This image of Green Tara is part of a collection of around 50 paintings that came to me as a download between 2015-2017. My process is quite ritualistic and involves coming into deep presence whilst putting down a ground of colour and texture then allowing the unfolding of what needs to come into being.
Sometimes I get a strong, nagging vision in my mind that won’t go away until I give it form. This Green Tara came in one of these visions and as I painted certain features unfolded, like the representation of the chakras which is quite unusual and not seen in more traditional iconography.
Recently I met Tallulah Rendall a songstress who is a QiGong practitioner and also leads creative workshops. She was about to release her rendition of the Green Tara Mantra and asked if she could use my image to accompany her track. I love how Tallulah’s method of song writing starts with coming into a place of presence through Qi Gong. What amuses me is that my method of coming into presence when I paint is to sing devotional music!! I chanted and played recordings of the Green Tara mantra when I was painting her! It feels to me that Tallulah’s rendition of her mantra and this image touches people, because by being in a state of presence, we’ve allowed her essence to flow into being.
My journey with Green Tara started in 1993 when a friend told me that she prayed to her when she was struggling. At the time I was not into ‘religion’ and it wasn’t until 1999 that I was initiated into her practice by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. In Tibetan Buddhism she is the great compassionate mother, seen as the one who saves, who ferries you across turbulent currents to the other shore. Her name means ‘Star’, like a guiding star, and she is said to be swift as the wind in answering the call of those in need.
In 2002 I ended up in hospital and as I lay one night groaning with acute pain after surgery, I began to chant the Green Tara mantra. A sense of peace and calm enveloped me, like I had been wrapped in a blanket of Grace.
Fast forward to 2020 and Covid hit, all my income dried up overnight and without doubt it was the sale of prints of Green Tara that saved me!
This collaboration feels like a perfect match, a blessing and a gift.
It’s inspired me to create this new Green Tara Mantra Poster to celebrate the release of Tallulah’s single.
May Green Tara ferry us all across these turbulent times to a more loving and peaceful future.
✨Oṃ Tāra Tuttāre Ture Svāhā ✨
✨This Green Tara Mantra Art Poster is now available in my Etsy Shop✨See links below✨
Unframed: https://soulartalchemist.etsy.com/listing/1787439933
Framed: https://soulartalchemist.etsy.com/listing/1773250908
You can find Tallulah Rendall’s Green Tara Mantra Single here
.
.