16/06/2026
An explanation no one asked for...
My facial markings are not the story of one culture, one land, or one lineage. They are a weaving. We are not just one story, one land, or one identity.
We are layered expressions of ancestry, experience, and becoming. My lineage weaves through Ireland, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, the Balkans, West Africa, Polynesia (Aotearoa Māori and Hawaii), Sephardic North African Jewish roots/ Portuguese,and family threads all through America. Beyond geography, what I feel most is this,
We carry memory not just in thought, but in body, intuition, the land, the oceans and presence.
There are moments where life feels like fragmentation… and moments where something begins to stitch itself back together again.
Not through explanation through remembering.
So I say again, my markings are a weaving,
A weaving of ancestry, experience, grief, resilience, remembrance, and the souls who walked before me. Honoring the lands, the cultures, the journey my linage walked and endured to get me here
These were done in ritual hand poke, by a soul who feels like an ancient ally of mine
The three lines beside my eyes represent the roads I have travelled. They honour the tears shed through loss, the wisdom born through healing, and the warrior within who continued to walk forward when the path felt impossible. They are reminders that grief can become strength, that true sight is born through experience, and that every scar carries a lesson. In ancient times the woman would slash these three lines to represent grief in to themselves to me, they carry the spirit of the celtic seer the one who has learned to look beyond the surface, to trust intuition, and to find meaning within life's deepest initiations and darkest pain
The markings on my chin are my roots, an ancient scripture, a silent map between worlds.they represent the ancestors who stand behind me, the travellers and seekers whose journeys made my own possible, and the unseen protection that has guided me through every chapter of my life. They remind me that I never walk alone. When I was receiving these the i felt my body shifting on a cellular level, old trauma moving thats been carried for generations, paths clearing, specific ancestors step forward.
Within these markings I honour many threads of heritage that flow through my blood and spirit Celtic lands, oceanic lineages, distant shores, wandering souls, storytellers, wisdom keepers, seers,medicine people,healers, survivors, and generations of journeys carried across time.
Not as ownership of any one tradition, but as a personal tapestry of remembrance and reverence.They are a bridge between past and future. a meeting place between the warrior, the traveller, the seer, and the woman I am still becoming.
A prayer/karakia written upon the skin. A commitment to walk with courage, integrity, compassion, and an open heart. A reminder that I am both the descendant of many journeys and the ancestor of those yet to come.
I do not bow to judgement, selective racism or those who never actually asked me their deeper meaning. Lets not mistaken I hear the unsaid words, i heard the backhanded comments. That is not mine to take on or in. You do not get to dictate to any other being what culture respresents to them, or where their linage is woven.i always respect the spaces I enter both physical and non physical. I wear all my scars, tattoos, and markings proudly they hold many storys
I wear them proud.not because they tell me who I am. Because they remind me of who I am becoming, and who I have walking along side me in the unseen realms
Elyse Clarke-Elysian
Remember why you came
And hold your chin up sis...we have things to do brother. We rise in unity
