9 years ago today, in Montreal my friend Michelle Simon and I went to get my one (and so far only) tattoo, to celebrate my independence. I fasted July 5th and 6th 2001 and on the 7th Michelle went with me to get my tat. After, walking down the street a BIG biker dude covered with Tats looked at me and said 'Is that a real tattoo man!?' Me in a small voice 'Yeah.' 'Fuck'n A Man!' and gave me a hug. That was my introduction to the tattoo family.

Some of my early thoughts about my tattoo were that I would become a Yogi. This wouldn't happen for 8 more years. I'd felt guided to get this tattoo for years but rational thought simply wouldn't allow it. Who puts a tattoo on their forehead. It's social death right? I asked myself many of the same questions that I would be asked repeatedly over the next 9 years:

Are you crazy?
How will you work? Who will hire you?
If you can't work, you can't eat. How will you live?
What about when you get old?
Who puts a tattoo on their forehead?
Is that the mark of the beast? (Ok I didn't ask myself this one but I've been asked it a lot).
Are you Muslim? (Americans)
What religion do you belong to?
Are you some sort of artist?
What the fuck is that on your forehead?
What does it mean?
What is that cross in the middle?
Have you been saved?
Do you accept Jesus as your lord and savior?
Can you read my mind?
Ok, what number am I thinking of right now? Lucky guess, guess again!
Is that Henna?
Is that a club stamp?
Is that a postage mark?
Are you supposed to be Teal'c from Startgate SG-1 (My favorite)?
Well I don't know about growing old, I'm told that I'm holding up quite well. 26 to 35 I still feel awesome. This event in my life, for me marked true independence. Being 'technically' able to do a thing does not make you free. Not if you are bound my the mores and opinions of others.

Having this tattoo has taught me about the limitations of rationality. Reality is bigger than our rationality; bigger than our accepted perception of reality. Rationality is a circle of comfort that we draw around ourselves and say 'Only what is within this circle is real.' But there is so much more. Exploring those depths and expanding that circle of accepted reality is scary and uncomfortable but rewarding. Still, you will have to deal with those who fear change; who say that your expanded circle is merely delusion and only their circle is real. And you also encounter those who's circle is WAY bigger than yours. Madmen or mystics, who can say for sure?

I've had to grow into this tattoo. Like a little kid with a big bike. I've gone further than I could have imagined. The beginning was really hard though. The people who really love you, they stay in your life but the tat definitely accomplished one of its intended purposes: It derailed me nicely from the path of corporate mediocrity that I was truck'n along full-speed ahead. There's a psychological term for this phenomenon, for a crisis of consciences but I can never remember it. I can just remember thinking, realizing one morning, that all of the values with which I had been raised, all of the things that I was taught to value and cherish were not my own. They were not the things that I valued but those things that the society in which I was raised valued. The house with the white picket fence, 2 cars 2.5 kids and a steady career with a retirement track. I knew what zoo animals must feel like. My bondage was psychological, so I 'freed myself from mental slavery.' or at least started down the path. But here is the thing about slavery: it is a known quantity. Horrible or not you know what to expect, you have some idea of when dinner is. The unknown is a very, very scary thing. There is a parable from which I took much:

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.

 -- from Illusions by Richard Bach

After I let go. I began to have many, many adventures but each adventure was only a chapter in my story of becoming. It is a never ending story. I give thanks to all of my teachers that have helped me to this point and all of my teachers to come.

With love,

Raja Afrika