship anyway, to some degree.
I have dragged my best friend through all sorts of training with me. Magical training. Sweat lodge. Rituals. Unified Field Therapy. We have one of those connections that I knew went far beyond this life, nearly from the start. It took me til recently to realize he had glamour on me in this life, to protect us both from other things. I still to this day DIE laughing at the fact that, while we were both still married to our significant others and both in the process of getting divorces, we were in one magical session and I told him he is the one man I genuinely had no sexual attraction for on any level. For me, that is bizarre. I was taught from a very early age –we’ll just say taught by society and leave it at that--sex is a powerful tool and a good way to –get what you want, control people, whatever. Everyone –well, adults anyway—not ever anyone underage—is a target. My friend was never a target in that way. He started out as my friend and he has stayed my friend, through some of the weirdest, most bizarre, unspeakable lunacy. And after making that comment, let it be known that since we’ve started sleeping together, the glamour has dropped and he can say one single word to me and I have to sit down because I am so weak with hunger and need. It’s mind-blowing. Of course, I’ve never had anyone use some of my own stuff back on me. Whether he means to or not, he uses a great deal of energetics when we’re—together. I’ll just leave it at that. It also doesn’t hurt that he and I literally go back to the very Beginning together, our souls almost like mirror images, closer than twins. I often want to say closer than God, when I start going Back and Back and Back.
He has watched me go through the most horrible times in my life, and been there to help me through them. He always lets me be myself. He is the one person I trust to tell me I am an idiot, but who will let me be the idiot and will still back me up while I am being an idiot. I trust him so implicitly and – yes, blindly. This man will never hurt me. Ever. Not if he can do anything to prevent that. I mean that on so many levels, it is just not funny. This guy gets me. Do you have any idea how very WEIRD I am? Yesterday, my mother’s spirit guide came to pester me to tell her something. My friend’s guides pester me all the time. If it weren’t for his guides, I wouldn’t work with my own guides as much as I do. Have you ever seen the tv show Wonderfalls? (it is terrific, by the way) Inanimate objects tell Jaye what to do—and they will sing all night or bother the bejesus out of her, until she does what they want her to do. Usually she gets into a lot of trouble doing these things. People think she’s nuts. But in the end it always seems to turn out to be a very good thing that she did what she did. That is pretty much my life in a nutshell. I go by Intuition. I have always said my friend is the logic to my emotion. Then I scare him by letting him in and showing him I have a logical practical side—not to mention of all the people in my life he has more of a clue than anyone else how my brain works and how darn smart I really am. And I am scarily intelligent, because my brain holds on to so much. It took me nearly this long to remember the clarity of my memory after living with ex one and ex two—both of whom told me I made things up and twisted them around. I do have my own way of seeing things—who doesn’t? But when it comes to facts, I usually keep them straight—like linear straight, straighter than a ruler straight. I am a walking trivial pursuit game, quite literally. How many sets of encyclopedia did you read when you were younger? I read five sets, because I like to see where the older ones have bad information. It’s quite an insight into the past. That should say way too much about me right there. I read encyclopedias for entertainment.
Yet, I digress. This is supposed to be about my best friend.
He is the one with the Way. Not me. He is all things Samurai, and then some. He has that wicked sense of humor. That darned leprechaun-like energy and presence. He lets me be myself in all ways—and he accepts me, completely, totally, without exception. He encourages my forays into piercing—which have since ended—unless I do get another nose piercing, on the same side as the one I currently have. He encourages my tattoos—no, no end in sight on those. Heck, he’s taken me to get most of the tattoos I have gotten in St Louis. He lets me be a whiner and a baby. He lets me be the strong over-powering over-bearing control freak that I can be. He of all people can actually keep me in line. Which for me is scary. Really freakin’ scary. He may not always get what I say and do, but he supports me, regardless. Do you have any idea what that is like? Someone caring about you and trusting you enough to let you truly genuinely be yourself in all things? Although for the rest of my life, he is not going to let me live down several things. Like my inability to walk after we’ve been together—you know, in that way. It’s only lately we’ve started this facet of our relationship. I am still rather stunned by the entire thing. I thought I was broken. Very very broken. Before ex, I had known myself to be one way. Every guy I had ever been with said this about me. Then there was ex. And now I have proof. He could turn a porn star against sex—turn a porn star into a nun for whom celibacy would not be enough of an escape from all things sexual. It wasn’t me. It was him. I am so so glad to know that. I wouldn’t know it or understand it to the level I do if not for my best friend. Merely one of the countless revelations this guy brings me all the time, whether he knows it or not.
