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Read this poem; now reflect: what guides your Spirit and connects you to all things in this life? What do you need to remember? Write, sing, dance, or paint your own poem. Go for the essence, the juicy depths, the bones and the laughter, too. Remember to remember. And please, don’t forget - pass it on!
Blessings of love and equanimity,
with a deep bow,
krayna
flickr photo: Night Sky floridapfe
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time, Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father, his hands cradling
your mother’s flesh, and maybe her heart, too
and maybe not.
He is you life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are.
Red earth yellow earth white earth brown earth
black earth we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
I heard her singing Kiowa war
dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
Remember that you are all people and
that all people are you.
Remember that you are this universe and
that this universe is you.
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember that language comes from this.
Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
Remember
to remember.
---Joy Harjo
By Joy Harjo, from She Had Some Horses, 1983
Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic uses only.
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PLAYSHOPS and POETRY FOR LIFE!
Facilitator: Karen Castelbaum, MHS
For over 30 years, Karen has worked in mental health, domestic violence, hospital, and integrative health care settings. Training in action methods since1996, she integrates action modalities with art, poetry, dreamwork, and contemplative arts. Karen has a counseling practice in Bend, where she lives with her (semi-famous) dog, Lucky, a fabulous spontaneity teacher and the source of many of her inspirations.
Restoring Spontaneity and Creativity Using Action Methods
The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. - Rilke
Creativity: the natural energy that opens doors to creative living.
Spontaneity: the great actualizer, enabling us to bring our new ideas and visions to life. Both are inherent to us, yet, as “actors on the stage of life”, aspects of our roles and relationships may come to feel dull and tired.
Action methods such as psychodrama and bibliodrama can help. How? Spontaneity and creativity are re-learned in the body via action-play in the here-and-now, rather than through intellect and talk alone. Holistic, powerful, gentle and effective, these methods show us a way to cook with newness, courage, freshness and vitality. Playshops are open to those who want to become more alive and playful in relation to self and others!
PSYCHODRAMATIC DREAMWORK
OCTOBER 26, Sunday ~ 9:30 – 1:30 pm *Fee: $60.00
This Playshop offers a fresh, rich and exciting way to work with dreams. Open to anyone who has an interest or passion for growing, learning and healing through dreams and imagination.
The Myth of Inanna’s Descent
November 23 Sunday ~ 9:30 – 1:30 pm *Fee: $60.00
This ancient Sumerian myth tells of a wondrous sojourn. Come on a journey from the Earth-world to the Underworld and back. Like Inanna, you’ll leave something behind and return with gifts; like Ereshkigal, you’ll find allies and soak in the profound healing power of deep empathy.
Location: The Three Rivers Center for Relationship; 115 N.W. Greeley Ave. Bend, OR.
Registration required for all programs: Call Karen at 318-0045 or write krayna1@yahoo.com. *Please inquire about sliding scale for cost related concerns.
NEW!! --TEN WEEK PSYCHODRAMA GROUP FOR WOMEN
Wednesdays: 6:45 pm – 9:15 pm *Fee: $250
Dates: November 5, 12, 19
December 3, 10 (December dates may change based on group feedback.)
2009: January 7, 14, 21, 26
February 4 (with option to continue)
Engage in transformative personal work that allows your dreams and visions to leap into your everyday life. Practice self-care and uncover greater playfulness, resourcefulness, flexibility and joy within a safe, supportive, daring, and caring community. Ritual, poetry, dreams, art and psychodrama will be integrated in this series.
Location: The Three Rivers Center for Relationship; 115 N.W. Greeley Ave. Bend, OR.
Registration required for all programs: Call Karen at 318-0045 or write krayna1@yahoo.com. Phone consult is required prior to attending on-going group. *Please inquire about sliding scale for cost related concerns.
Poetic Journey Series
Nourishing Your Community, Body, Mind, and Spirit
In collaboration: between the covers bookstore, PIP Printing, and Karen Castelbaum
Thursday November 13, 2008 ~ 7:00 – 9:00 pm
“Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity"*
Poetry of Wild Wisdom and Fierce Compassion
“…poetry reveals what the Heart is ready to recognize.” ~Joseph Campbell
Taste stunning beauty, bodacious truth, ruthless compassion, and outrageous joy during this evening of deep listening and lively sharing! Experience poetry…share the love!
Host/Location: between the covers bookstore on N.W. Delaware Ave., Bend Phone: 385-4766.
Arrive early and browse awhile. You’ll find many wonderful books seeking owners!
Facilitator: Karen Castelbaum
No Fee: This is a donation based program; all financial proceeds will be donated to a local non-profit. Donated non-perishable food items will go straight to Bend’s Community Center. Your participation will be a gift to yourself and others!
