Nature / Flower Tattoos

Mankind has been decorating his/her body with tattoos for the last 12,000 years. And though a lot has changed since tattoos were administered by puncturing the skin with a piece of bone dipped in flower ink--the reasons why we get tattoos may not be that entirely different from our ancestors.

Since many of the early religions emphasized the role of nature it’s no surprise that tattooing, which has been used for religious ceremonies and initiation rites in nearly every culture, incorporated elements of the natural world into their designs. Though today we may not get a rose tattoo or a moon tattoo because we worship these objects—having a nature tattoo certainly can’t help but remind this that we are part of the natural world. (Either that or they look really cool.) Flower Tattoos

Of the nature tattoos by far the most popular are flower tattoos---with rose tattoos being the top of this list. As symbolic art, flower tattoos are remarkably flexible in their meaning, allowing the wearer to decide on its significance. Rose tattoos can be either romantic or sinister, depending on the tattoo artist, and a tattoo of a lotus flower will have very different connotations than a flower tattoo that portrays a daisy. Historically flower tattoos have been used as charms against evil spirits. Today they can be used as charms against evil ex-boyfriends. (Just kidding.)

Sun and Moon Tattoos

These popular tats seem to invoke a pre-Christian world where cultures worshipped all aspects of nature as deities. Sun tattoos were commonplace for Celtic druids who believed that the sun was the primary source of life, which of course scientifically it is, and the crescent moon has been an important symbol of an earth goddess and her powers for many different cultures. This of course doesn’t mean that if you’ve got tribal sun tattoos or moon star tattoos that you have to perform sacrifices in the woods. But there might be no better representation of the cycles and duality of the natural world than sun and moon tattoos.