Honoring Soul Tattoos® (& Myself)

In 2016 the name “Soul Tattoo” was whispered in my ear by spirit. With full body chills, I claimed it. It felt like truest thing I have ever heard, a direct message from my soul giving me an anchor for my purpose, a catalyst for me to weave all my gifts and my soul’s innate magic into one offering that could bring healing to myself and others. I had already been tattooing for a couple of years (doing ritual, creative, and intuitive work for longer) with a knowing that this work of tattooing was much more sacred that we were led to believe in modern times. I lived in past life memories and ancient remembrances, but until “Soul Tattoos” landed, I kept everything quietly to myself.

In 2016-2017 I fully stepped into this work, saying yes to scary press opportunities, magazine shoots, interviews, and videos on major websites, which would continue for the next few years. I said yes to being very public and seen with this unique modality. I had not yet seen anyone else doing work like I was at this point and it took so much courage and vulnerability to trust it and myself. I had no modeling or specifically ceremonial tattooing mentors who were showing me the way, just my own soul and spirit team guiding me. With this came a lot of backlash, even death threats a few times, and the modern patriarchal tattoo industry telling me they were going to hunt me down and ruin my career as soon as my first video went viral in 2017 (11 million views in a week). People seemed to really hate what I was doing (all over the world!), because I was a young woman threatening limiting beliefs and realities around the truth of intentional, very ancient, spirit-led tattooing as a healing modality. No one else was really public in ceremonial tattooing this at the time, so it was lonely and scary, and at times painful, but I trusted my path and held on to my knowing tightly and just continued to express what I understood and received about this transformational art form as spirit guided me. And I preserved, because I was devoted to this work.

I legally trademarked this modality of “Soul Tattoos” as my own modality and brand to choose it more fully, which was finalized in early 2018. I was strongly guided to do this to honor myself and Soul Tattoos for how much we had to walk through in order to make the work of ceremonial tattooing more public and normalized in an industry that erased the sacred. I knew this work was going to help change the very toxic and harmful tattoo industry, and make room for more sensitive, intuitive, magical women to rise once again in this art form that was held by women in ancient times. And even though my ego fought against it, I knew I was to be a leader and expander as I shared this work. This was my way of saying “yes, I choose this path, this medicine, no matter what.” I also had a longer term vision I was holding to eventually train others and create a lineage and legacy of Soul Tattoo artists that I would someday share this work with. I could always see into the bigger picture, which is what kept me focused when the lessons were challenging. By this time I had a 7 year waitlist on both US coasts, opportunities to travel anywhere in the world popping up, and my newsletter list held over 10,000 subscribers. I also had a lot more followers on social media than I do now, and so much more engagement on all platforms. I offered Soul Tattoos in New York, Louisiana, Arizona, California, New Zealand, Australia, and Italy all in one year. It was all empowering and exciting, but it was also very intense.

I became overwhelmed in the leadership, responsibility, and the holding of so much fast success, not yet strong, anchored, and mature enough to stay centered in the chaos of my expansion. So I let it all go. With a burnt out/at max capacity system, I accidentally deleted my newsletter list and waitlist of thousands and thousands of people. I changed my name and my website and disappeared into the woods. At the same time we birthed our first School of the Sacred Arts offering and Rachel and I, who divinely found each other the year prior, began to generously share all the wisdom of this work of intentional intuitive tattooing with people from all over the world to alleviate some of the demand and pressure we both felt. And to be honest and quite vulnerable, I haven’t had a consistent flow of clients since then, almost 4 years ago now. In fact, it was right after this that other artists all over the world started using my trademarked modality name of Soul Tattoos for their own budding intuitive tattooing practices.

I WITNESS SO MANY TATTOO ARTISTS USING “SOUL TATTOOS” NOW THAT IT FEELS LIKE MY WORK AND WHAT I SPENT YEARS BUILDING HAS BEEN BURIED BENEATH ME BEFORE I EVEN GOT TO CELEBRATE ALL THAT HAVE WORKED HARD TO CREATE.

