CHILD and the TREE

CHILD and the TREE

- Joy Krauthammer © 


A sweet experience
with a Melaleuca tree
that I introduced this summer
to a small child
whom I met on a walk
with her aunt.

The young one
wanted to quickly finish
the short walk we were on
and return home.

Then, intrigued,
standing in the middle of a stranger's lawn,
entranced, mesmerized,
she needed to stay
right where she was,
and on a tree's trunk
feel, touch, play,
peel, poke and push,
her little inquisitive fingers
into the cream colored, flaky--
soft foam-like,
responsive inviting bark.

Was the Melaleuca tree
enjoying the caressing play
by one of G*d's children?

I believe my friend's young niece
will treasure this encounter
as I waited for her,
and I hope, maybe
even remember me,
who made the acquaintance with her
to G*d's exquisite glory,
the intimacy with a tree.

Is it my inner child
that also loves to play?

No Barbies needed.
              ~

TODAY I AM A POT

TODAY I AM A POT

- by Joy Krauthammer


When I was a potter,
some pots needed orphanages,
whether birthed or aborted, a mistake.
Too raw, I recycled them into
mud once more, back to the earth.
No ritual burial, no chanting Kaddish.

Kneading clay back to fertile birth
spinning centeredness and stillness
turning round and round
mound of moist mud
ecstasy through my embracing fingers
and all over my soaked
clay-caked body.
We were one.

Clay called to me,
"Come play with me, form me, caress me,
harden me, color me, use me, delight in me."

Vessels of ceramic beauty,
weird, altered, exploding pots
push past boundaries
and respond to my touch.

"In what fire will you finish me?
In what kiln will I cook?
Electric or Raku or Anagama?
Heat high my body -- transform me
until I am birthed firm and beautiful."

When I did what I loved,
and I loved what I did,
in delight and joy
night and day
on the potter's wheel,
although I didn't understand Oneness
I was Oneness.
No separation.
Then, I didn't know "G*d".
or did I?

Thank you, G*d,
for the glory of creation,
of immersion and joyous passion fulfilled.

Today I am a Pot
May my outer self portray
My inner self --
awakened, conscious, mindful
of the wholeness, the harmony,
the strength,
the character, the integrity,
and the honesty of a good pot,
half-filled or half-empty,
standing upright,
glazed or not.

Gaze upon me
or fill me with nature's treasures:
tea leaves, a sunflower, pebbles, a pod,
seashells, lavender buds, fruit, or a feather.

Friends
Discover even more pleasure
and truth
when you look inside.

              ~



















"Surely G*d was in this (sacred) place, and I, I did not know."
"Achen Yesh HaShem, B'makom hazeh, v'anochi, lo yadati."
Parsha Vayetze, Genesis 28:16.

"Like the clay in the hand of the potter - he expands it at will - so are we in Your hand, O Preserver of loving-kindness..."
ArtScroll Yom Kippur Machzor, page 121, evening service.

"And now Hashem, You are our Creator, we are the clay and You are our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand." Isaiah 64:7
ArtScroll Siddur, page 127. Tachanun read before Torah, weekday mornings.

OTTO HEINO, potter extraordinaire, died July 2009. Otto showed me his first place, award winning pot from the International Ceramics show in Paris, and exclaimed to me that he "won FIRST PLACE because it was an HONEST POT" . That emet / truth has permeated my being. Today I held one of his baby pots.

Joy wrote TODAY I AM A POT, because her soul still yearns to play in the mud, and her heart is touched by all the memories deeply shared for the last four decades with wonderful creative and talented pottery friends and teachers.

TODAY I AM A POT reprinted from "The Deronda Review" Vol. III. No. I Fall-Winter 2009-2010
a journal of poetry and thought. http://www.pointandcircumference.com/
 and
published in American Ceramic Society Design Chapter, ACS-DC Newsletter,
March 2013, Vol. 14, Issue 22, page 12.

Published also in The Jewish Woman 2010
http://www.chabad.org/search/keyword_cdo/kid/11715/jewish/Krauthammer-Joy.htm

Huffington Post. Religion blog, Sephirat HaOmer 2013

READ AT:
TODAY I AM A POT,  Aleph's KALLAH 2011, Univ. of Redlands, CA (by Joy Krauthammer)
TODAY I AM A POT,   Makom Ohr Shalom, Encino, CA (by Joy Krauthammer)
TODAY I AM A POT, Sound and Light studio opening, Sherman Oaks, CA

Joy Krauthammer, MBA, following Queens College, and before becoming a NY medical social worker, a weaver, sound healer, performing percussionist, publisher, poet, etc., --received a Max Beckmann full scholarship for her graduate ceramics work at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art. She continued her ceramics studies and passionate exploration in California.

