I have, for many years, considered getting a tattoo. I knew that, if I got one, it would have to be a rune. And because runes play so deep a part of my spirituality, I could not trust just anyone with doing the art. It would invariably have an impact on my own spiritual life. So I needed someone I could trust.
Unfortunately, I never really met anyone I got to know well enough who also did tattoos. So I sat on the impulse for over a decade.
Earlier this year, I saw an episode of Flashforward where a woman had a Japanese character tattooed on her wrist. It occurred to me then that I should get a rune tattooed on my wrist.
But I still needed someone to do it, and I needed a design. At first I thought I would have just a simple character, but I realized I should get something a bit more unique. I did look at designs online, and I found one or two I liked, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the runes I was finding (including Eihwaz, the rune for defense). I liked them, but I wasn’t sure.
Earlier this week, I finally decided I needed to get a rune tattooed. It was time, and I had to do it. But I still needed a design. When I began thinking about it a couple of months ago, a friend had offered her services. This is a good friend from the online adoption community I’m a part of.
I told Devon what I wanted. The rune for the Self, Mannaz, seemed the only real choice for the tattoo. I showed her a picture and told her what it meant. Then I gave her almost no direction in designing a stylized version of the rune.
Here is how Ralph Blum describes Mannaz in his work The Book of Runes, which I have used as a resource for more than twenty years. The following are the opening and closing paragraphs from Mannaz’s entry (in the upright position):
The starting point is the self. Its essence is water. Only clarity, willingness to change, is effective now. A correct relationship to your self is primary, for from it flow all possible correct relationships with others and with the Divine. . . .
If you take the Rune of the Self and cut it down the middle, you will see the Rune for Joy with its mirror image. There is a subtle caution here against carelessness. The dancing acrobatic energy of balancing is called for now – the Self is required to balance the self. Nothing in excess was the second phrase written over the gateway to the temple at Delphi. The first counsel was Know thyself.
With almost no guidance, but for a few comments on early drafts, here is the final piece of artwork that Devon came up with for me.
There is a lot of meaning in this for me. The first thing I noted in her original draft was the wooden look of the various stems of the rune. It seemed natural, made of twigs, and that look really appealed to me. That is preserved in the final artwork.
More, though, on the first draft, she already had the wrapped joints. I couldn’t exactly say at the time why they appealed to me, but I can now. It looks to me as though the rune is actually several parts joined together with twine. I do think that does wonderful job representing the different parts of myself, bound together, but not fully united as a single whole. My Self is made of various elements. Notice, too, that the central wrapping binds together Wunjo, Joy, with its mirror opposite, as Blum suggests in his entry. Devon didn’t know this when she created the piece, but her bindings were perfect.
She then mentioned to me that she was thinking of adding roots but worried that it could be offensive in some way. It was the whole adoptees not having roots thing that she was thinking of, I believe. But I liked the idea. My Self, cobbled together as it is, still has roots. So I encouraged Devon to add them, to see what they looked like.
She added roots to both the top and the bottom, but we agreed that it was a bit too much. She took them off the top, and I knew she was on to something. A couple of changes to the proportions of the legs and the width of the rune, and you see the final product.
When she sent me the picture above, it was a text message on my phone. And I knew immediately that she had given me the design I had long wanted. It was perfect. She had gotten everything so perfectly… I was in awe. I immediately wanted to show everyone. Heck, I wanted to go out and get the tattoo that day.
But I had to wait. She needed to hook her scanner up so that she could send me a clean copy. That happened Thursday. But I was too busy with other things Thursday to go to the tattoo parlor. So Friday, I went almost as soon as it opened at noon.
I guess Friday the 13th was good day for tattoos. The parlor was packed. I went up to the counter and showed them the artwork Devon had created for me. The guy thought that going smaller would lose too much detail. But a woman behind the counter immediately took an interest and set up and appointment with me for later in the afternoon.
I left for a few hours to pass the time. I was anxious to get the work done, but I managed to wait. Barely.
When I returned to 46 & 2 Tattoo, Stephanie had me fill out some paperwork and then ushered me into her chair. We discussed how it should go on my wrist, and she convinced me that, rather than going up or down the arm, it should be sideways, so that I could look at it upright, and also show it to others.
