Tara & Gaia Go Hand-in-Hand

Mama Gaia! Greek goddess of Earth! Of goodness! Of nature’s glory! Inherent in Boulder’s vocabulary is an understanding that anybody who refers to “Mother,” or “Mama,” is very well referring to Nature, or Gaia. How telling it is to live and embrace ourselves in a place where our blood-mothers are not the only nurturers here. Where do we think they learned from!

Julie Tara, glowing, as always (via Facebook)

Julie Tara, spiritual soul, musician, dancer, mother, and poet, hosted a Songs of Gaia coming out party to celebrate her newest book premiere, on Wednesday, January 20 at the Boulder Bookstore. Realizing how “extremely vulnerable it is to share in this world,” Tara embodied her childhood challenges and sought refuge in nature to produce a book of poetry she claims to be one that insisted on “coming through her” (Tara). So often aspiring writers force and tamper with the patient process of writing, one Tara claims took her seven years for this collection, and her “listener” approach is nothing short of brave.

As a child, Tara’s solution to all adversity was to leave the house and climb trees. In doing so, she was challenged by Mama to listen deeper into herself. Her spiritual communication began at age twelve, proving to be a long and worth-while journey as she stands here today spreading love and light unto all with her impactful words, holding weight and wit abounds. Tara encapsulates the rhythm of writing through her knowledge and experience of dancing and musicianship, but also combines healing properties and intentions through the way she conveys her work. For example, Tara explains how her work is like that of an acupuncturist. In visiting such a healer, they take a surface pulse and a deeper pulse. Tara claims that for her, “This is that.” There is a reciprocal relationship between writing and nature, for Tara, in the way nature brought her to writing, but that writing also “brought me to have an intimate connection with nature” (Tara).

Julie Tara understands the impact of transformative experiences and embraced her coming out poetry party as just that. She reflects, “We are all having a transformative experience. When we bring things to word, we create.” Co-creation is often talked about in Boulder as multiple people or organizations working together to produce a greater whole, but Tara takes the definition to another realm. She understands that co-creation is not limited to man, but that listening to what wants to be written is her way of co-creating with nature and spirit. In lieu of her approach, her book, Songs of Gaia, is divided into three parts: “I). Nature II). Humanity III). Spirit.” In reading her book, there is space to toy with why the sections are divided specifically in that order; it can’t be read without deeper internal reflection.

Tara getting ready to sign books after her reading (via Facebook)

The most impactful statement of the night was expressed as Tara and her audience grew increasingly more intimate and trusting of one another. She admitted boldly, “I always had a great connection with Mother because I needed a mother” (Tara). Now being a mother herself, with her children in the audience, there was no lack of audible responses to Tara’s reading, before, during, and after each poem. While Tara credits her higher powers to be her muse, she is the clear conduit for getting what needs to be said down on paper.

Tara’s process is nothing less than admirable; now she has a tangible gift to hold on to and share with others to reflect her courage. The book explores dynamics to “Self,” to “Other,” as Mother, as Daughter, as Human, as non-human; thank goodness these shadow-side topics are beginning to shed their light. For anyone who has ever lacked a voice, felt invisible, or longed for something greater, start here. In searching for her voice, Tara found the Divine Feminine’s. She states, “If we can own our voice, in whatever way we do, we can make for a better world.” Tara’s love is magnetic and from observing her audience, magic. The way these words need to be said and the way they need to be heard is exactly why we’re here.