Krayna Castelbaum

Through the looking glass of the Four Worlds: A Kabbalistic response to Beth's dream

2010-03-03T15:20:00Z

Hello my dear....here are some thoughts your dream of falling through stained glass ceilings inspired, and it is connected to dreaming in the Four Worlds, from a Kabbalistic Perspective. You fall thorough each successive layer of glass....shattering but not breaking. There is also the Lurianic (early Kabbalist) idea of creation...which I'll need to forward later...but it may speak to you as well. Hope you find this helpful! It is a fabulous dream! Perhaps you are flying? Love, k Dreaming in the Four...(read more)

Poem of the Month: March 2010 'Diagnosis'

2010-03-02T15:47:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ March 2010 If you had (or have) qualities that others could not appreciate, and said qualities, upon being tested, nevertheless grew like untamable wildflowers and weeds, then this poem’s for you! Have a very merry month! --Krayna Diagnosis By the time I was six months old, she knew something was wrong with me. I got looks on my face she had not seen on any child in the family, or the extended family, or the neighborhood. My mother took me in to the pediatrician with the kind...(read more)

Poem of the Month-February 2010: Space Aliens Found Performing in Carnival Freak Shows

2010-02-02T02:38:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ February 2010 What a month! Ground Hog’s Day, Mardi Gras, Purim, Chinese New Year! Wow! A veritable explosion of carnival energy! A while back some famous dudes, wrote: “Let your freak flag fly!” So go on…enjoy those marvelous eccentricities in yourself and those who people your world…find fresh new meaning in things your find mundane or taken for granted. Make the world a place where adventurous play abounds! Photo from Wikipedia: Carnival SPACE ALIENS FOUND PERFORMING IN CARNIVAL...(read more)

Poem of the Month, January 2010 'Da Capo'

2010-01-01T23:05:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ January 2010 Happy New Decade! Happy New Year! Here is a fabulous recipe! Read poem. Follow directions from start to finish. Digest. Enjoy. Then read again; add fresh ingredients from your own recipe. Share when cooked. Eat with gusto! (Feeds multitudes.) Blessings of love, joy and good humor, now and all year long! --Krayna Da Capo Take the used-up heart like a pebble and throw it far out. Soon there is nothing left. Soon the last ripple exhausts itself in the weeds. Returning...(read more)

Poem of the Month--December 2009 'Oranges'

2009-12-05T21:31:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ December 2009 What tender memory is evoked by this poem that can warm you during December’s cold nights? Oranges The first time I walked With a girl, I was twelve, Cold, and weighted down With two oranges in my jacket. December. Frost cracking Beneath my steps, my breath Before me, then gone, As I walked toward Her house, the one whose Porch light burned yellow Night and day, in any weather. A dog barked at me, until She came out pulling At her gloves, face bright With rouge....(read more)

November 2009 Poem of the Month: Sweet Darkness

2009-11-01T18:51:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ November 2009 May you allow sweet darkness embrace you this month and surprise you with gifts as of yet unimagined. --Krayna Sweet Darkness When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn...(read more)

October 2009 Poem of the Month 'In Blackwater Woods'

2009-10-04T20:40:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ October 2009 Harvest what you know: what three things do you need to be able to do to live in this world? Love during this wonderful season of the year, Krayna From Beth Patterson's collage work "Douglas Firs were our Sanctuary" In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and...(read more)

September 2009 Poem of the Month: XVII by Neruda

2009-09-07T15:45:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ September 2009 Pablo Neruda was a prolific poet and endlessly imaginative man. His poetry reveals the spirit of a lover – impassioned, generous, earthy and potent. He is at home with himself, his body, his sexuality, the natural world, and the fertile dark . This poem delights and quiets me. I savor the tender intimacy and strength of this love song, as a taproot into my own depths, where I bask in the light and the dark and am nourished. May it be so for you, too. ---Krayna XVII...(read more)

August 2009 Poem of the Month 'God Says Yes to Me'

2009-08-11T04:43:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ August 2009 What are those permission-seeking questions, to which you’d love to receive an unrestrained: “ What I’m telling you is Yes Yes Yes.” What if you bestowed permission upon yourself, as this poet does with such humor and aplomb, to ask and live all manner of questions with playful humor? My spunky 77 year old mother, Ann, has recently done just this, and in so doing, has inspired a whole lotta folks! She and God conspired so she couald clear the decks for a Really Big...(read more)

July 2009 Poem of the Month 'The Summer Day'

2009-07-01T04:06:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ July 2009 Mary Oliver, with her knack for mining the details of daily life and the natural world, composes poetry that can blow the ol’ circuits and bust through walls built of oblivion. As you let the power of this poem sink in, you just may fall in love her questions, take them to heart and bless your one wild, precious life! --Krayna The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – the one who has...(read more)

June 2009 Poem of the Month

2009-06-03T05:43:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ June 2009 It could happen to you, too. You could be laying around in the long green grass gazing up into the treetops, or wandering down a street on a very ordinary day, or chopping veggies for dinner. Yup, it could happen… anywhere, anytime. Just don’t forget to take her hand. ---Krayna When I Met My Muse I glanced at her and took my glasses off--they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent....(read more)

May 2009--Poem of the Month

2009-05-08T19:08:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ May 2009 What do your dreams try to remind you of that you’ve forgotten? What happens when you take to heart that your dreams remember you ? And what if you did re-awaken to that deep, true dream – the one that is always there – waiting for you? May Day, May Day! --Krayna What We Want What we want is never simple We move among the things we thought we wanted: a face, a room, an open book and these things bear our names – now they want us. But what we want appears in dreams, wearing...(read more)

April 2009 Poem of the Month: A Blessing

2009-04-07T10:59:00Z

Poem of the Month ~ April 2009 In Honor of National Poetry Month: Carry copies of this poem in your pocket to give to loved ones and strangers alike this month. Be as Spring itself, gently scattering love blossoms and watering seeds of kindness wherever you go. --Blessings and blossoms, Krayna A Blessing Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome...(read more)

March 2009 Poem of the Month "How Would You Live Then?"

2009-03-03T16:35:00Z

What if you have a sudden burst of inspiration to create your own “what if” poem, and what if in so doing, you feel raucous laughter joyfully erupt as you dive into a swirling, limitless ocean of creative imagination and new perception and you find the freedom to express yourself in ways that are “outside the box”…and what if it really changed the way you live? Have a yummy March. Krayna with a K How Would You Live Then? What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks flew in circles around your head?...(read more)

February 2009 Poem of the Month: It Felt Love and The Sun Never Says

2009-02-05T16:28:00Z

Give your love a poem this month! Tuck some into your pockets to give away! Leave poems where unsuspecting folks can find them - such a happy surprise! A true cupid knows this: heart-poems make the best love-arrows! Deep bows and many cupidical moments, Krayna It Felt Love How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being, otherwise, we all remain too frightened. The Sun Never Says Even after all this time the sun never...(read more)