Tara's association with the moon links Her back to the earliest human consciousness of the relationship of the heavens to our lives (through women's menstrual cycles). This lunar consciousness played a role, over time, in our first conceptualizations of deity, of a heavenly Mother. Tara is almost always pictured holding the uptala lotus (blue). One of many varieties of lotus, the uptala only blooms at night and is associated with the moon. Often, Tara is depicted sitting on a moon disc and sometimes wearing a crescent moon. In Her several manifestations as White Tara, She is said to be the color of the harvest moon, and in Tantric Buddhism, the moon is associated with wisdom, one of Her earliest names.

"The Music of the stars is mine, and the melody o'the moon.
Oh do you not hear them singing to you in the silence of the night?" (Sangharakshita)

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