*for mothers + all others

 

Prelude to a Blog: Becoming Dhamma Mama

I was (and continue to be) a reluctant social media player — signing on was an afterthought; engaging my friends online instead of face-to-face or by phone felt impersonal; and posting my personal business was not my style.

enter motherhood & a smartphone

Along the way, “dhamma mama” became my signature at the end of posts about motherhood as well as movement, mindfulness and meditation — the heart and foundation of my yoga teaching practice, 3 jewels yoga.

When my then yoga mentor-teacher suggested Twitter (pause. breathe. really?! one more account? one more password?) as another space for the emerging voice of @DhammaMama, I decided to use those 140 characters to gauge how consistent and committed I could be to this process of making my private musings so…public.

dhamma mama became a platform for my ever-evolving, aspiring self who is teaching, learning, understanding and celebrating my experiences as a parent, partner, teacher and spiritual practitioner.

spreading the love far and wide…

Mitigating the inevitable madness of motherhood with its unmistakable magic through the wondrous practice of mindfulness, I envisioned dhamma for mama* to be a treasured space for mothers AND *all others who love, nurture, empower, educate, advocate for and are inspired by children.

elsewhere (professional me)

Tara Scott-Miller (she/her) is an ancestor-guided and liberation-minded radical Black unschooling mama to a 10-year old ray of light. An alum of New York University, Tara explored the intersections of race, gender, culture, media and psychology during her undergraduate studies and later received her M.A. from Tisch School of the Arts.

But Spirit is her first language.

For the past 14 years, Tara has followed the deep call to bridge her holy curiosity in cognition and behavior to the spiritual foundations of mindfulness — immersing herself in the study and practice of collective healing. She is an experienced meditation teacher, founder of a contemplative community, and a curator of transformative, sacred spaces dedicated to justice, liberation and healing practices — whether in private rituals, spiritual direction sessions, or communal gatherings.

Discovering an organic alignment between her facilitation of spiritual development and the frameworks of Healing Justice + Transformative Justice, Tara has designed numerous workshops on embodied awareness practices; hosted community-based dialogues for MSU’s Project 60/50; presented healing justice sessions at the Allied Media Conference; launched her healing justice project, radical bodhicitta, and led Quaker and Buddhist communities through this intensive inquiry-and-discernment model; co-facilitated workshops on health equity and social justice for a local public health organization; helped to seed the first Transformative Justice cohort in her community; and has continued to develop her knowledge, capacity and skills in service of intersectional justice and abolitionist teaching.

In September 2019, when Tara was recruited to join The Firecracker Foundation as the Program Director for Sisters In Strength, she immediately recognized the opportunity as an expansion of her vocation and an extension of her soul’s call to cultivate legacy work. Affectionately known to her colleagues as the “Kween of Pump Da Breaks” (and most likely to be heard asking, “Have you factored in time to transition + rest?“), Tara brings her spirit of “radical bodhicitta” to the organizational mission of building a community invested in the holistic healing of children and teens who are survivors of sexual trauma and gender-based violence(s). In September 2020, she accepted a new role as one of the Co-Directors charged with stewarding the mission and legacy of this beloved survivor-led and healing-centered community-based organization.