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Krayna Castelbaum

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

    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 Worlds – a Wee Look Through the Kabbalistic Lens
    There is a correspondence between the four-letter name of G-d, YHVH (in Hebrew, Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey) made up of only aspirant consonants, so the sacred Name can only be “pronounced” through the breath (or as Yah), AND, the four worlds, known as Assiyah, Yetzirah, Beriah, and Atzilut, which connects Body, Feeling, Thought and Soul, respectively.  The Four Worlds, like the Four-Letter Name, are not separate, but rather interconnected, holographically.  With the “marriage” of the upper Yud/Hey and lower Vav/Hey, Heaven and Earth are united.

     

    World of Atzilut, or Emanation; corresponds to the upper Yud

    Realm of Soul; Element is Fire.

    The realm of pure infinite being-ness, unlimited possibility or potential; the pregnant void.  The Soul is rooted in this world.  Associations include Soul; fire, non-dual reality, silence, completion, inclusion, essence, Oneness.  This is the transpersonal world, the collective unconscious, and beyond the realm of “my story.”

    Questions for the dreamer may ask in this realm: What is the overall, universal teaching about how G-d or Mystery is at work in our world? 

     

    World of Beriah, or Creation; corresponds to the upper Hey

    Realm of Pure Mind; Element is Air

    This is the symbolic world of contemplation and emergence of pure thought and knowing, which is connected to the will to create and creative functioning.  Healing in this realm involves claiming innate or native intelligence and harnessing the power of thought and intention, as well as seeing what is, rather than what we wish or think should be.  From this realm, “something comes from nothing.”

    Associated with mind, air, patterns of meaning, realization of continuity, reality pointed to by poetry and art, wonder, intuition, drams, visualization, prophecy, portal of numinous truth. 

    Questions for the dreamer may ask in this realm: What is the revelatory aspect of this dream, the AHA!, where the dream points to the “mind-melding” with the Divine, a synthesis of ordinary and divine mind that the unconscious is attempting to bring to awareness.

     

    Yitzirah, or World of Relating/Feeling/Formation; corresponds to Vav

    Realm of Affect; Element is Water

    In this realm, the raw materials of creation successively manifest as the world of multiplicity unfolds, so this realm addresses unfolding embodiment.  Yitzirah is connected to speech and affect, the subjective world of vital feeling.  Associations include affect, water, heart, nuance and sensitivity, synchronicities, interdependence and relational issues, awareness of emotional attunement, mortality.

    Question the dreamer may ask in this realm: What archetypes, symbols, rhythms, and patterns does the unconscious suggest in the dream.

     

    Assiyah , or World of Doing and Actualization; corresponds to the lower Hey

    Realm of the Body; Element is Earth

    In this realm, the physical is predominant.  Our Essence (Atzilut), Pure Thought and Knowing (Beriah), and Feelings and Expression (Yitzirah) find their expression in the world of embodiment and action, which means working through barriers to actualization and self-realization for the Soul to find expression in this world.  Associations include body, earth, objective world, concrete reality, senses and breath; awareness of creation.

    Question the dreamer may ask in this realm: What are the tangible elements in the dream that have significance/symbolic meaning.

     

    This comes from a teaching by Rabbi Marcia Prager and was augmented by Estelle Frankel’s work from “Sacred Therapy.”  If there are mistakes, they are mine and mind alone. 

    Blessings, Krayna

  • Poem of the Month: March 2010 'Diagnosis'

    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 hands, 
    a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel: 
    Hub Long. My mom did not tell him 
    what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed. 


    It was just these strange looks on my face— 
    he held me, and conversed with me, 
    chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother 
    said, She’s doing it now! Look!  
    She’s doing it now! and the doctor said, 
    What your daughter has  
    is called a sense 
    of humor.

