Virtual Book Launch Welcomes TARA into the World!
Dear Friends,
Our book launch, which took place April 28th, was a wonderful ceremony by all rights!
You might ask: Ceremony? After the event was over, my anxiety about the virtual technology, the Zoom Webinar format, of the launch subsided. (Many thanks to Matt Arion of Apple Buddy fame for helping us set that up. I think I might start calling him Apple Buddha!)
In the relaxed, open space of the following week-end, I was able to take in what had been created by my friends and supporters. I realized that our efforts had all the makings of an initiation ceremony. It takes a loving community to plan, carry out, and celebrate the completion of a ceremony. Usually, people from most aspects of the initiate’s life either plan it or attend the event as witnesses.
Mamie Potter, from Quail Ridge books, Chalice Overy from Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, and Jeanette Stokes, longtime friend, supporter, and director of RCWMS, the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South, planned the event with me, representing themselves and their various institutions that have helped the Tara work be what it is today. While not literal elders in age, they functioned as elders for me because of who they are and their own work in the world.
There were people on the webinar from almost every era of my life. There were people from high school, college, and all the different religious institutions with which I’m affiliated, including our different Tara meditation groups. Kit Durgin from California was there. She attended the Lakota immersion experience that was one of the early interconnecting pieces that led me to Tara. Sabine Kalff, one of my dearest Tara friends and colleagues in the Tara sanghas in Switzerland, stayed up until 1am her time to join us. There were people from my professional circles, writing circles, my exercise buddies, and longtime friends!
During and after the event, so many of you reached out to celebrate the culmination of the work, either in person or, again, virtually. My gratitude for all this loving support is boundless. And once again, I’m deeply aware of the teaching of interdependence. Without all of you loving, wonderful, and talented people, Tara: the Liberating Power of the Female Buddha, would not have made it from the realm of the imaginal to the realm of form! And I certainly wouldn’t be here writing about it!
So, now the old stage of writing, planning, and publishing has come to an end. The new stage of accompanying this incarnation of Tara into the world, in all her magnificent forms, begins. I have a lot of work to do to enter this new stage. Tara, as we all know, transcends all forms and moves easily between all realms. I’m sure I’ll be talking to her more than ever, asking for her help every step of the way!
I also know I’ll be relying on members of the ever-expanding Tara community to help co-create ways of sharing Tara’s loving, wise, and compassionate realms with others. I look forward to meeting you on the path!
The recording of the book launch is available on the Sounds True YouTube channel, for those of you who missed it:
I started the recording early. You can jump ahead to the start of the event at 1:14, or enjoy a few awkward moments of us all getting ready!
