TARA THE LIBERATOR

       As usual, the traffic was horrifically heavy. Tara stood at the corner, her colourless hemp sac draped across her chest, as cars, vans, trucks, SUV after SUV whizzed by her at alarming rates. She was less surprised at their speed than their intensity of movement. They didn't seem real; they weren't real! Her yoga classes were supposed to make Tara calmer, more efficient in dealing with the fast paced world - the rat race as they called it - that surrounded her, invaded her space, her energy field. At the moment, Tara felt anything but energetic as the monstrous vehicles breezed past her, racing along a path she wished to cross. Moments before, she had been in her yoga class, learning the latest meditation techniques. Tantra Yoga. She had been so relaxed, so at peace with her surroundings. How could she not feel peaceful with the incense burning; sounds of waves crashing against the shore; lighting low; slow and rhythmic breathing of her fellow meditators; the odd "om" coming from the young man next to her, perhaps trying to impress her with his mantra. The only thing that she found to be un-relaxing in the class were the smells. Since more and more men were joining (and more and more straight men) the aromas were becoming more and more potent. But she could always meditate those away. Just as she could meditate away the potential come-ons by the straight men. Like the guy who always sat next to her on his Persian-style mat. Very impressive, she thought to herself sarcastically when she saw it for the first time. He seemed so proud of it, as if it would make him a better meditator. Perhaps he thought it would send him up higher than the rest. Tara found him to be a weasly guy. Greasy. When he'd unroll his mat - more of a mat-rug - he would always glance over at Tara and wink. She hated winkers. She had dated a winker once. It did not end well. For the most part, the men in her class were harmless, more like women in a lot of ways than men. Even the way they hit on her. She felt as though a girlfriend were asking her out for coffee or to go shopping. The Yogi, Trevor, would give the evil eye to the guys who would try to cozy up to her during their sessions as well as one particular woman who was more aggressive than the men - and more masculine in a lot of ways. Still, the yoga classes relaxed her. She looked forward to that special hour twice a week. It was the leaving part that was the hardest. It was the "getting to" that was the most unnerving - the awful waiting time before going somewhere quiet and peaceful so she could finally relax, even if it were only for an hour. One glorious hour.
        Tara had never gotten the hang of being relaxed away from her yoga sessions. The idea of meditating was to be relaxed and at peace with oneself when one was away from it as well. It was supposed to be a long term deal. But, to her, it felt more like a drug. When she meditated, she was on top of the world, as high as a kite. But the crash wasn't far off. Standing on the corner of Winslow and Arizona Avenue , watching the cars whizz by, waiting for her turn to cross, she could feel her buzz coming to an end. She was about to crash. Just like the other drugs, the amazing feeling she had had was too good to last. The good energy was escaping with every annoying sound, as every automobile zoomed by her, deflating her like a used tire. She felt very tired. At least she should sleep well tonight. But even sleep wasn't a guarantee. She had never been a good, sound sleeper.
        Hoping that at least one vehicle would come to a full stop, she tempted her fate. With one foot in the busy street and the other on the sidewalk, she watched as the dark, oversized vehicles hesitated at the four corners, stopping and starting in sudden, jerky motions. She couldn't see inside. She'd been told to make eye contact with the drivers but this was impossible through their tinted glass. Not wanting to chance a potential accident, a crash that might involve her - either directly or indirectly - Tara retreated her left running-shoed foot from the street and placed it back with the right one. Both feet safely on the sidewalk again, the monstrous vehicles continued along their chosen paths. They were extremely eager, but they seemed happy. Nothing could hold them back now. They spoke to one another in that honking language, like gaggles of ambiguous geese. The flow was restored, their flight free, the runway open for take-off.
        Tara , her leafy-green eyes staring up into the ocean-like sky, stood motionless, imagining her own flight. She was free to not fight. She fought with herself instead. She imagined the pleasant smells in her yoga class - the incense mixing with the gentle female sweat, the male pheromones eventually invading. She thought of her friend, Chastity and how she had told her that she needed to relax, to find herself, that men were basically pigs, the world too full of them, of it, all of it. She needed to find the mother of liberation. It lay within our inner qualities, in emptiness, in emptying what was garbage - like the disastrous men in Tara's life who were not worthy of such a pure soul. Rid the body of waste, wasteful thoughts and images, then, and only then, could we deal with and understand the outer. Tara could not understand anything. She wished she had six arms with six hands and forty-eight fingers . . . twelve thumbs. She wished she had seven eyes: two normal ones, one in her forehead, two in her original palms and two on the soles of her feet. There, where she presently stood on the corner of Winslow and Arizona , she would unroll her simple blue mat and sit in the Lotus position. No, better yet, she would unroll her mat in the middle of the street, directly in the intersection which divided the traffic four ways. With six arms, she could put a stop to each vehicle at each section, her hands held up like a traffic cop. She would still have two remaining arms, two hands, eight fingers and two thumbs. These would be her original arms, hands, fingers and thumbs. They would contain the two eyes inside her palms. They would move about like a serpent. Their motion would be deliberate, slow, hypnotic. She would put the monstrous vehicles in a trance. They would lie down in the street, tumbling down hard, yet comfortably, like lions in the savannah. They would each let out one final roar as they fell. It would put an end to the honking; the runway would be closed down. They would see with their headlights just as Tara would see through her palms, her soles. The fallen would witness the eye in her forehead and the wisdom within as they travelled deeper and deeper. Their headlights on, illuminated in the bright sun, they would journey deeper than they had ever thought possible. Tara would feel them inside her. It was the life force she was seeking. Serenity at long last. Compassion reigned. The healing had begun. Long life lay straight ahead. All the components were in their proper place. A wishfulfilling wheel which went around and around, never stopping. As the traffic circled within their minds, there was no longer any need to take a direct route or a linear path. Travelling around and around, everyone was soothed. They went nowhere; they went everywhere; they went together. Tara suddenly felt powerful. She felt magnetized. She felt wealthy and prosperous. She felt transmuted of anger. It was enlightenment which now coursed through her veins. She was colouful: green, red, black, yellow, blue and most of all, white. She had put a halt to the world. Nothingness collided with somethingness. Everything remained. Nothing was left. It was the beginning. It had all ended.
        Tara waved her two original arms; she put up her hands, her palms facing the shadowy vehicles on either side of her, eight fingers, two thumbs pointing up into the ocean-like sky on a beautiful summer day in the city, the light reflecting off the tall glass buildings, blinding anyone who looked in the wrong direction. Tara gazed upward. It was the wrong direction. At the last possible second she had had a change of heart. It was possibly too late for changes of heart. She couldn't see their eyes as they closed in on her. The lions shut them at the last possible moment of their kill. Their focus was so great that sight was no longer needed. Out in the middle of the savannah, in a Tantric moment, Tara felt nothing, she saw nothing. A moment of regret washed over her as the lions took her from the sides where she did not have her original arms up, her eyeball palms facing away from her attackers, her eight fingers and two thumbs not in their direction. But, at the precise moment of contact, Tara suddenly regained some feeling. She felt all the wisdom which her Yogi had taught her; she felt the quality of life within which Chastity had preached to her; she felt the crushing blow, the outer force which connected to her inner force - she felt she finally understood the secret teachings, the emptiness, the wholesomeness, the deity which lay within. It all lay in a field in the desert, a savannah, hungry lions surrounding, circling her, dying to feed, eager to set her free.