Flame Tattoo Meaning
Light, vigilance, hope, and keeping the shadows at bay.
The Flame is the small living light that holds back the dark — the dancing fire kept burning through the night, the warmth and hope and vigilance of the lit candle, the soul's own flame guarded against the wind. To carry the Flame is to carry light, vigilance, hope, and keeping the shadows at bay — the steady flame that gives warmth and light, the kept fire of remembrance and devotion, the single small light that the darkness cannot put out.
The Flame is the small light that pushes back the darkness — a single candle lit in a dark room drives the shadows to the walls and makes a circle of light to live in. However deep the dark, the flame holds it back; however small the flame, the darkness cannot wholly overcome it. This is the flame's most ancient power: to give light in the dark, to hold the shadows at bay, to make a place of light and safety in the surrounding night.
This makes the flame the emblem of light against darkness — the small fire that keeps the dark away. It carries the deep meaning of hope and light in dark times: the truth that a single small light can hold back a great darkness, that the flame need not be large to matter, that even one small light keeps the dark from being total. The lit candle in the window, the flame against the night, is the very image of light persisting in darkness. To carry the flame is to carry this — the light that holds back the dark, the small fire that keeps the shadows at bay. The flame is the light that holds back the dark — the single small fire that drives back the shadows and keeps a place of light in the night. The universal flame is the light that holds back the dark — the small light that pushes back the darkness, a single candle lit in a dark room driving the shadows to the walls and making a circle of light to live in; however deep the dark the flame holds it back, however small the flame the darkness cannot wholly overcome it, the flame's most ancient power to give light in the dark, hold the shadows at bay, and make a place of light and safety in the surrounding night — the emblem of light against darkness, the small fire that keeps the dark away, the deep meaning of hope and light in dark times (that a single small light can hold back a great darkness, that the flame need not be large to matter, that even one small light keeps the dark from being total), the lit candle in the window the very image of light persisting in darkness.
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