the eye….

is amazing.

I’ve always been fascinated by/with it. I’ve drawn it more times than I could ever count. It’s by far the most interesting part of the human body to me even though I love all the parts and they all hold their own merit and interest for an artist.

After I was integrated, I wanted to get one more tattoo. One more to counter the others that pepper my body here and there. I wanted that last tattoo to symbolize my wholeness and well-being. I chose to get an eye symbol, turned on it’s side and surrounded by a tribal wave of controversy with the mandarin Chinese symbol for ‘me’ hanging off the side. I drew it. I knew where I wanted it. I knew why. But I didn’t know why I picked the symbols I picked or why they were important to me although they called out.

Last week, I got a letter from my brother. In it was an explanation of the Great Seal of the United States. The article says:

Reverse Side of the Great Seal (sometimes referred to the spiritual side)
* Eye
At the top of the pyramid is the Eye of Providence with the motto Annuit Coeptis (Latin for God has favored our undertakings).

I was curious. I found a few different variations on the name and meaning.

1st
Eye of Horus: clarity, truthfulness, wisdom. Horus was the falcon-headed solar and sky god from ancient Egypt. He is associated with vitality, health and regeneration. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis. His right eye was white, and represented the sun, and his left eye was black, and represented the moon. According to Egyptian myth, Seth, Horus’s brother, killed Osiris. Horus fought Seth to avenge this death and lost his left eye in the fight. Thoth, the God of magic and the moon, used his powers to reassemble Horus’s eye. On presenting his eye to Osiris, Osiris experienced rebirth. The Eye of Horus symbolizes protection and the bringing of wisdom. The eye also symbolizes our ability to see with clarity and truthfulness.

2nd
The Eye of Horus (or ‘udjat’) became a powerful symbol in ancient Egypt. It was worn as an amulet to ensure good health and ward off sickness. The Eye of Horus is depicted as a human eye and eyebrow, decorated with the markings seen under the eyes of falcons since Horus had the head of a falcon. The right eye represented the sun and the left eye the moon…. The left eye is the origin of the pharmacist’s symbol for prescription, ‘Rx’ .

3rd
What better symbol than an eye to represent a watchful and vigilant, protective and loving, omniscient Creator? The human eye is a marvelous creation.

4th
The Divine Human Eye Your eyes are remarkable. They are actually extensions of your brain, and portal of entry for approximately 90% of all the information you receive in a lifetime. In the retina of each of your eyes are more than 125 million photoreceptors that perform the equivalent of ten billion calculations per second.

5th
The Eye of Horus symbol was used in funerary rites and decoration, as instructed in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. After 1200 BC, it was also used by the Egyptians to represent fractions, based on repeated division by two. The wounding of the left eye served as a mythical explanation of the phases of the moon, and its magical restoration meant that the left was usually the one used as an amulet and considered to be the ‘Eye of Horus’. The right eye is sometimes referred to as the ‘Eye of Ra’, the sun god, though often little distinction is made between the two eyes.

6th
Variations of the Eye of Horus are often encountered, a notable case being the all-seeing eye in the Great Seal of the United States. The reverse of the Great Seal is shown below, followed by a detail of the Eye symbol that completes the pyramid.

7th
definitions that go together
Light: the ability to see; understanding; wisdom; consciousness; is a luminance; part of lamp, fire, sun; can be ray, reflection, shadow
Sun: life, vitality, spirit, father; male creativity; creative energy; the supreme god; is a celestial object; part of Sunday; can have light
Eye: “mirror of the soul”; consciousness; disease of ~ problems with the ability to perceive or view a situation, in fact, this is merely a symbol representing the capacity of human consciousness to see beyond the obvious, or perceive beyond the outwardly visible and tangible; to reach that inner source of life which is the font of divine energy and power.
Sitaram: This symbolism says that all human beings who use their discriminative powers, can, in the silence of their inner selves, seek the sanctuary of truth and purity. Despite this deep metaphysical meaning, the symbol of the third eye is often mistaken as the power to destroy.
In our multicultural presentation we have made use of the multicultural context of eyes. One might rightly ask, why eyes? It is because the eye is first and foremost a very symbolical organ. Eye symbols, charms and amulets are found all throughout the world. However this is not the only reason why we chose the eye as a symbol. The eye is what gives us information. It determines how we see the world, and to a large extent, how we experience reality. The eye says as much about the outer world, but it says just as much, if not more, about ourselves. An international proverb says that the eye is the mirror of the soul. And in a way, the “soul” or essence of humanity is what anthropologists continually seek, all this filtered through their very own eyes.

Here is my tattoo:

quick recap for the kids:
don’t get tattoos.
love, mom.