Black geometric mandala tattoo with arrows and moon phases on the upper arm, with a hand resting on a grey sleeve.

Geometric mandala with moon phases on upper arm

Geometric · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A circular geometric mandala sits at the centre of the design, with a lattice of solid and open diamond shapes inside concentric rings. Eight arrows radiate outwards between crescent and full moon phases, all drawn in fine black lines and solid black fills. The photograph shows the tattoo in sharp focus against a dark background, with a hand and grey sleeve at the edge of the frame.

Geometric Blackwork Upper arm Mandala Moon phase Arrow Circle Geometric pattern Lattice

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The compass rose was the last thing left undone, and the ebb would not wait for a woman who had spent the night arguing with her own pen. Tamsin wiped the nib on her apron, loaded it with the blackest ink from the brown jar, and drew the outer ring the way her father had taught her, the dividers held still by a thumb that never shook.

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Eight arrows went out from the centre, one for each wind the Hester Anne would have to reckon with past the bar. In the margin she set the moons: new, waxing, full, waning, the slow wheel of them that told the tide-men when the water would stand high enough to float a keel over the sand. She had never believed the moons made the sea behave. She had only noticed that the sea behaved when they did.

She worked the lattice last, solid diamonds and open diamonds woven row into row until the heart of the page looked like a flower seen through a net. It was past four by the church clock when she lifted the nib. Joseph Vosper came up the steps before the light had properly arrived, salt in his beard, and took the sheet without a word. He traced the north-west arrow with one thick finger. "Your moon's a day late, girl," he said, and folded the chart into his coat before she could answer. She stood in the cold and counted the phases on her fingers, and found he was right.