cut me open

i ventured down to kaustika yesterday to go and meet miguel, an artist here in d.f. whom i've been in contact with, and who knows friends of mine down in buenos aires. i conacted him about doing my skar, my maya kin of the skywalker.

we discussed size and placement, and he went off to sterilize his work area, and finally got to it.

after my last skar experience, i was expecting this to hurt. a lot. i mean, i love my stomach skar, and it reminds me of friends and of argentina, but i'll be honest - it hurt like a motherfucker.
but this didn't hurt. i barely flinched. miguel works fast, and this is a small skar in comparaison to my catamarca frog.



this is my maya kin. it represents the skywalker, the one whose mission is to join the celestial heavens with the earth, the one whose mission is to constantly observe, learn, and walk the roads of life.

okay, now ... it's a bit off. the lines aren't very straight and my kin looks like he's biting his lip. but since when am i a perfectionnist? it was a gift from him and i appreciate it all the more that it was free, and that now i will have something to remember my tumultuous passage through mexico. because let's face it - it hasn't been a piece of cake, and the ups and downs have been many. thankfully the ups have ended up outweighing the downs.
it also serves as a bridge between my past life and my current life - you see my maya kin has a little circle on top of it. instead of having miguel make one, i had it placed directly under an old cigarette burn, branded into me by mathieu the evening before i left for lima, when he proclaimed "this way, you won't forget me." i chose to incorporate this old scar into my new scar because it is a part of my camino, old meets new, learn from the past and go forward with your future.

a lot of you might think, why the hell does she do this to her body?


well, i like to remember things, people, places. that's one reason why my hair is the way it is - full of people i've met who have given me dreads, talismans and gifts given along the way. i describe my dreads as my photo album, they give me strength, not unlike samson. cut off me locks and you cut off me strength.

my body is my canvas, but i choose to decorate it at certain moments in time, rather spur of the moment, with things that seem appropriate in meaning and in context.. my dots i'd wanted for quite some time but getting them done coming back from ushuaia seemed like it was necessary. my catamarca frog i got done before leaving argentina to permanently bear the mark of this country that marked me so deeply, this country i had dreamed of and loved since early adolescence. also to wake up my immune system before embarquing on my trip to bolivia.

my maya kin was deciphered for me in la paz. i loved it from the minute i saw it. and the phrase caminante del cielo often came up in conversations, used to describe me. it seemed fitting, but would have been out of context to have it done anywhere else than in mexico.

the work i do to my body is for me a way of remembering who i am and what i've done. where i come from, where i'm going. in a maori meets memento sort of way, i hope one day to be able to look at my body, not only as a piece of art, but as a recollection of travels past, all the different times and phases of my life. each step taken, each cut in my skin, a constant reminder of my path through this world and through this life.