    Ohhh, she said, and took me 
    back to the house where that sense would be tested 
    and found to be incurable 

     

    Sharon Olds, from One Secret Thing. © Random House, Inc., 2009.
    Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic use only


     

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

    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 FREAK SHOWS


    In 1920, my great-aunt Jane

    hopped a midnight freight

    and ran away from home

    to sing on a New York stage.

    She was only sixteen.

    The family took her photograph

    off the grand piano

    and never again spoke her name.

    Later, they grew lonely for her voice.

     

    At sixteen I shimmied down

    the same drainpipe Jane had used

    and took off to see the fair.

    That’s where I met

    the light-bulb boy from Neptune,

    the lizard woman of the Moon,

    the human razor blade from some galactic swirl

    and other artists of the weird.

    All of them had hopped

    midnight rockets off their worlds.

     

    All artists come from outer space.

    Like my great-aunt Jane,

    they’re just looking for some place

    where gravity won’t hold them down.

    So, parents—let your children

    have their voices.  Let them

    have their feathers and their flesh.

    Let your daughters and your sons

    have their pens, their paints,

    their music and their hearts.

    Let them tattoo jackals on their thighs

    and dance with the lawn furniture.

    Let them drum so loud that the sound

    shatters watermelons in your garden.

    Ask them to play on,

    because these children come from Mars.

    Tell them they’re welcome here on Earth.

    Tell them it’s good to be strange.

    Tell them they don’t need to hop that freight. 

    Doug Gray  ~ Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic use only

  • Poem of the Month, January 2010 'Da Capo'

    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

    Drop a pebble in the water

     

    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 home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
    Glaze them in oil before adding
    the lentils, water, and herbs.

    Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
    Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.

    You may do this, I tell you. It is permitted.
    Begin again the story of your life
    .

     

    --Jane Hirshfield
    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

  • Poem of the Month--December 2009 'Oranges'

    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. I smiled,
    Touched her shoulder, and led
    Her down the street, across
    A used car lot and a line
    Of newly planted trees,
    Until we were breathing
    Before a drugstore. We
    Entered, the tiny bell
    Bringing a saleslady
    Down a narrow aisle of goods.
    I turned to the candies
    Tiered like bleachers,
    And asked what she wanted -
    Light in her eyes, a smile
    Starting at the corners                                                          

    Of her mouth. I fingered                                                      
    A nickle in my pocket,                                                          
    And when she lifted a chocolate                                         
    That cost a dime,                                                                   
    I didn't say anything.                                                            
    I took the nickle from                                                            
    My pocket, then an orange,                                                 
    And set them quietly on                                                       
    The counter. When I looked up,                                         
    The lady's eyes met mine,                                                     

    And held them, knowing                                                      

    Very well what it was all                                                     

    About.                                                                                                

     

    Outside,

    Fog hanging like old

    Coats between the trees.

    I took my girl’s hand

    In mine for two blocks,

    Then released it to let

    Her unwrap the chocolate.

    I peeled my orange

    That was so bring against

    The gray of December

    That, from some distance,

    Someone might have thought

    I was making a fire in my hands.


    ~ By Gary Soto
    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.                       
                            

  • November 2009 Poem of the Month: Sweet Darkness

    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 one thing:
    the world was made to be free in.

     

    Give up all the other worlds
    except the one to which you belong.

     

    Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
    confinement of your aloneness
    to learn

     

    anything or anyone
    that does not bring you alive

     

    is too small for you.

     

    ~ David Whyte from House of Belonging

    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

  • October 2009 Poem of the Month 'In Blackwater Woods'

    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

    card3
    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 every pond,
    no matter what its
    name is, is

    nameless now.
    Every year
    everything
    I have ever learned

    in my lifetime
    leads back to this: the fires
    and the black river of loss
    whose other side

    is salvation,
    whose meaning
    none of us will ever know.
    To live in this world

    you must be able
    to do three things:
    to love what is mortal;
    to hold it

    against your bones knowing
    your own life depends on it;
    and, when the time comes to let it go,
    to let it go.

