Tara Everywhere

Friday I listened to the voice thread on Tara. I was distracted when I listened. Checking emails and then cleaning the kitchen.  I knew I would get back to it and listen to it atleast one or two more times with full attention.  But I couldn't get myself together on Friday.

That evening, I was a co-host at my yoga studio's New Moon Goddess Circle.  Around 10pm, my partner in the studio, Jennifer pulled out a deck of tarot cards and started doing goddess readings.  I was busy helping people with the group Yantra we were creating. Around 11pm Jennifer asked me, "Nya, do you want a goddess reading."  I said yes even though I really just wanted to clean up the art supplies and go to bed.  The card I picked was white Tara.  The card described White Tārā something like this she is known for compassion, long life, healing and serenity; also known as The Wish-fulfilling Wheel.  I thought. . . hmmm, interesting.  I was learning about Tara today.  But Tara wasn't finsihed with me.

I woke up tired from an incredibly long week on Saturday morning and opened my emails and I had an interesting one from Trudy Goodman at Insight LA

It read
"In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Tara is the embodiment of our innate great capacity for compassion. She is lovely, sitting gracefully in her meditation with one leg down, ready to stand and help any suffering heart calling out to her. Tara extends a limitless invitation to us to come experience her ease and joy, right in the midst of life’s challenges.

Mindfulness, too, is a limitless invitation. Wherever you are in your busy life, meditation invites you in — maybe for a few minutes, a few breaths or a pause to look at the sky. Like Tara, InsightLA invites you to experience this in your own life. You can learn how to sit still, and to take the insights that arise from your moments of stillness and embody them in your life in a good way.

Here is part of a song to silence by the great poet Pablo Neruda, called I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL:
I like for you to be still,
…Let me come to be still in your silence.
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Sometimes I long to slide into silence like slipping into the ocean. When we’re moving fast, it can feel hard to find any quiet inside; things are always changing, we feel up and then down, and then up again. And yet, like the stars in daylight, the stillness is always here, even when we don’t feel connected to it at all.
My deep wish for all of us is to have the courage to trust the silence. In moments of stillness so much can open to us – intuition, intimacy, a vast intelligence, the infinite tenderness of the universe. May we be fully present for our life and the life beckoning all around us, extending a limitless invitation -- to show up, to help out, to listen and be still.
Love,
Trudy
I looked up the poem and for me it's better in it's entirety. He mentions the star which is Tara.  There is also a lot of butterfly imagery which is related to the sacred feminine and the goddess.

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul

You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would’ve died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I’m happy;
Happy that it’s not true

Anyway that's my experience with Tara.  Maybe not so much the Shakta Tara more the Buddhist one.

I realizing I have been going through some difficult things and I think Tara is showing up to tell me to have some self-compassion and guide me out of that difficult messy phase into a new phase of my life. The guiding star.