Khandro Tsé-wang Gyür’méd Pema
Changeless Life-empowering Lotus
Sparkling Puddles, the seventh chapter, displays a line drawing of Khandro Tséwang Gyür’méd Pema (mKha’ ’gro tshe dBang gyur ’med pad ma), depicted as a woman in her late twenties. Khandro Tséwang Gyür’méd Pema was the youngest and fiercest of the five Adoptive Mothers of Aro Yeshé. She is iconographically depicted holding a yeti skull bowl (mi rGod thod khrag) frothing with menstrual blood and a skull-lance wound around with the flayed skins of pythons (thod mDung thangs sBrul mTshan). She wears a mélong at her heart centre.
Khandro Tséwang Gyür’méd Pema taught Aro Yeshé, A-yé Khandro, and A-shé Khandro to ride horses. When the two girls A-yé Khandro and A-shé Khandro were young she tied them onto the backs of the large dogs of the encampment and they became proficient horse-women through this training. Aro Yeshé was not keen on ‘dog riding’ as a small boy – but A-yé Khandro was so enthusiastic that she kept the practice until she was too large to ride a dog. Opportunities for horseriding were limited for Aro Yeshé, A-yé Khandro and A-shé Khandro unless they left the Aro Gar, and so Khandro Tséwang Gyür’méd Pema would take them on journeys beyond the gar whenever they wished to ride. At some distance from the gar they were able to find wild horses to ride and there were also several farmers who stabled horses for the yogis and yoginis of the Aro Gar.
