Black and grey Japanese-style tattoo of a seated Buddha on a lotus base with a stem and leaves, running down the upper arm beneath cloud scrolls on the shoulder.

Seated Buddha and lotus on upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A seated Buddha figure with a crowned head, halo and lotus flowers held at each side fills the upper arm, shaded in soft greys with fine outlines. Below the figure, a stacked lotus base leads into a stem with leaves and roots that trails down the forearm area. Cloud scroll shading sits behind the shoulder, and a separate Om symbol is visible on the chest.

Japanese Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Chest Buddha Lotus Cloud Halo Stem Leaves Om Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The pass shut on a Tuesday, and by Thursday the snow had climbed the stable door so high that we went in and out through the hayloft window. Eleven guests were stuck with us at the Cold Hollow inn, and only one of them, a thin woman called Ansel Frey, had brought anything worth keeping: a carved figure no longer than my hand, a seated teacher with a crown of little flame shapes and a lotus held up at either side of him like an offering. My mother called it a waste of space on the mantel. Ansel only smiled and said it had been carved from a tree that grew in a ditch.

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She showed me the base that night, when the generator coughed and the lamps went out. Under the teacher the carver had stacked lotus petals one on another, and below them a thin stem ran down into leaves and tangled roots. Ansel ran her thumb along the roots and said the flower starts in mud, in the dark, and doesn't mind where it started. I said that sounded like something a person says when they have never had to shovel their own roof. She laughed so hard she had to sit on the flour sacks, and for the rest of the storm I told her about my father's bees and she told me about a village where the river froze solid enough to hold a market.

When the road was cleared she left before breakfast, and the figure stayed on the windowsill where she had propped it. Beside it was a tin of seeds she had pressed into my hand with a note saying only: water it when the snow goes. I did not believe her. I filled the tin with wet earth anyway and put it where the sun came in.

By April the yard had turned to mud, and on the sill a single green stem had come up through the soil, its leaves still folded shut, waiting for something to open.