She shaved my arm and placed the ink trace on my arm. After discussing the process, I sat down and she got to work. It didn’t hurt much at all. I don’t know if I have a high tolerance or if I have few nerves on the inside of my wrist, but it was an easy twenty-five minutes.
As she worked, she talked to me. She asked me if my mom knew that I was getting this today. She said that she asks everyone, no matter how old they are. I said that she didn’t. Then I remembered I had mentioned it to my biological mother, so I said that, actually, she did. And then, in a fit of the weirdness that happens to me as an adoptee, I explained that I have two mothers, and one of them knew.
She then said, much to my surprise, that she was an adoptee, too.
Seriously. I mean, come on. There is a way this whole thing was unreal. She talked to me about my search and reunion. She asked me about my relationships with all my different families. She mentioned that she was from Kansas (one of two states that never sealed records) and had gotten her information five years ago, but had yet to actually search.
I knew, somehow, that this was right. In Devon, I had found the perfect person to design my tattoo. And in Stephanie, I had the perfect person to actually ink it into my skin. Sometimes, the universe will have its way with or without our planning.
I know you’re probably wondering by now, so here it is…
Now I really want to take excellent care of this. I want it to look good for years to come. I think the lines are even sharper in person than in this picture, but this gives you a pretty good idea what it looks like.
I cannot stop looking at it. It’s a beautiful piece. Thank you to Stephanie for doing an amazing job. And thank you especially to Devon for designing exactly what I wanted.
One more bit from the Louisville protest a couple of weeks ago. A YouTube video from still photos (including some taken by yours truly) has been put together by the organizers. I wanted to share it with everyone who might be reading here.
Please go view, comment, and add the video to your favorites.
That’s it for the moment. I’m sure that details on next year’s gathering will begin trickling out soon. Until then, you should go the Adoptee Rights Deomnstration website to see how you can help.
Yesterday, adoptees, first mothers, and other supporters marched to support equal rights for adoptees. In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, adoptees in forty-four states are not allowed access to their original birth certificates. Every year they gather at the National Conference of State Legislators for the protest. This year that meant going to Louisville.
The night before, we made signs for use in the march. Much fun was had by all.
Sunday morning, we began to march to the convention center.
There was a lot of energy and excitement as we marched.
We got to talk to a few legislators on their way into to register for the conference.
But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hot. It was. Very. Everyone was committed, but we needed breaks from marching.
We were told not to sit on the wall, though, so we took our breaks in the park across the street. The heat index was supposed to be around 110, and it felt like it. By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired. But we were happy for what we had accomplished. Literature handed out, news interviews, people talked to, and awareness raised.
The party afterwards suffered from a lousy restaurant. Extremely poor service and a failure to provide adequate space marred an otherwise wonderful day. But once we quit the restaurant, several of us hit a nearby pub and enjoyed ourselves immensely.
The only downside to the whole event, for me, was how quickly the time passed. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to visit with friends. Being surrounded by these people was both empowering and comforting. It was almost like a two-day long support group with a healthy dose of activism thrown in.
I originally did not plan to go next year, as San Antonio in late July is not my cup of tea. But now I don’t think I can wait any longer to see this group of people. I wish I was still there. So now I’m going to try to find a way to make it again next year.
And I look forward to the day when we don’t need the demonstration anymore, and we can just plan a weekend party. But until then, I cannot imagine a better way to spend two days than protesting with my fellow adoptees.
We left by eleven to drive to the Adoptee Rights Protest in Louisville. It looked to be nearly a five hour drive, but that still got us there by four. Plenty of time to check in and eat before the sign-making party.
Plenty of time, that is, if nothing went wrong.
Twenty minutes down the road, and the engine maintenance light came on. We pulled off at a nearby gas station, and I checked everything I could, which basically consisted of the oil level and making sure the gas cap was on correctly. But neither seemed to be the problem.
There is something so typical about this, that I wasn’t even surprised. Indeed, I think I would have been more surprised if nothing had gone wrong. It seems that lately all of our trips have some kind of snafu.
This was my grandmother’s car, so we called my father, hoping he would tell us that it was normal for the car and we could ignore it. But it wasn’t to be. Instead, he offered to switch cars with us. He drove down to meet us, letting us take his car, as he drove the other to get it checked out. (Turns out, it was the air filter.)
So we were back on the road, and on target to get to Louisville by five. The rest of the trip went smoothly and we found the hotel without a problem.