I know—I keep repeating this—do you have any idea how spectacular it is to show a person every single side of yourself, good and bad, happy and sad, metaphysical and mundane, fecund and anorexic, and still find complete acceptance? He honestly is like my own Personal Jesus. I am completely and utterly blown-away every single day by that fact alone.
Now, number eighteen. My newest tattoo. We got it last night. We decided in the end that the chest was not the best idea. Plus, this tattoo had to be on the left side of my body—so much for symmetry there. The wolf is there, on my chest. Since the bushido tattoo would give too much attention, too much precedence, too much—power, we decided to put it on my arm under the Welsh dragon. The poor man still has no clue why I had to involve him so deeply with this tattoo. Now, I do love the juxtaposition of the Welsh dragon atop the Japanese kanji.
Here’s what’s strange. I have a tattoo for each of the men who were important in my life. Ex hub. The ex. Please don’t give that a lot of attention or energy. I got the tattoos to symbolise that they were gone, out of my life, and no longer connected to me in that way anymore. Especially since ex has custody of my son at the moment, I have to make sure the not connected to me personally thing is out there, because I am so not giving up anything that has to do with my son.
I have a Chinese butterfly, the first tattoo I got that had any colour in it, to represent the new life I was bursting into after the divorce, even though it took me a couple more years to really be done with him. Truthfully, we divorced in 2001. This year, 2009, is the very first year I have been able to actually know that the connection is truly gone, despite the fact the man still has energetic tendrils around me. The emotional content is gone. My heart is pure where once this man ruled and burned. The butterfly is on the inside of my ankle. It also represents a karmic tie that has been broken. I am no longer his sacrifice. Never again. King Kong has relinquished all rights to me and mine. I am truly free there.
I have the eternity knot on my shoulder for my son’s dad. All black, shaded grey. At least things between us could be worse and aren’t. That’s about the best thing I can say there. It would be nice if he could act like a responsible parent in conjunction with me. Maybe act like I am actually a human being, with a life of my own. This one won’t let go karmically, even though he is supposed to, in this lifetime—maybe before this lifetime is over. I won’t be playing with him in any other lifetime. This is the last time for him where I am concerned. His last chance to heal the breach between us that he caused before I move on and leave him behind forever.
The Bushido kanji is the first tattoo I’ve gotten for a man, a man with whom I have an on-going relationship –friendship is a relationship—and we are going to be friends all the way through this life-time. How scary is that? The things we know we are going to do and be together—for the rest of our lives. Have you seen my track-record with men? I am more scared about losing him than I have ever been with any other person in my life, simply because he is most trusted person in my life. A person who completely trusts me and believes in me. I really hope I don’t mess things up with him at any point. I don’t think he’ll let me though. That’s a good thing. I know how weird I am—and I see the way I am doing things. But thank goodness, he knows me and knows how weird I am—and he won’t let me hurt myself—which is also such a blessing.
Don’t ask why we aren’t dating or getting married. Other things have to happen first. Then we can do there. Today is just not that day.