Please Pre-register: Call Karen at 318-0045 or write to krayna1@yahoo.com
or register at between the covers, 385-4766
“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” --Abraham Joshua Heschel
*Part of the title for this Poetic Journey is taken from
“Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays by Abraham Heschel”, Edited by Susannah Heschel
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Poem of the Month ~ October 2008
The will to praise this mutilated world is not about non-action or resignation. Rather, it reflects a compassion choice to encounter the rawness of What Is. Such crazy wisdom moves the heart, stoking the fires of love, justice, and right action. Try praise, try loving yourself and our world, mutilated and whole. Love mightily! --Krayna
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh, from Without End
Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic uses only
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Poem of the Month ~ September 2008
May you allow kindness to take residence in all the places where Life has hollowed you out. Become an offering: share the scented blossoms growing in the ruins of your opened heart.
"Kindness" never fails to disrupt and move me to sweet and bitter tears of recognition. For me, this poem speaks to the alchemical art of soul-making in the “vale of sorrows”, where gold and honeycombs and kindness are discovered.
I hope you will take the time to reflect on the meaning of kindness, how it is cultivated in your heart and soul, and is expressed by you in the world. Too often, kindness is associated with 'being nice.'
Oy, such a superficial understanding!
I pray this poem takes you deeper, to a place of Mystery and depth of imagination where surprises await you, and you become a more and more juicy kindness. Blessings of sweetness and peace,
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only
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Hey! Remember this one?
Go ahead! Try it! How deep can you go? Oy!
So much beauty we can give to this wondrous, hurting world through the Game called, “gazing with soft eyes.” And don’t forget to let your gaze include Yourself!
Blessings of hilarity, delight and peace, Krayna
There Is a Wonderful Game
There is a game we should play,
And it goes like this:
We hold hands and look into each other’s eyes
And scan each other’s face.
Then I say,
“Now tell me a difference you see between us.”
And you might respond,
“Hafiz, your nose is ten times bigger than mine!”
 Then I would say,
“Yes, my dear, almost ten times!”
But let’s keep playing.
Let’s go deeper.
For if we do,
Our spirits will embrace
And interweave.
Our union will be so glorious
That even God
Will not be able to tell us apart.
There is a wonderful game
We should play with everyone
And it goes like this….
-Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (1320-1389)
from I Heard God Laughing; renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic uses only.
Technorati Tags: Hafiz, differences
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Poem of the Month - July 2008
This poem just gets better and better with each read! It is deceptively simple, owing to the extraordinary talent of poet Donald Babcock.
Babcock was 100 years old when he died in 1996. I am guessing he lived a long rich life because he had such great Duck Power!
Read this poem for 31 days in a row, and…..well, there’s no tellin’ what will happen, but you might find your Inner Duck. And in this heaving, wondrous life, that’s something pretty special! May we all be blessed to be so religious as the duck!
Blessings of joy and wonder this month! ---Krayna
![clip_image002[1]](http://www.virtualteahouse.com/blogs/beth/WindowsLiveWriter/July2008PoemoftheMonthTheLittleDuck_7B30/clip_image0021_thumb.gif)
The Little Duck
Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf,
And he cuddles in the swells.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic.
And he is part of it.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.
And what does he do, I ask you.
He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
I like the little duck.
He doesn’t know much.
But he has religion.
Donald Babcock, The Lyfe Poems of Donald Babcock
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Poetic Journey Series for Central Oregon ~ Nourishing Your Community, Body, Mind, and Spirit:
Collaborators for this journey: between the covers bookstore, PIP Printing
Karen Castelbaum, facilitator
Tuesday June 24th, 2008
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
between the covers bookstore
NW Delaware Ave.
downtown Bend, OR
“The Deeper Kind of Truth:
A Place for Everything in This Holy Broken World”
“…poetry reveals what the Heart is ready to recognize.”
~Joseph Campbell
Journey into the world of all possibilities. Immerse your soul in sauna of contemporary and mystic poetry. Drink from well-springs of beauty, truth, courage, and joy during this evening of deep listening and lively sharing. Experience poetry!
Tonight’s Host/Location: between the covers bookstore on N.W. Delaware Ave., Bend 541.385.4766. Arrive early and browse awhile. You’ll find many wonderful books seeking owners! Courtesy coffee and tea available.
Facilitator: Krayna (Karen) Castelbaum, expressive arts and workshop facilitator, counselor, and spiritual director.
No Fee: This is a donation based program; all financial proceeds will be donated to the Kid’s Center. Donated non-perishable food items will go straight to Bend’s Community Center. Your participation will be a gift to yourself and others!
Please Pre-register: Call Karen at 541.318.0045
Or email: krayna1@yahoo.com
or register at between the covers, 541.384.4755
“There are two types of truth. In the shallow type, the opposite of a true statement is false. In the deeper kind, the opposite of a true statement is equally true.” ~ Neils Bohr
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Editorial note: This is one of Krayna's submissions to the Virtual Tea House contest "Where's Home?"
In his book, “Poet’s Choice”, Edward Hirsch writes that this poem “should be required reading in Washington.” He imagines Abd El-Hadi as a “holy fool, an innocent dreamer who wouldn’t hurt anyone or anything.” How do you imagine him? His struggle? What qualities does he exude that you might seek to emulate this month?