We met other adoptees almost immediately. First it was Theresa, then Jeff. There is something so cool about meeting other like-minded people, especially ones you have such great admiration and respect for.
We were starving and thought we had enough time to eat before the sign-making party. We found an interesting looking Irish pub, and it would have been perfect if the service had been timely. As it was, we got to the party about half an hour late.
I think I colored in one sign over the course of the next two hours. It was too hard to do that and meet people face-to-face who I had known forever online. Jeni, Kara, Julie, Dory, Joy, Elizabeth, Linda, Jim, Diane, Cheerio, Amanda, Spencer… I’m sure I’m forgetting people, but it was so much fun.
At the end, there was a brief workshop for how to talk to legislators. Gaye and Jeff did a terrific job. As a student of strategic nonviolence, it was fascinating to hear others employ the principles in a real training session.
After that, there was much drink to be had. Maybe too much. Though, for me, I’m usually so shy around other people, it may have helped loosen me up a bit, so I actually managed to talk to people. (I hope not too much. And I hope I didn’t say anything too stupid.) We had a blast. We had been told the hotel bar closed at ten, but I think the bartender realized how much money there was to be made and stayed open until midnight.
I wish even more of my online friends had been able to make it. There is just something so amazing about meeting some of your favorite people on the planet.
And in just over an hour, we’ll be gathering to go do what we came here to do.
The Evan B. Donaldson Institute released its latest study on granting adoptees access to their original birth certificates. The summary is below. You can click on the title to read the whole report.
Authors: Dr. Jeanne A. Howard, Susan Livingston Smith, and Georgia Deoudes.
Published: 2010 July. New York NY: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates” is based on a years-long examination of relevant judicial and legislative documents; of decades of research and other scholarly writing; and of the concrete experiences of states and countries that have either changed their laws to provide these documents or never sealed them at all.
The Institute’s report suggests that, while a growing number of states have restored OBC access to adopted people once they reach the age of majority, efforts to accelerate the trend have been impeded by misunderstandings about the history of this controversial issue, misconceptions about the parties involved (especially birthmothers), and mistaken concerns about the impact of changing the status quo – e.g., legislators often assume that negative consequences will occur but, in fact, they do not.
Among the findings in the 46-page Policy Brief, which updates and expands the Institute’s November 2007 report, “For the Records: Restoring a Right for Adult Adoptees,” are:
Barring adopted adults from access to their OBCs wrongly denies them a right enjoyed by all others in our country, and is not in their best interests for personal and medical reasons.
Alternatives such as mutual consent registries are ineffective and do not meet adoptees’ needs.
The vast majority of birthmothers don’t want to be anonymous to the children they relinquished.
The recommendations in the Institute’s new Policy Brief include:
Every “closed” state should unseal OBCs for all adult adoptees, retroactively and prospectively.
States that already provide limited OBC access should revise laws to include all adult adoptees.
No professional should promise women anonymity from the children they place for adoption.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Eight American missionaries were freed from a Haitian jail and left for Miami Wednesday, nearly three weeks after being arrested trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country.
The Baptists, most from Idaho, had been sequestered in a tent on the tarmac protected by Air Force troops after U.S. diplomats escorted them out of the nearby police station where they’d been held in muggy, grimy cells.
The group’s swift departure began earlier Wednesday when Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said eight of the 10 missionaries were free to leave without bail because parents of the children had testified they voluntarily gave their children to the missionaries believing the Americans would give them a better life.
As you can see, it appears ignorance of the law does mean your innocent if what you are guilty of is child-trafficking from a poor country. Also, apparently, it isn’t child-trafficking if the parents give the children away.
Instead of sending a message that stealing kids is wrong, apparently the message is that it’s okay to take kids that were given away and you don’t know that you need the proper paperwork.
This decision is disgusting. In claiming that the truth set them free, it is clear these 8 do not realize they broke the law, despite the judge’s “lecture” to the contrary. I think they needed more time in a Haitian jail. Instead, they will be welcomed home as saints, persecuted for trying to do good, even though that “good” involved taking children across international borders.
Just a quick follow up to my previous post about the Baptist missionaries who were arrested in Haiti. It seems that they have been charged and a judge will hear evidence in the case. A verdict is expected sometime in the next three months.
