Guest post: A little bread, cheese and tulips for the soul
Poem of the Month Club: Tulips for the Soul of It
This guest blog is from Karen (Krayna) Castelbaum. Krayna is a psychotherapist, psycho-dramatist ,spiritual director, dream diva, poet, artist, and all-round mensch. Plus, she’s a lot of fun to hang with! She’s who influenced me, unduly, to go blonde, and we jumped into Blonde-World together. Our friendship began in delight and with any luck, will end in wisdom. --Beth, VTH Host
Poem of the Month
It all started one otherwise unremarkable summer evening, in the year 2006. I was outside in my neighbor Denny’s front yard, here in Bend, Oregon. Somehow, oh marvelous event, the conversation turned to poetry. He made reference to a woman he’d read about who put anti-war poems in a box in her front yard after the war in Iraq began, and I said: “Hey! That’s a great idea!” He said he didn’t have time to make such a thing happen, but I did. So, I got a realtor-type flyer box and stuck it in the front yard, and began to choose a poem every month, which I copied and put in the box. I affixed a wee sign saying “Poem of the Month – Please take one!” I haven’t missed a month since I started in October 2006.
My hopes began simply enough - to offer something that “begins in delight and ends in wisdom” (thanks to Robert Frost for this lovely little phrase), to passersby on the street. My other heretofore secret hope has been that this may lead to the formation of a “Department of Poetry”, sister of the “Department of Peace”, which together, might replace the Department of War. And that little flyer boxes will begin sprouting up all over Bend, then to towns across the country. This “Insurgency of Delight” (thank you Beth, for that one), spreads across the seas and over the mountains, to countries about the world, and soon, poems are spilling out of flyer boxes and flower boxes everywhere!
This whole thing has taken on a life of its own. I have indeed had some cool experiences, very touching actually.
□ Folks have left notes of appreciation for me on my windshield and in the poem box.
□ I’ve received notes and phone calls from the likes of old cowboys to young women, wanting to know more about poetry, or wanting to share a poem they’d written and had never shown to anyone.
□ One lady sent me the poem she wrote the day of her mother’s memorial.
I honor these responses and feel privileged to be the recipient of such expressions.
There are also folks who have taken the idea and created their own Poem of the Month sites, or, in one case, began a “Creative Consciousness” box in town. I plan to keep track and start a “Poem of the Month” Map for the curious. I can see the big map on my living room wall, with all kinds of little tacks that represent spots where poetry is being given away! I hope to run out of tacks, thank you very much. --Krayna
So, here’s the call to action. If this little ‘insurgency of delight’ has touched your heart, think about if you’d like to do something similar. Really, for Krayna, it was just starting to put the poems out in the realtor-type box in her front yard, every month. The simplicity is what makes me know that this may be a real-honest-to-the-goddess movement.
We’ll be posting Krayna’s featured poem every month here on the Virtual Tea House. Feel free to print it, email it or use it for whatever purpose. If you can’t print it in this format, let me know and I’ll email it to you!—Beth, VTH Host beth@virtualteahouse.com
HERE’S the POEM FOR MARCH 2008:
Poem of the Month ~ March 2008
Here’s a great way to spend some time during this blustery month!
Amplifying Kindness and Gratitude:
To whom do you owe your well-being?
Where is kindness in your life?
Found ~ Ron Koertge
My wife waits for a caterpillar
to crawl onto her palm so she
can carry it out of the street
and into the green subdivision
of a tree.
Yesterday she coaxed a spider
into a juicier corner. The day
before she hazed a snail
in a half-circle so he wouldn’t
have to crawl all the way
around the world and be 2,000
years late for dinner.
I want her to hurry up and pay
attention to me or go where I
want to go until I remember
the night she found me wet
and limping, felt for a collar
and tags, then put me in
the truck where it was warm.
Without her, I wouldn’t
be standing here in these
snazzy alligator shoes.
From The Best American Poetry 2006; Guest editor, Billy Collins.
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
One of my favorite hats, among several is: initiated firekeeper in the Sacred Fire Community. Hosting a monthly community fire circle, I'm being taught that the simple act of sitting around a fire with the intent of holding open-hearted space makes for some soulful community!
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 20 years in end of life care and I currently work in the field of child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.