Photo taken at Beit Jala, West Bank
flickr: Whirlingdervish
From the very first time I read this poem,
I loved the character the poet creates,
Ebd El-Hadi, a fictional character, who
represents real folks – kind, welcoming
and good-hearted, struggling with injustice.
This poet reminds me that unless we are in
relationship, it is all too easy to make enemies
and scapegoats of ordinary people, some of whom
possess uncommon intelligence. Any one who knows
this man would sooner go to his home to share *labneh,
tea, and stories, rather than put him on trial. His endless
kindness, hospitality and generosity move us to reflect
on the expression of these same qualities in our own lives.
As always, I pray this poem inspires each of us
to water seeds of loving-kindness and friendship
in these wild and crazy times.
A deep bow,
Krayna
*Labneh is a kind of cheese made with yogurt.
Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower
In his life
he neither wrote nor read.
In his life
he didn’t cut down a single tree,
didn’t slit the throat
of a single calf.
In his life
he did not speak
of the New York Times
behind its back,
didn’t raise
his voice to a soul
except in his saying:
“Come in please,
by God, you can’t refuse.”
Nevertheless –
his case is hopeless,
his situation desperate.
His God-given rights are a grain of salt
tossed in the sea.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:
about his enemies
my client knows not a thing.
And I can assure you,
were he to encounter
the entire crew
of the aircraft carrier Enterprise,
he’d serve them eggs
and labneh
fresh from the bag.
~ Taha Muhummad Ali, Palestinian Poet
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I just love this poem! I love that it starts with a dream and the way the dream-story unfolds. The poet artfully paints images, with just the right amount of detail, that leap off the page. All of my senses are engaged, and so the poem feels alive for me. I feel that sweet hush of shared energy amidst the hustle-bustle of the crowded cafeteria at lunch-time. Sighing lightly, I remember my own song of hope and wake-fullness of the basic goodness we each embody. I want to make a collage of one “brilliant hand” reaching out to touch a “trembling hand.” So, I think I’ll just go ahead and do that, and leave you to your own experience of this delightful poem! With a deep bow of gratitude to poet, Therese Becker, and all of you reading this!
Peace and Joy,
Krayna
Here, without further to-do is "Lunch with the Dalai Lama"
In a dream he is standing in line
in a busy high school cafeteria
blending in, (even with his shaved head,
prayer beads, red robe and sandals)
waiting as if he were just another student.
When he asks me to have lunch with him,
I excitedly invite everyone else to join us,
but we are invisible inside the hungry crowd
rushing to their place in the food line,
and so we sit alone at a long wooden table
where he proposes no mantra, no meditation or prayer;
instead, he reaches inside his robe and brings out
an old radio which he places on the table
as if it were the cafeteria's main selection of the day.
As he shows me how to work the dials,
I feel like a child just beginning to walk
or a bird about to sing its first song.
As he works the dials, he looks toward me
to be sure I'm paying attention.
His hands appear brilliant as the sun,
his eyes like water in a still pond
that holds an endless wave of being
transmitted and received.
He reaches out, holds
my trembling hand, places it
so gently on the radio's dials
where I begin to feel the song inside
of everyone awakening, a song of hope
I've always known, but yet forgotten,
that is now
right here as I awake
inside the middle of the night singing.
- Therese Becker
published in Oberon, 2007
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April 2008
Poem of the Month
photo by anwin
Editorial note: this is the second Poem of the Month, but the first on Krayna's own blog! Here's a link to the first Poem of the Revolution....
I first spoke "In Crepe Paper" aloud to myself.
Then I read it silently, I whispered it, I sang it.
I played with it and prayed it and
let it seep into my skin, lavishing me.
Each time I read, spoke or sang this poem,
I fell deeper into the sound vibration of
Yes and it lifted my spirit
and made me laugh out loud.
The vision of the child carrying the yellow flower
of Yes home filled me with delight.
I loved the feeling of this poem in my body
and heart, so I chose it for the Poem of the Month for April 2008.
My deep thanks to Imelda Maguire, a lovely creative spirit from County Donegal, Ireland. Her website is Soul Fragments. She is known, among many names, as Greenish Lady.
Peace, Yes, Joy, Yes, Delight, Yes!
Roll Yes around on your tongue for a whole day and night. Invite Yes into your dreams! Let the shape of Yes luxuriate in your mouth for the entire month of April! Watch what happens!
Happy April!
Krayna
Poem of the Month
April 2008
In Crepe Paper
Because there was a rush of Yes
into the mind of the teacher and
because the Yes became a sound,
Yes, she said, Yes, to the child at last,
because he finally heard the Yes,
he carried it home like a bright yellow flower,
a big one with petals made of sunlight
to a mother who was waiting for a Yes,
because the word was carried in
in the mouth of her heartchild, that Yes
became the answer, the chant, the only
word in her day-long litany.
Yes, Yes, Yes
From "Shout If You Want Me To Sing", by Imelda Maguire
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