I got this tattoo, after some really deep Past Life Retrieval episodes between us. How strange that I often describe myself as a Vessel, only to step back and realize that, yes, I am a Vessel. I am the Receptor and the Carrier, the Keeper, of so many things. I returned ex hub his things long ago. Well, more I returned them to the DL he serves (it doesn’t mean what you think it does, really). For the other ex, he does what he does best, refuses to claim his own stuff and refuses to accept responsibility for his own stuff. So I do what I do best. I stick the stuff on a shelf and say, here it is, bozo. I am not carrying it anymore. It’s no longer my burden, and neither are you. I have carried stuff for friends, so-called and genuine. I have carried things for strangers. I have surpassed bonds I had no clue were there. Found people who once lived their lives for me and vice versa, and released them from their circumstances just by being me. For this man, my friend, I carried, and I still carry, a great many things. I am not the one who is in charge of when or how these things come up. Not usually anyway. When it comes to his stuff, I am nothing but the Vase, really. He pulls things up as he desires them. He has me hold them – that last bit that I held in my throat that whole week was – a pain in the neck—so literally. Yet, he accepted it. He took it. He sealed a fate between us by taking these things. Many paths are laid out in front of us. Us as a whole, not just him and me. If I make this choice in my life, then it frees you up to make this choice in yours. If I had never gotten away from drugs or alcohol or other self-destructive behaviours, of which I am sure there are many more left (for one, I know I am still fighting my eating disorder to this day), I would never have met him in this lifetime. I would have been dead long ago. If I hadn’t let the ex drag me to St Louis as the last chance for our marriage –wish he had told everyone else that instead of just me—then he and I would never have become friends. If I had not become pregnant with E, our friendship together would have been twisted and mutated by the Coven that still makes vague vain attempts to screw with me. If I hadn’t done this—this would not have happened. If I hadn’t gone before the White Council as counsel myself, if I had not let go of the Grey in me, if I had not turned aside as much as I did, he would have never turned to me in the capacity he has turned. He would not have dredged up the things he did, he would not have accepted them as he did. We would definitely still be friends, but we wouldn’t be – this close. Nor would the future between us be so – set and so clear. A future I am not going to talk about because—well—mostly it freaks me out, the magnitude of it—and it will freak him out because it’s not somewhere he wants to go or think about at the moment. He has enough stuff to worry about at the moment as it is.
I think it is very interesting to note though. Remember the 333 issue I have with darn near every big event in my life, which does indeed seem to coincide with – me having a child and/or some man? I am still getting signs – 808 is just funny to me, I’m sorry—the whole Lazytown thing—but the 333 thing seems to be done for the moment. Ever since he removed the thing from my throat. So—that means big momentous event. And no, we are actually tres tres careful, because of all the things I want a baby with him right now—so not the thing.
What is so funny is I keep thinking—the Dragon and the Rat—Chinese astrology—oh what fun. How can two people who on the surface seem so very different be so well and evenly matched? But we are.
And this tattoo is the concrete cementing (did I really say it that way on purpose?) of my acceptance of the contract now in place. Not just my acceptance, but his as well. That, I think, is the big difference with this tattoo. Why I was able to get the tattoos for the other guys when I did in relation to where things stood between us at that time. I could not have gotten the eternity knot for ex if he had not changed his space somewhat. He changed enough to allow me to do my thing, whether he wanted to or not, whether he realized it or not. But my friend changed his mind about certain things, certain issues, and he made some choices. He gave me the space to embrace things and open up other things between us, in this life and things from other lives. This tattoo is a symbol of both of our acceptances of the path we are currently treading.
Plus, as an additional benefit, I must also take on some of the attributes I wear beneath my skin. He says the tenets of Bushido are already there within me. He sees them. All my tattoos have very strong spiritual significance. I am under obligation to respect that significance and to uphold the meanings intrinsically set out by each mark. Some days I really do think, thank god I let my friend eons ago talk me out of branding. I am not into pain, by any means, but there is a price to be paid when doing something like that. I have been meaning to research Celtic tattooing for a very long time—and I have done some very basic research, but never gone in-depth. Since tattoos are objects of Power, imbuing the flesh and the spirit with certain attributes. Between the Native and the Celtic paths I wander, I am often awed by the immense responsibility I have accepted by way of my tattoos. Not to mention, this tattoo means a great deal to me, not only because it represents the love between my best friend and me, but because of the connection between us in this life and another life of which this tattoo speaks volumes. One day I will find more information of the Samurai and the little Princess.
Until then, I accept my responsibility to this new tattoo, the new level of our friendship, the Past and the Present and the Future it represents. Besides, I love my friend, no matter what happens, no matter how things turn out, no matter which way we go. Not to mention, I am glad I can say it again, even the way I say it, just because it makes me feel better to let him know—even though I do that to everyone.
So, basically, it really is all good.
