Meet Baby Atchison

We recently connected with Baby Atchison and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Baby, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

In one way or another, all my favorite liberation teachers talk about how we all have a primary purpose, and a secondary purpose. Secondary purpose changes over a lifetime, and varies with context. Primary purpose does not, but it’s maybe difficult to notice because it is so simple.

In my experience, secondary purpose kind of just happens to you. The type of brain you have, and the environment you come from. I remember always really enjoying making visual things, but I wonder how much of the pursuit of it was because people told me it was something I was good at, because I received positive reinforcement for it. I wanted to be accepted, for something, anything really. There is something like having a vision, or being overcome with the desire to pursue a question, or master a skill, that happens to people. But it does not seem to happen to everyone. There is a myth in our culture that this must happen, for one to be “of value.” This myth is built on a mistake of perception, that we are what we do, rather than just being. I don’t mind my current secondary purpose, I actually quite enjoy it. Really everything about tattooing is great fun for me. But I used to believe that it was special, that it meant something to “be a tattooer,” or to “be an artist.” But once I learned my primary purpose, which is to be completely aligned with the present moment, accepting whatever arises, secondary purpose didn’t matter to me anymore. Not like it did. Not that I don’t still enjoy tattooing, I love it. But I don’t have to be tattooing to experience enjoyment. I tattoo because that seems to be where the universe wants me right now, because that is where I am right now. I am not a master of primary purpose, but I am student of it first and foremost.

As far as I can tell, my primary purpose is the same as yours. I suppose I found it as a consequence of being tired of suffering. I started asking questions, which led to more questions, about what is really real, and by looking at things I was afraid to look at, when I found the courage.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I own a small tattoo shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico called Holy Fool Tattoo Club. For me the client experience is central. I am versatile in style, and scale, and do custom projects as well as paint my own designs and tattoo from historic flash.

My own small contribution to the tattoo lexicon is inspired by the realms of metamorphosis, neuroscience, spiritual iconography, mortality, and love. I most like to make designs that are timeless in subject matter, and that you can see from 20 feet away and 20 years later. That being said, I am most concerned with how I am *being* while I am tattooing rather than what it is I am tattooing.

I don’t personally see “originality” or
“ownership” being accurate aspects of what I do, I am inspired by the folk modality: sharing, morphing, and translating imagery. Nothing “I” make belongs to me, nor am I the origin of any of it. It feels more like light shone thru a prism, my participation is just being the prism. There is enjoyment and a curiosity and wonder about it all.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Failure/suffering, earnestness, and courage. These three seem to apply to both primary and secondary purpose, but are essential to primary purpose.

I have personally needed dysfunctional patterns, survival strategies, social roles, etc. to fail in order to drop them and find an alternative. It works in art too. Once you fail enough, if you’re lucky, you will surrender, and allow the universe to do what it’s already doing whether or not you are on board.

If there is earnestness, you can fail faster! If there is a hunger to “know” something (or unknown something!), a curiosity to really find out, even if what you find doesn’t fit with your current worldview. Zen calls this curiosity “beginners mind,” and I find it indispensable to navigating daily life effectively, just as much as a creative practice. Again, I’m not a master of this, I’m a student. And failure remains fundamental.

Courage for me has only come from doing enough empirical experiments in my own life to find out for myself what is an actual threat, what actually feels “in danger,” what, if anything, is at risk. Most of the time, what’s actually on the line are thoughts and beliefs that are blocking me from accurate perception and effective action. The more I look, the more courage I find.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

When I notice that I’m experiencing the sensation of “overwhelm,” I start by evening my breath and scanning my inner body with awareness. If for some reason I can’t completely drop whatever it is I’m doing at the moment, nothing prevents me from doing this. I can do it anytime. This grounds me back in the present moment, and creates some space between me and whatever past/future stories my left hemisphere is running. I don’t always notice right away, but when I do, I forgive myself for not noticing sooner.

Once I’ve done that, I check my environment for actual present moment threats. When there are stress chemicals coursing through your body it feels like you are in danger. So I check and see if the body is actually in danger. If it’s not (it rarely is), then I toggle between the narrative in my head that is causing the discomfort, and the actual present moment experience, so that I can see the difference. Sometimes in the present there is physical pain, like when you are really sick, or a challenging situation, like your car is broken down on the side of the highway. But I find that the narrative running about the situation is always worse than what’s actually happening, and it isn’t helpful.

Often I can find some old pain that is linked to the experience of feeling “overwhelmed.” When I find it, I allow it, and let it out, usually by crying. It’s one of the most effective ways to let trapped energy out of your body.

Then when there’s more space from them, I look at the specific stories that are running and adding to the sensation of “overwhelm.” I examine what beliefs or worldview they are built on, and I investigate what they bring to my life and how they are serving me. I’m not always perfect at it, but this is basically my practice.

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