    Mary Oliver from American Primitive.    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

     

  • September 2009 Poem of the Month: XVII by Neruda

                                 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
    I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
    or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
    I love you as certain dark things are loved,
    secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

    I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
    hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
    and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
    lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

    I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
    I love you simply, without problems or pride:
    I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
    but this, in which there is no I or you,
    so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
    so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

     
    Illustration by French Toast Girl

    Pablo Neruda, from 100 Love Sonnets (1960)
    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

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

    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 Adventure. In the Spirit of Lightheartedness and Humor, I dedicate this Poem of the Month to her! May we all live the wondrous Yes and may every question be a portal awakening wild possibilities!

    KC photo file 004

    God Says Yes to Me

    I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

    and she said yes

    I asked her if it was okay to be short

    and she said it sure is

    I asked her if I could wear nail polish

    or not wear nail polish

    and she said honey

    she calls me that sometimes

    she said you can do just exactly

    what you want to

    Thanks God I said

    And is it even okay if I don't paragraph

    my letters

    Sweetcakes God said

    who knows where she picked that up

    what I’m telling you is

    Yes Yes Yes

     

    Kaylin Haught, from “In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop” by Steve Kowit

    Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

  • July 2009 Poem of the Month 'The Summer Day'

     

    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 flung herself out of the grass,
    the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
    who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
    who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
    Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
    Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
    I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
    I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
    into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
    how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
    which is what I have been doing all day.
    Tell me, what else should I have done?
    Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?

     

    Mary Oliver – From House of Light, 1990

     

  • June 2009 Poem of the Month

    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

    gaia-blue-sky

    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. I felt the ceiling arch, and
    knew that nails up there took a new grip
    on whatever they touched.
    "I am your own
    way of looking at things,"
    she said.
    "When
    you allow me to live with you, every
    glance at the world around you will be
    a sort of salvation."
    And I took her hand.

    ~ William Stafford

    Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

  • May 2009--Poem of the Month

     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 disguises.

    We fall past,

    holding out our arms

    and in the morning

    our arms ache.

    We don’t remember the dream,

    but the dream remembers us.

    It is there all day

    as an animal is there

    under the table,

    as the stars are there

    even in full sun.

    Young Boy Running On A Beach As His Parents Look On Clipart Photo

     

    --Linda Pastan

    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

     

     

  • April 2009 Poem of the Month: A Blessing

    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 my friend and me.

    We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

    Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

    They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

    That we have come.

    They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

    There is no loneliness like theirs.

    At home once more,

    They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

    I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

    For she has walked over to me

    And nuzzled my left hand.

    She is black and white,

    Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

    And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

    That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

    Suddenly I realize

    That if I stepped out of my body I would break

    Into blossom.

     

    James Wright ~

    Copyrighted material; for educational purposes only.

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

    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

    Rose-breasted Grosbeak male

     

             How Would You Live Then?   

             What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks

         flew in circles around your head?  What if

    the mockingbird came into the house with you and

         became your advisor?  What if

    the bees filled your walls with honey and all

         you needed to do was ask them and they would fill

    the bowl?  What if the brook slid downhill just

         past your bedroom window so you could listen

    to its slow prayers as you fell asleep?  What if

         the stars began to shout their names, or to run

    this way and that way above the clouds?  What if

         you painted a picture of a tree, and the leaves

    began to rustle, and a bird cheerfully sang

         from its painted branches?  What if you suddenly saw

    that the silver of water was brighter than the silver

         of money?  What if you finally saw

    that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day

         and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were

             more precious, more meaningful than gold?

     

                By Mary Oliver from Blue Iris

              Copyrighted material, for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

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

    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 says to the earth,

    “You owe me”

    Look

    what happens

    with a love like that.

    It lights the

    whole

    sky.

     http://www.crankydragon.com/product_info.php?products_id=13 

     

    Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320 – 1389), beloved Persian poet.

    From “I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz”, by Daniel Ladinsky.

    Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

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