33 Forms of Tara, et alia

October's blog was written in a breathless rush, needs some re-modeling.  But I don't want you to miss the sweet & chewy center of it.

Voilá:  my recent --as of October, 2018-- discovery that Green Tara (Japanese 'Kannon,') takes 33 forms.  Serendipity? or just confirmation of the number  placed in my ear while I was retreating in the mountains of Epirus?

Anyway, here is the citation:

"The Kannon can appear in many different forms to save people according to their time and place. The Avalokitesvara Sutra mentions 33 specific forms. Says Shaku Soen (deceased), lord abbot of Engakuji Temple in Japan: "She will be a philosopher, merchant, man of letters, person of low birth, or anything as required by the occasion, while her sole aim is to deliver all beings without exception from ignorance and suffering."   BuddhistArtwork.com

Green Tara adorned with Painted Agate rosary.

In Other Nows...

The 33 Names of Goddess is about to emerge in booklet form.  I will be working with another writer early next year to expand and refine the text, but right now we (read: y'all) need some easy reference to the wee-bitty practice and an explanation of its provenance.

Workshops are now Conversations. I have decided to dismantle the workshop form and put something simpler in its place.  Given the fluidity of my habitat for the next few months, these Conversations will be fairly spontaneous; you may get an invitation to a coffeehouse or park bench or fireplace.  (Oh, if you would like an invitation, please join the EE Mailing List.)

We'll go over the basics and gossip about how the Practice may or may not be working.   Bring your garland ~ I'll bring others if you want to swap.   Easy-peasy. And free.

We did publish an eBay page to sell a) the Garland, b) the Garland and Luminaria, and c) the Garland, Luminaria and Booklette in sets. Via eBay, the memory aids are anchored to the Garland.  But for those who have taken the workshop and/or already have the Garland, the Booklet and Kundaluminaria are available ($11 each) on the password-protected pages of this website.  You should have the  password; if not, write to me...!

33 around the Web

In a few days I will relaunch the "33 Names of Goddess" project and put up revised webpages.  For three whole minutes I thought to just focus on the aesthetics of the Garlands.   You know, jewelry for jewelry's sake? 

But 33: I have a reason for that number, and it serves as a gentle punchline to my favorite goddess-joke. I don't want to deprive you of that pleasure just yet, so as a distraction I did a Google search on the number 33. 

Whew!

PREAMBLE:   This lovely being came to my altar in 2004, a gift from the magnificent Laurie Werth. Though my ride-or-die is Vajrayogini, the Buddha Arya Tara (Quan Yin, Kannon) has been part of my practice set since about 1999.


Shown below is an Arya (Green) Tara / Quan Yin tapestry given to me a few years ago by the thanatologist Anya Foos-Graber.  It was adorning the wall of our 2013 writing loft, flanked by two vajradakinis painted by my principle Consort.  Later, it provided my only warm garment when I was writing in the mountains in Cyprus (2014-15); and in the Spring of 2015 it wrapped a precious form, and was consigned to the crematory.   (My life is nothing if not a river of hidden symmetries.)

    

This is relevant because. . .? 

My "33" Google expedition found this little gem:

"In Buddhism, Kuan Yin [Green Tara] is a goddess and a bodhisattva. She is sacred in both Chinese and Japanese Buddhism [not to mention Indo-Tibetan], a goddess of compassion and fertility. Like Mary in the Christian tradition, she is said to aid souls to get to nirvana. She is often depicted holding a child, very much like depictions of Mary and the baby Jesus. She assumes 33 appearances. [emphasis added!] According to the Lotus Sutra she undergoes 33 transformations to help attain salvation. In Japan she is [K]annon and worshippers may take the 'Pilgrimage to the 33 Holy Places of Kannon.'" 

 Atlantis Rising Magazine (March/April, 2015) 

I knew some of this, but the '33 transformations' was news to me!  It looks like a couple of decades of Tara mantra has ferried us to the right number of Goddess(es) - and helps ground the fertile paradox of Theá Myrianomos -- one and many, once and always (oh! as well as neither and never).

See the aretalogy The Thunder, Perfect Mind for details...

***
**

*

Expansive Contractions

Spacewarden that I am, this website is now being repurposed to hold several other layers of my (literary) existence.

Back in 2017 --at the intersection of my travel-self and a new Romanian server-- my writing archive Humandala blew up.  The new provider apparently had been warning me for a month that the site would be 86ed at the end of February.  But February had been spent moving friends' furniture cross-country, and prepping for the first Peripateo.  I had just gotten back to Greece, was trying to suss out my path through the sanctuaries when I logged into Humandala.org -- only to find all eleven years of it reduced to scraps on the WayBackMachine. 

I've had better days. . .

Babies, stop right now and back up your websites.  
If you are working on a site (as I was) that has propriety rights to the formatting software (they did), change it now.

You done?  Good.

Blogger saves everything, so the new writing archive will be plugged in at For Writing Out Loud, with a link through the Eleusian Epiphanies.

•••••••••

Otherwise, over the next three months I have decided to focus on creating the sadhanas/practices for the Eλeuσian Eπiφaνies, and to launch them next year.   I've written out the 33 Names of Goddess -- rewritten after running the workshops and giving private introductions several times.  These won't be 'final' versions of the sadhanas, but the springboard for their public discussion.  Nose around the Inklings page (currently being rewritten) for their evolution.

Late in 2014 --purely by happenstance-- I found myself on a Mediterranean mountainside for four months.  In this (relatively) pristine environment all symptoms of my autoimmune disorder dissipated. When I returned to the States, the symptoms returned within a couple of months.  When they disappeared again in 2015, then 2016 and 2017-18, it became clear that my work can only go forward in a place where capitalism hasn't completely overwhelmed the ecosystem.  Where we  have a fighting chance of keeping the environment balanced through timely, intelligent political action.  Greece, France, Spain pretty well fit the description.

(And maybe Cyprus, if Erdogan can be persuaded that it is in his best interests to play smart in the area.   Everyone (EVERYone) sooner-or-later gets sick of him/herself, of the tooºwellºknown self-story, and I believe there is a quasar moment that rotates through all of us - one that says:  soooo much hating today? Aren't you bored??  Here, try this idea of yourself:  Peacemonger.   See? Better?  Do that...  Even for dictators.  Maybe, especially for dictators. )

The Ξ|Ξ will eventually organize the Sadhanas|Practices and their supporting products ~ but for now it is where I will meditate on their creation, try out versions, invite people to come talk with me.  Workshops? Workshops?? Maybe, but I am really really really rethinking the need for even 'mini'mass events... Maybe we just speak in sotto voce -- with one another, softly, from now on.

Alilat (and Internet) Willing. . .
***
**
*