I’ve never spoken up about this because I am just deep in the creation of my own reality and focusing on shifting and healing these stories that create these situations over here, for this is just a reflection of something much bigger on my soul’s evolutionary journey. But I’ve more recently realized that this means I also am not standing up for myself and being a fierce mother protector for my creations when I sit back and just watch others take without reciprocity, which I believe is needed in order to create change in my reality. I have stayed quiet about this while I have gone back and forth with whether it is colonialistic or capitalistic for me to claim Soul Tattoos as my own (the same wound that often keeps me from making “too much” or giving my money and resources away out of guilt and shame for receiving). I have stayed quiet while I honor my own choice in the creation of this energy, for no one is to blame, and I am not a victim. Everything is energy and everything is happening for us to learn and grow. But what I am coming to now post Saturn Return maturity/mother glow up is if don’t fiercely claim what I have created, then I will continue to be left with nothing for myself. I will continue to be drained by all that I birth like a maiden that does not yet know her power, because I don’t hold and honor my creations long enough to be deeply nourished and fed by them. The mother archetype will always sustain while anchored in her source energy, but the maiden archetype depletes herself while hungry for love and acceptance, which is what she believes giving herself away will offer her in return.

I didn’t protect Soul Tattoos. I let internet trolls and tattoo demons tear her down while others produced and showcased a digestible popular media version of this ancient ceremonial work for their own profit, just sitting pretty and being a commodity for other people’s success and stories. I let others take the name of Soul Tattoos and offer something so completely different from what I share while benefiting from my efforts, name, and success. And allowing this to be my reality has taken a lot of my vitality from me.

I am I deep studier of energetics and patterns, how everything we choose creates our experience of life, and how we always have the power to choose differently and reweave any stories we are living. This taking our power back and actively story weaving is what takes us out of victimhood and into motherhood, as divine creators of our life. And I believe that we do this by sharing our stories and writing new ones through our voices. This is why the voice and writing are keystones in my work. Part of my expression in sharing this is to reweave a big pattern of self-sacrifice and martyrdom in my work and life. I am expressing this energy to reweave the story that says I must sacrifice everything to give to others, inhibiting me from receiving what is divinely meant for me. I take responsibility for all my stories and wounds, and this has been a core one and a common theme in  my life. Whenever I have received “too much” when others have less, no matter what area of my life this wound is reflecting in, I choose to give everything I have away to those who are hungry for more. This has drained my life force, my bank account, has led me to be homeless in my early 20s, in unnecessary debt, committed to a marriage that didn’t serve me, holding on to friendships I have had to sacrifice my full expression for, and a general a lack of reciprocity in life as I continue to show up and give. By unconsciously weaving this pattern I’ve had mass amounts of money stolen, my brand stolen, and my identity stolen. I’ve been used and disrespected for not believing I can receive for my own creative energy in life, for how many thresholds I have walked in order to birth what moves through me (these are just my chiron/south node/mars cancer 8th house lessons! This theme of creating for others and giving away my resources to others is what I am ultimately letting go of in this life, and also here to teach other women to heal, and reclaim their creative life force). Soul Tattoos has been a big reflection of this because it is such a pure reflection of me and my soul journey.

WE ARE ALL IN A SIMULATION OF OUR OWN CREATION AND THE WHOLE POINT OF BEING IN THIS EARTH SCHOOL IS CREATING FROM OUR DESIRES, CHOOSING THIS LIFE WE DREAM, HEALING SO THAT WE MAY GROW INTO OUR POTENTIAL, AND LEARNING TO LOVE OURSELVES AND OTHERS. I AM NOT HERE TO SACRIFICE AND BE YET ANOTHER DEPLETED WOMAN, NO ONE IS.

I’ve been in a deeply profound death season of growing from these limiting storylines to allow myself to receive and hold my own creations, to birth and receive my truest desires, to expand into my potential without allowing others take or giving myself, my life force, and my work away for free. It has been a season of painful deaths, but also powerful honoring and timeline shifting.

If you are a tattoo artist using “Soul Tattoos” as your own modality, I lovingly ask you to refrain from doing so and allow yourself to receive from your own soul what your uniquely powerful authentic medicine and expression is. As I now have apprentices who are near to completing their Soul Tattoo® certification training with me, this doesn’t feel fair to them and the large amount of time/money/energy investments they’ve been making in this training with me. And though I know this is not anyone’s intention and is just my perspective and truth, it also feels disrespectful for all the work I have done, and all that I have persevered through for others to even know what a Soul Tattoo® is in today’s culture. If you want to use this name as a tattoo artist, join me for mentorship (I am open to take on two more apprentices this spring, email for training details and application) and be a part of the magical lineage of women I am guiding with this work. But you also don’t need this name in order to be a ceremonial tattooist! Only if you want to learn this specific modality that I offer and go on an intimate journey with me into the realm of Soul Tattooing. You can certainly be your own version of a magical ceremonial tattoo artist within your own brand. Nothing brings me more joy and pride than watching our students powerfully and authentically step into the unique way ceremonial sacred tattooing moves through them. I love witnessing more and more women especially serve their communities with this work!

