Remembering Tara
I didn't get to say goodbye, so I am writing down what I can remember before the memories dim of my dear bodhisattva friend.
om tare tuttare ture soha ~Buddhist Green Tara Mantra
In this life we are an amalgamation of stories we tell ourselves and dreams we dream quietly or out loud. Sometimes we can sense the frailty and impermanence of it all, while other times it seems life will always be as it is, now.
My friend sent me a text the other night with a link to a Facebook post. Tara’s sister had posted that Tara was going into hospice. She had hoped to go to Germany to seek out a treatment for the cancer, but time ran out.
I did not know Tara was sick, I hadn’t spoken to her in a few months. She had subscribed to my Substack a couple days earlier, so she was on my mind. She was a sweet soul always supporting her friends. I had no idea that I would never see her again.
The Buddhist Green Tara mantra “om tare tuttare ture soha” is a mantra of liberation. Tara is “the mother of all buddhas,” a Bodhisattva who relieves our suffering. Buddhism would weave its way through our friendship over the years, and it makes sense that she would share an auspicious name with a goddess and mantra that Mahayana Buddhists hold dear.
This photo is of Tara the day I met her. It was April 2nd, 2005, and she was volunteering at a table for Lantern Books at the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference in Harlem, NYC.
I was in the heydey of my veganism, I was at the conference with my camera. The event was a lot more radical in its ideology than most vegan conferences at the time. I liked that.
I was also recently single, and getting crushes on everyone. I definitely had one on Tara after meeting her. She was soft spoken, kind, friendly, and seemed a little shy.
At the time I was living in Western MA and visiting NYC whenever there was a good reason to. I visited NYC a couple months after the conference and went out to dinner with Tara. I remember being infatuated with her, and enjoying a lovely evening. She told me she was seeing someone else and so we said goodnight and promised to keep in touch.
Tara ended up marrying that someone else a year later. They had a fancy vegan wedding and I got to meet Tara’s family and friends. She was a lyricist, librettist, composer, teaching artist, and seasoned vocalist, and so there were lots of theater people there. I was her photographer.
I don’t remember exactly the timeline of our friendship, but at some point I connected Tara with the Vipassana meditation course in Shelburne, MA. I had participated in the 10-day silent meditation retreat around my birthday in 2002, and felt that it had a profound effect on my life. Tara did the course and got hooked, and it became a deep connection for us over the years.
During that time Tara had a beautiful son named Elijah. Her marriage ended and there was weird custody stuff going on that I did not understand. I don’t know enough about the circumstances to weigh in. I just know that Tara was full of love and I could feel her pain. In the end I know Tara and Elijah had a beautiful relationship, but the dad could have made it easier. Taras are known for their unconditional love, and part of that love is patience.
Tara and I remained in touch through the years. It was funny, because I ended up moving to NYC around the time that she moved to Western MA, so we lived in each other’s worlds but never in the same one at the same time.
I find myself now feeling some guilt. Tara was often the one to reach out, to let me know she was going to be in the same place I was, or that she was thinking of me. I am not the best at keeping in touch with people. The last time I saw her we met at an ice cream shop in Northampton in 2023, and enjoyed the vegan “no moo” flavors. It was a quick visit, and I got to meet Elijah as a teenager. I wish I had been the one to reach out more. How could a year go by and I not know she was sick?
Tara made much of my introducing her to Vipassana and being a vegan inspiration with all of my creative activism. She saw the good in me. Sometimes it made me feel a little uncomfortable, I don’t think that highly of myself.
So here I am, thinking about friendship and loss. Limited by time and space, and the business of our lives, it is not possible to always be there for anyone. How can we make each moment count?
I have been reading the posts on Tara’s facebook page, trying to understand the fullness of who she was. She was loved, she was talented, she was kind. She had a life that was both blessed and challenged. She had good friends.
Thank you sweet Tara for choosing me as one of them. Blessings on your journey. I believe we all dissolve and recombine, in the spirit world as in the biological one. I feel your peace and love. I will always think of you when I chant the mantra or see an image of Tara. Or when I am reminded by any number of more mundane things. I send my infinite love.
The Meaning of the Mantra “Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha”
Om is the sound of the cosmos and the cosmic consciousness — the cycle of creation, sustainment, and dissolution that repeats eternally.
Tare is Mother Tara relieving our suffering, from birth, old age, sickness, and dying.
Tuttare liberates us from eight particular dangers, each of which represents a corresponding human mental problem:
lions — pride
wild elephants — delusion and ignorance
forest fires — hatred
snakes — jealousy
robbers — wrong views, including fanatical views
prisons — greed and miserliness
floods — desire and attachment
demons — doubts caused by delusion
Ture reveals the Bodhisattva path, how to liberate ourselves and others from suffering. The Bodhisattva is one who reaches enlightenment and chooses to come back and help others. Tara had this spirit.
Soha is a “may it be so” or “fuck yes!” kind of statement.