Puja to White Tara

Offerings

 

To you, the sweetness and savour of the world

 

I offer white peaches

overbrimming with sweet liquid,

 

the sprays of white buddleia,

their scent of bread and honey.

 

I offer white crystal of rock-salt and sea-salt,

flavouring, preserving, as love does, as love.

 

To you, the newness and freshness of the world

 

I offer white snow-light on a bedroom ceiling,

the softest offering of an April snowfall.

 

I show you the blackbird with one white feather,

the strangeness of it, the startlement.

 

To you, the clarity and mystery of the world

 

I offer white stars, the hidden and the visible,

orange city nights, the woods’ deep beautiful blackness.

 

I offer the white confusion of waters,

the sea’s white horses, their wildness and danger.

 

I offer you the clarity of bone,

bone-deep truth, deep truth of my bones.

 

To you whose wisdom is the wonder of all worlds

I offer all of the world’s white wonder.

 

To you whose compassion is the wonder of all worlds

I offer all of the world’s deep wonder.

 

 

Salutation

 

With all the snowflakes in the world,

their delicacy,

I praise you.

 

With the white sheen of paper, the black shine of ink

I praise you, praise you.

 

With needle, brush, broom, keyboard, tractor and ladle,

with mop-head, trowel and jewellery-pliers

with computer and star-chart

 

I praise you, I praise you.

 

With all the snowflakes in the world,

their differences,

I praise you.

 

With the white hope of snowdrops,

white joy of magnolia

I praise you, I praise you.

 

With hand, heart, mind

I praise you, praise you, praise you.

 

 

 

Going for Refuge

 

I go for my refuge to White Tara’s deep wisdom

illumining the world like daylight, like sunlight

stroking all the world like moonlight, like starlight

touching all the world including me.

 

I go for my refuge to White Tara’s deep compassion

encircling all the world as the milk-white bark the birch-tree

enfolding all the world like swansdown, like seal-fur

embracing all the world including me.

 

I go for my refuge to White Tara’s deep energy

sustaining all the world like black bread, white butter

replenishing the world like snow-melt, like rainwater

upholding all the world including me.

 

 

Confession of Faults

 

White Tara, I don’t want to wake up.

I’m scared, I’m tired, I’m cold, I’m hungry.

I don’t want to open any of my eyes.

White Tara, I don’t want to see.

I want to sleep through the world’s deep winter.

White Tara, with your grace, your energy

of the birchwoods in spring

your voice of the rustling birch-leaves,

the many dark eyes in the white bark of your body,

help me to wake, to shed old fears and hatreds

layer by layer, as the birch-trees shed skins of bark.

 

I lay old fears, old hatreds, old cravings

like scrolls of curled birch-bark at your beautiful feet.

 

 

Rejoicing in Merits

 

I rejoice in what helps, what heals because it has to,

what comes because it’s needed, and if it doesn’t,

we make it up.

I rejoice in stories, dreams, deep images that deeply heal.

I rejoice in birch-trees that shed their outgrown skins,

in the tender patterns on their innermost bark,

fawn, saffron, purple, the softest mother-of-pearl.

I rejoice in you, rainbow mother of pearls,

pearly light that salves, that heals.

I rejoice in your eyes, that open like the dark eyes in birch-bark,

eyes of wisdom, eyes of compassion.

I rejoice in your seeing feet

that walk so tenderly, tenderly.

I rejoice in your seeing hands, which tenderly unweave tangles.

I rejoice in your great heart, that hums and sings like a spinning-top,

unceasingly, or turns like a spinning-wheel,

spinning the thread of your mantra, in pearly unbreakable moonlight.

 

 

Entreaty and Supplication

 

Life without wisdom is barren, is bitter.

White Tara, don’t desert me, don’t leave

my heart a white desert without you.

 

Life without love is barren, is bitter.

White Tara, don’t desert me, don’t leave

my heart a salt desert without you.

 

Life without you is barren, is bitter.

White Tara, don’t desert me, don’t leave

my heart a white desert without you.

 

 

Transference of Merits

 

If, like the birch-tree, I shed old constrictions,

old hatreds, old fears, old cravings, delusions,

if I grow new skin, may it shine like birch-bark in sunlight,

may it shine for others, may the Sangha shine

like birch-groves in sunlight, like birch-groves at twilight.

If I heal, love, grow, may others grow also.

If healing is possible, may it be so for all beings.