The Heart of the Goddess
Kali Ma, Mother Kali, give me your courage that I may face my fears. Let me name them; let me offer them to you. Kali Ma, I offer you my pettiness, I offer you my sorrow. Great Mother, consume them, cut through them, burn them up. Release me from the illusions of separation and ego, free me from the bonds of attachment. Give me the power to transform my anger and frustration into clear and powerful action, that I may create healing change in myself and the world.
Green Gulch Green Tara
Re-imaging traditional Goddesses is an important part of creating a Goddess culture that speaks to our times. This lovely silkscreen print is contemporary artist Mayumi Oda’s vision of the Tibetan Buddhist Goddess Green Tara. Her name comes from the Zen center called Green Gulch Farm in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose garden is renowned for its beautiful vegetables and flowers. As Lady of the Plants and Animals, Tara has often been depicted in a special forest; she is more closely linked with the outdoors and Nature than any other Buddhist deity except Guanyin.
In a celebration of the sacred life-bestowing powers of plants, Green Gulch Green Tara sits on a huge cabbage throne while sweet peas dance around her. At one with the cycles of Nature, she is in the traditional pose of a bodhisattva about to rise to help those in need. Her right hand gives blessings and her left holds a sweet pea vine. At her feet are the three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha (the awakened mind), dharma (the teachings) and sangha (the community).
As a bodhisattva, Tara is a fully awakened being who, rather than dissolve into bliss, has chosen to reincarnate and work for the liberation of all beings. Inspired by a love of Nature and all her creatures, many of us have taken this bodhisattva vow, whether formally or informally, consciously or unconsciously. In our time, however, the immediate concern is with survival as well as enlightenment. When we remember that we are part of the web of life, we realize that the condition of every living being affects us. This awakening is the essence of true spirituality and a guarantee of political and social consciousness. To the degree that we recognize and feel, on a visceral level, the joyful truth of our interconnectedness, we commit ourselves to personal and global salvation.
Green Gulch Green Tara’s eroticism is an important aspect of her bodhisattva hood: The sweet pea represents the yoni, and she is surrounded by the sensual abundance of Nature. One of Tara’s human incarnations was as the Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal, who helped many people to full enlightenment through sacred sexual union with her. — Homage to Tara, our mother: great compassion!
Homage to Tara, our mother: a thousand hands, a thousand eyes!
Homage to Tara, our mother: queen of physicians!
Homage to Tara, our mother: conquering disease like medicine!
Homage to Tara, our mother: knowing the means of compassion!
Homage to Tara, our mother: a foundation like the Earth!
Homage to Tara, our mother: cooling like water!
Homage to Tara, our mother: ripening like fire!
Homage to Tara, our mother: spreading like wind!
Homage to Tara, our mother: pervading like space!
—Traditional Tibetan Prayer
About the Author
Hallie Iglehart Austen grew up on a farm and has lived close to the earth most of her life. After graduating from Brown University, she drove from England to Nepal and back again over the course of a year. This journey is described in her first book Womanspirit (HarperCollins, 1983). Hallie is the founder of All One Ocean: Educating Our Communities; Protecting Our Ocean. Hallie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and offers classes and private consultations on dream work, life transition rituals, and Wisdom Healing Qigong.
Visit Hallie online at HeartGoddess.net.
Hallie’s headshot is Copyrighted to: Irene Young
