Exploring Sacred Geometry Tattoos
Drawing on the knowledge of symmetry found in nature, such as in honeycombs, nautilus shells, sunflowers, peacocks, snowflakes etc, Sacred Geometry Tattoos use repetitive patterns in order to emulate the sense of ease and harmony that these natural phenomena project. Expressing an admiration for how these shapes work in creating our world, it offers an approximation of visual representation to what we already intuitively experience as balanced and beautiful. Most Sacred Geometry tattoos are complex, original designs utilising dots, lines and shading to create intricate and often mesmerising arrangements.
Certain numbers and ratios reappear throughout nature, such as the Golden Ratio, and Fibonacci’s Spiral. The number Pi, the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter, has even been discovered lurking about in Quantum mechanics. Great pyramids, temples and cathedrals were early on designed using these specific numbers and shapes. Today they have become more explicitly prolific through the work of artists on living canvases, drawn to the aesthetics and meaning of the symbolism. The human body also follows these mathematical ratios, and so it kind of makes sense that etching representations of them on to the surface of our skin would allow us to feel more closely connected to creation.
One common symbol used in Sacred Geometry tattooing is the Flower of Life, comprised of 19 evenly-spaced interwoven circles. Historians have not been able to determine its exact origins, but examples of this design have been found all the way back in ancient Egypt, India and China, as well as in the Ottoman empire. Sketches of it has been found in Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketchbooks and it is considered a symbol for human consciousness, and man’s understanding of the cosmos.
The notion of enlightenment is also present in the symbol known as Metatron’s Cube. It contains all the five Platonic solids, the Flower fo Life, and a Merkaba — a symbol in the shape of a star, thought to connect body and spirit to higher realms. The cube is seen as uniting science and mysticism. Metatron is the name of the angel who in folkloristic tradition is the considered as the celestial scribe, or ‘recording angel’, and in Jewish apocrypha and early Kabbalah it is the name given to the biblical character Enoch after he ascended to archangel-hood. While it may not look much like a cube in its two-dimensional form, if viewed in 3D, it becomes clear how the corners of every point of the central star form a perfect cube.
Another motif often featured in Sacred Geometry is the Nautilus, a shape that is considered sacred as it follows what is known as the Divine Proportion, naturally occurring in this form for over 450 million years, earning it the title of a ‘living fossile.’ Because of the specific sequences of expansion of the shell, it is sometimes thought to symbolise the spiritual evolution of a person, as it grows into increasingly larger chambers throughout its life.
While Sacred Geometry is not attached to any particular belief system, mathematics is a language created by people and used to describe the Universe and to make sense of the world around us. Perhaps in that lies the spiritual aspect and the ‘sacredness’ of this tattoo style. Both science and spirituality have throughout the ages attempted to bestow order onto that which feels chaotic, and searched for hidden meanings and patterns to make sense of seemingly random events. Just as Quantum physics is proving to be, Sacred Geometry tattooing is an expression of the approximation of these two paths.
