It was a few months ago now (actually, now that I think about it, it was in JANUARY!) and I was having an absolutely, positively, miserable day. The gist of it actually escapes me now — so no one actually died — but it was a bloody awful day. I was supposed to go to a day of workshops at Tuckers and I got as far as Pickering and was actually going to turn around and go back home. My gut was in an uproar and in spite of the fact that I was heading to Tuckers to meet with friends, I felt friendless and forlorn.
I know, I know, someone as lucky as me is not SUPPOSED to get into these states but that black dog knows no boundaries. Anyway, out of the blue I get a picture of this in my messages … from a friend asking if I’d like it.
What a shock! Of course I said I’d love to have it. It’s a Green Tara Rupa (statue) about 12 inches tall, and the thing about this particular Tara is you can see that her right foot is coming forward — she’s not in a meditative position, her hands are in a teaching position, but she’s ready to jump off the cushion and rescue (or help) people to overcome whatever is holding them back. Whew. How timely was that?
THEN the CBC came on, with the Debaters followed by a special one hour program of Canadian comedy (which doesn’t generally happen at lunch time!). By the time I got to Tuckers in North York I had to stay in the car to listen to the end and recover (because I was almost pissin’ myself laughing) and I missed the first part of the session, so I had to go straight to lunch (at a fine Sushi restaurant with lots of veggie options). It was tough …
To make things even more interesting I was gifted with this for my birthday last month by another dear friend (who didn’t know about the other Rupa):
This is a Tapiritsa Rupa, a lineage holder in the Bon Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism — and would be the equivalent to Green Tara in male form.
How cool is that? Now they get to reside side by side —
What brought this all to mind is that I was visiting another good friend (I really am not friendless or forlorn), and she was being tagged by that same black dog. I could feel it sort of emanating from her, and I thought about her quite a bit, wondering if there was anything I could do to help her scoot it out the back door, so to speak. (I think that no matter how far along we are on whtever path we’ve chosen there are going to be days like this that make you appreciate the good ones.) Sure enough, a good conversation and a great day trip loosened the grip of the hairy beast (not to disparage black dogs, love them in whatever color!).
You see I don’t remember what caused my dark day in January. What I do remember is the random act of kindness that changed it so quickly. In fact, I may never forget it.
So a BIG shout out of gratitude to my friends. When I grow up I want to be just like you!
Much love,
Susan McD