Much has come to light since all of this has happened. It appears that the leader of the group, Laura Silsby, knew that what she was proposing to do – take Haitian children across international boundaries – was wrong. It also seems that there are questions back in the States about some of her financial dealings (which raise frightening questions about her motives in this child trafficking).
Various people (from their lawyer to American pundits) have been claiming that the other nine involved were ignorant that what they were doing was wrong, that they were trying to help, and that the meant well.
None of which means that they aren’t guilty.
First, ignorance of the law is no defense. This is well-known. Even if these nine other people were ignorant of the law, they still proposed to break it. And that makes them guilty. Maybe, if there is evidence they were ignorant, it would suggest leniency in the sentencing, but it doesn’t make them innocent. And they should be punished for their crimes.
Second, they should have known better. Independent of the legality, how is taking children out of their home country, children that by all reports were NOT from Port-Au-Prince, a good idea? How is that the moral thing to do? Why not make sure they are orphans? Why not try to find ways to help them stay in their country, rather than finding the fastest way to spirit them out of the country, and into adoption?
Of course there may yet be some diplomatic escape hatch for these people, but I think it would be good for their moral education of they suffered the consequences of their willful ignorance.
The missionaries went to Haiti to set up an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. They tried to take children out of the country without proper documentation to the hotel building they arranged to use as an orphanage. There, apparently, they planned to offer the children for adoption.
The problem is that many of these children actually had parents, who were promised they could come and visit the children in the orphanage. This is a fact of life in Haiti: completely impoverished parents will sometimes give their children to orphanages in order to see their needs are met. In other words, many “orphans” in Haiti aren’t orphans.
And the Baptists knew it.
These people belong in jail. I know, I know… Innocent until proven guilty. I’m not saying they don’t deserve their day in court. But if the story we’ve gotten so far turns out to be true, these people are no better than child-traffickers.
Instead of ramping up adoptions in Haiti, we ought to be working towards more comprehensive solutions for the entire population.
On a related note, a few online friends pointed me to an organization that is doing something to help the children in Haiti, including the 33 children taken by the Baptist Missionaries: SOS Children’s Villages. They have written a good piece about the problems inherent in the increased interest in Haitian adoptions: Earthquake orphan appeal: Do not adopt earthquake orphans – Children Charity.
Well-intentioned or not, these missionaries behaved badly. They ought to have remembered that old adage: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Plans are in the works for me to get home for the funeral. But there is something else going on today that I need to write about.
Today, something good is happening in Philadelphia.
A number of adoptees, and supporters of adoptees, have gathered for the National Conference of State Legislators that meets in Philadelphia this year. They are making the case for equal treatment for adoptees.
In most states, adoptees do not have access to their original birth certificates. This is a document that every other U.S. citizen can request from the government for little cost. Adoptees in all but six states are denied this same access.
I wish I could be there. Much as I have done everything in my power to be back in Ohio for my family at the end of the week, I wish I could have done something similar to be in Philadelphia for my extended family of adoptees at the beginning of the week.
Thank you all for working toward the goal of open records for all adoptees.
I had heard that B J Lifton was going to be at an adoption support group in Manhattan today. Lifton wrote Journey of the Adopted Self, one of the excellent books on adoption that I read last year. It seemed a wonderful coincidence that she would be visiting at the same time that I was in the City visiting my in-laws. So I decided to make the trek down to the village to attend the group.
Ronni was excited for me, but last night, she began to get worried. I think that she was worried that, despite our many trips here with her coaching, I was still too much of a tourist at heart. I don’t know if she thought I would get lost or mugged, or simply be recognized as her husband AND a tourist. But she finally settled on fears that terrorists would attack the subway system this holiday season.
Her mom tried to reassure her on that score, and I pointed out that my very first (albeit brief) trip to the City was before I knew her. On that occasion I managed to get from LaGuardia to Grand Central Station, and I even got on the right train at Grand Central. I figured I could manage a subway trip down to the Village all by myself.
She finally seemed reassured enough. So I put on my iPod to tune out the noises and made sure to wear a scowl and look down as I walked down the street. I didn’t look anyone in the eye. And on the subway, I even noticed, with a hint of superiority rising in my heart, a couple of tourists holding a map. I knew Ronni would be proud.
And, as I type this now, it should be obvious that I survived my harrowing trip 75 blocks downtown. All told, it was a nice afternoon.
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