Under The Sea Where Nothing's Better, Take It From Me...
Tattoo by Ash at Showoff Ink Artistry in New Haven, CT November 2020 (Phase 2 COVID CT)
Throughout my life water has been my biggest source of comfort. Not just to drink or cook (which we are luck to have in clean supply throughout my life) but also to swim, to be rejuvenated, to be reinvented.
As a child the bathtub was my everything. I would spend hours pretending to be a mermaid or an underwater explorer. In my bathtub it was 20,000 leagues under the sea always and forever. As I got older the beach became my safe place, the warm sand that would often burn in between my toes only to be cooled by the cold salt water. And then I would just dive in, head first, submerging my whole being in salt water.
Salt water is the most natural healing property on the planet. It heals wounds, cleans out sores and cuts, and often my mother would use it when I had sore throats and ear aches. It became this joyful healing part of my life. As a kid I read Greek Mythology a lot. I can remember building sandcastles and thinking that Apollo, the sun was the reason I got to have such a beautiful day, or how Poseidon was the reason I got to go wave diving and end up safe and sound landing back on the shore.
It felt fitting that Ash would create another Greek Goddess and that she would be the Goddess of the Sea. A lesser know and equally important Goddess is Amphitrite. She is the Queen of the sea, wife to Poseidon and the eldest of the Nereides, Sea Nymphs, sister to my male Sea Nymph tattoo of Nerites. She was considered loud, full of voice and song, most deeply connected to fish, seals, dolphins and whales. All my favorite ocean creatures and all who I have seen in the wild, not just at an Aquarium. Most of my best, my favorite and my most safe childhood memories were in at the beach, in the Ocean, feeling healed and whole by the experience of the water. This Goddess spent much of her time denying Poseidons' advances only to be convinced by the Dolphins that their union could benefit the Ocean. She did what was best for the Ocean. It feels truly sad and shameful that human beings cannot do the same.