I have no claim to sacred or ceremonial tattooing as a practitioner, or, for the last 4 years, a teacher of intentional tattooing work. That is not what this share is about. I honor all the lineages of tattoo alchemy all over the world since the dawn of humanity and all the magical, beautiful practitioners stepping into this work at this time. All who have come before and all who will come after. I am only energetically reclaiming my specific “Soul Tattoo” modality/brand name as my own unique soul’s expression and legacy I weave (this is actually my legal business name, “Soul Tattoo LLC”, my legal trademark, and my baby I have grown from seed—she means so much to me, dishonoring her is actually the same as dishonoring myself as a creator. Building a business is a massive undertaking, especially a successful one. I have risked too much to just watch dozens of artists copy me everyday). I am claiming respect for the work I have done to help put this sacred tattooing work on the map and normalize it.

There is not enough reciprocity for the leaders, pioneers, and ones who go first within any industry, especially if they are women. Instead there is this the masculine dismissal and the patriarchal-feminine sisterhood wound and culture of taking and taking when one woman has what we desire, not yet believing in ourselves that we can create anything we desire ourselves. That we all have soul magic, beautifully profound artistry, and an authentic soul purpose that longs to be expressed through us.

Before School of the Sacred Arts (formally “The Art of Intuitive Tattooing” when we first launched) there were so few tattoo artists doing this type of tattooing as healing work. We now have guided hundreds of artists into this work (not to mention the thousands of clients we have guided in using this work as self-reclamation and transformation). Rachel and I have a lot to do with how many more ceremonial artists there are now than when we both started this journey many years ago, because we have created a sacred space for this community to grow and have been cultivating this work from two hemispheres, pouring our hearts into this shared intention of amplifying and normalizing sacred tattooing work of all kinds. We have made it safe for other sensitive artists to step up and claim this work themselves because we widened the path and brought this work more fully into the collective consciousness. I have never honored us and School of the Sacred Arts for this, and I want to now because neither of us had an easy journey to get here and we are generously showing others the pathway to align with their own expression of this work with more ease and freedom as a student of Sacred Tattooing. There does not have to be competition in this work. You do not have to practice like Rachel or I do. You do not have to compare yourself to any other ceremonial tattooist you see. This is very old paradigm feminine relating and so much of why we weave this work together is to showcase the sisterhood and community needed to birth the new in the world. We need each other, we need other women, not to take from one another, to compete, shame, spew jealousy, or judge. We need deeper honoring, more respect, more reciprocity, and more celebration of eachother. How we will we actually change the industry if we are continuing to perpetrate the toxic tattoo industry conditioning of separation over honoring those who are creating change and spreading more light, conscious awareness, and feminine magic within this industry that desparately needs our light?

This is important for me voice to begin to claim what I create once again, in all areas of life, but also to really honor the beautiful work Rachel and I have done together over the last four years. I have spent the last few years slowly recovering and healing from a severe over giving burnout that left me dry and placed me in a life I did not desire. To reclaim my life and reweave it I have had to more actively stop allowing with my energy and choices for others to take from me, steal from me, and disrespect me (even in the most subtle and “harmless” ways) because I am not honoring my own energy, time, hard work, and creations enough. And instead just use my voice to paint new realities. Because my voice has always been how I reclaim my own energy and take up space when I witness and feel the effects from not allowing myself to be heard and fully expressed in the world. The voice is the ultimate healer and life weaver! We MUST express to transform realities. Our voice will always be the portal, beloveds.

We all have to claim our own creative energy. Period. For far too long women have sacrificed and given all of themselves away, and for what? At the end of the day we are left with no creative energy to pursue our dreams and desires, maybe we don’t even feel desire at all! This is the foundation of the work I do and if I am not fully claiming it for myself then I am not being a very authentic leader for women to reclaim their own creative energy! I am not afraid to express the death and shadow of living a creative life, it is not all money and beauty and love and light. How boring.

This is my unique journey and how the energy is currently pulsing through me. Maybe this will inspire you to reclaim yourself from anywhere you are giving yourself away for free under the guise that you don’t deserve your dreams or an illusion that it will bring you love, acceptance, success, or whatever it is you are hungry for as a woman if you sacrifice your needs, desires, and pleasure. Because it won’t. This is most likely the biggest lie you are using the powerful portal of your voice to tell yourself, and as a result is reflected and woven all throughout your life. The only thing that will truly feed you is following your own soul’s desires and truth. Your unique calling. This is your purpose. Your destiny. Your yellow brick road to your dreams. Claim it, walk it, and be freed by the threads of your infinite heart’s natural weaving.

With love and gratitude,

Ashley