A letter of personal Truth from River Dawn
I thought I’d take a chance to introduce myself and say a little about my story and who I feel like I have become through my journey.
First off, and I believe most importantly, I am Scar Clan. Scar Clan is a membership of souls who have hearts that have been carved deeper by great suffering and who have naturally found a path of compassion for others through their experience of this heart deepening sense of loss and pain often occurring at an early age, though one can become scar clan at any point in their life.
Scar Clan is a gigantic group of souls who are in the midst of healing self and others, who have at least half way reset their own bones, who still move, act and speak from the heart, despite certain fragilities that come from scar tissue aching at unpredictable times, many years after wounding. What it means to have reset one’s own bones is to have found bits and pieces of the true self that have been lost to the world through the over culture forcing us to fit our wild hearts into a tiny box, cutting off our limbs and breaking parts of us away to be lost and then to be found again and re-attached, though scar tissue grows, the reconnection is fond and profound.
-this is all very true and real for me.
I am also what some call a Sensitive. I feel deeply all the eternal wavelengths of the world around me and I work as a conduit of my clients’ story and emotional state to create them beautiful works of healing art. I hear often that these tattoos we create help set them along on their path to healing and letting go of the past, of warming the stone in their hearts just enough for them to take the next step towards their emotional and spiritual freedom. This is my calling, among others, and this is also my connection to El Duende, the spirit of evocation, the creative force known as flow state or a heightened state of emotional expression in art.
I spent many years of my life feeling outcast and alone in the world and I have grown to be a woman of community. I have built a temple to healing and to El Duende, and souls flock to me to experience this state of consciousness and this connection to their truth, intimacy and imagery.
Not every single interaction I have in my studio is rich with wisdom and spiritual experience but must are and I am gentle with myself, as I make a point to let my truth flow freely which at times can be a more causal experience and at other times can be reaching a depth of spirit together with my client that feels eternal and teeming with purpose.
I spent most of my early adult days traveling the world, mostly alone, afraid of true commitment or any connection of depth with humans as I had felt ostracized so much in my life before. I felt that if I kept everyone at an arm’s length, that I would be free of their judgement and their control… in turn I was also free of love with and from others. I was rich with love for my own wild soul! With a sparkle in my eye and excitement for the future I left every time anything got hard and went grinning into my next adventure. I have since found that I was experiencing a depth of loneliness that I could not bear the weight of. I found myself around 25 years of age, alone in the world… craving love and terrified of the idea of it because it had come at such a price of forcing myself into these tight ideals and boxes that society… and people… had demanded of me. And I am a wild thing… not something to be planted neatly in a small pot… I am a sprawling flowering spiky plant… down right riotous.
Here I find myself now, a happy and fulfilled married woman sitting on a rock in the sun in front of her home. A home we bought together and we don’t intend to ever leave… listening to the creek and feeling the sun on my face… knowing my children are safe inside with my dear mother who lives with us now. I am here connecting with the land and preparing to grow and bond with her more deeply than I ever could before because now I am steady and now I am ready to stay. I am a devoted lover to my incredible partner and my delightful children and I am completely committed to my practice as artist and healer. I do not feel that it is truly I who does the healing of others… but I am a conduit of the endless source of love around us and it travels through me into my clients and from their feedback I am assured that this medicine is potent and full of substance.
I have a profound sense of home and belonging that I never could have dreamed of just over a decade ago. Even to the point that many have voted me into winning awards for my work and my passion and for the first time in my life I feel seen and received as my true self and appreciated for my unruly, untamable nature and spirit connection to the wild.
I worry often that the love I have will leave me in some way. Feeling the delicate balance of life around me and the fragility of life on this earth. I feel deep pain from the issues I witness in the world that I feel are so easy to fix if those in control would just choose devotion to others (or the collective) rather than devotion to self. There is no good or evil in this world, only those who put their energy into the collective and others, who in my opinion have lost their way, and have focused their energy entirely on themselves, not bearing accountability for how this affects the lives of those around them.
I find that the only way to heed this heavy load of insecurity is to focus on gratitude for what I have now and what I have experienced in this incredible, colorful life I have lived thus far.
I am grateful for my journey, albeit peppered with sorrow, it has also been endowed with the spice of life… love, adventure and seeking my own truth.
My truth is found in my love of the light and my acceptance of the dark. And I find that when I can sit beside the darkness without fear and when I can withstand the weight and stench of Muerte, I am filled with inspiration to create and El Duende flows through me freely.
Blessed is this day with my ears full of rushing water and bird song.
All must be remembered.
May we find our way into balance.
—River Dawn