A person seen from behind on a sandy beach, with a red sunburst on the shoulder and a row of moon phases and a seated Buddha figure across the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sunburst, moon phases and Buddha on upper back

Back · Mixed · Photo

A person sits on sand facing away from the camera, showing a back tattoo with a red sunburst over the left shoulder, a horizontal row of moon phase circles across the upper back, and a small seated Buddha figure in the centre. The linework and shading look soft and muted, with the red sunburst standing out against the brown and grey tones of the other motifs. The composition is centred on the back with waves and open beach behind.

Back Upper arm Sunburst Moon phase Buddha Sun Circle Beach

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

My grandmother kept the moon in a biscuit tin. Every night of her life she pencilled a circle on the inside of the lid and shaded in however much of it she could see from the back step. When her hip went and she was moved to the bungalow on the cliff, she made my mother carry the tin up the path in a carrier bag so the record would not break. When my sister Pip announced she wanted to marry on the sand at Porthcurno, on the night of the full moon, I said it was a sentimental thing to build a day around. Then I said yes, because I was the one who had the tin.

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The forecast on the morning of the wedding said rain by two. By eleven the sky had gone the colour of a peach stone, and a red sunburst of cloud was pulling itself up over the headland as though someone had opened a shutter. Nan's brass Buddha, the little seated one she bought from a stallholder in Chiang Mai and swore would keep the weather off, sat on the drinks table between the sherry glasses. Pip had asked for it to be there. She said it looked like it was listening.

The vicar, a patient man called Gethin with sand already in his shoes, began at half past four. The tide was on the turn and the whole congregation had to shuffle back twice. Halfway through the vows a bank of cloud slid across the moon's pale edge, the way a sheet is pulled over a face, and everyone looked up at once. Pip laughed. I opened the tin on my knee and found the last page. Beside that day's date Nan had drawn, very small, a sun in the margin, and under it she had written hold on.

I shut the lid and held on.