In the 1970's, Joy taught ceramics to adults at Cooper Square Art School, NY, opened a children's Arts school for the City of Los Angeles in the late 1980's, and taught ceramics for them and at other schools. Favorite memories include 24/7 chopped-wood stoking the firing for her pots in the Anagama mountain kiln at ISOMATA, Idyllwild, San Jacinto Mountains, AND belonging to the American Ceramics Society, Design Chapter, and travelling with 63 other divine potters led by Patrick Crabb to New Mexico to visit Indians on their sacred lands.

Joy's award winning art has been exhibited in many shows.

Before the 1994 Northridge earthquake struck her town, Joy thought that her beautiful pottery took up too much space and decided that if she became a drummer, the music would be 'ethereal', taking up NO space. Joy has spent the last couple decades travelling around the world collecting drums for her performing as a spiritual percussonist. Drums and pots are everywhere!

~ ~ ~

For years, I was a "hippie" potter in mud 24/7 and loving it. Taught ceramics in NY and LA.  With a dream manifested (while doing my MBA), I opened an art school for the City of Los Angeles and taught for them. (Found space at a Jewish Center in the late 1980's.)

Although blessed, I never understood then the sanctity of potting connected to the Creator (having no formal religious education) when I meditated for hours on the stillness of the clay's center point.  I was creating ceramic art from the Kabbalistic Sephirot grounding place of Tiferet/harmony and Yesod/creation. I was with Oneness even then, just did not know it.  I continue to learn and understand this truth.

 http://www.joys-music.blogspot.com/ . www.timbrelsofjoy.blogspot.com

Click & Read  JOY's Artist Statement, Earth & Fire

http://joys-artist-statement.blogspot.com

QUOTES

"Our words must not differ from our thoughts; the inner and outer person must be the same; what is in the heart should be on the lips...  We are forbidden to deceive anyone... Honest speech, integrity, and a pure heart--that is what is required of us.” 

- Maimonides

End of poem is metaphor for the holy Temple:

Exodus, Terumah 25:11  "You shall cover it with pure gold, from within and from without shall you cover it.."

http://joys-poems.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html

Letter to an Artist

“As you are surely aware, the primary talent of an artist is his ability to step away from the externalities of the thing and, disregarding its outer form, gaze into its innerness and perceive its essence, and to be able to convey this in his painting. Thus the object is revealed as it has never before been seen, since its inner content was obscured by secondary things. The artist exposes the essence of the thing he portrays, causing the one who looks at the painting to perceive it in another, truer light, and to realize that his prior perception was deficient.

And this is one of the foundations of man’s service of his Creator.”

 - Menachem Schneersohn, The Lubavitch Rebbe

~ ~ ~

TRADING PASSION FOR CLAY TO A CLEAN KEYBOARD

TRADING PASSION FOR CLAY TO A CLEAN KEYBOARD

- Joy Krauthammer

When my heart is in my clay

why no more

pot throwing for me today?

To take up less space 

I remind myself

missing the grace.

Instead, I write.

Poems don't break

when a letter falls away

yet portray a broken heart.

No more muddy showers needed.

Writing keeps me clean

and off the mean

streets at midnight.

Both addicting

clay clearly more passionate -

diving into the center

of the spinning pot,

miraculous

and useful 

when finished, fired.

Writing contained,

on computer screen

through keyboard,

yet, unlike a wheel formed

clay vessel,

computer also is a container -

for my passionate soul   (neshama).

Ah, fingers, either way,

ten fingers all used for rhythms

for endless possibility.

           ~ ~ ~

2.21.2011

Read at Ruach HaAretz, Canby, Oregon, 7.12.2104

Show me your 10 fingers. My story.

TRELLIS of JOY

TRELLIS  of  JOY
 - Joy Krauthammer

Today I continue

the moist delicious planting

of my glorious garden

where G*d's presence 

revealed

is vibrant

to my eyes,

nose,

ears, 

hands,

muddied feet, 
and heart

in happy lively colors,

organic shapes,

forms,

textures

and luscious aromas.

I listen

to the birds

sing with joy

and watch

the great lizard

in its stillness.

May my fountain flow

again.

Come, join me 

under the shade

of my fig tree

and drink with me,

sun tea.
  ~

Today I have been reading about trellises, and the vines that need to grow vertically via vertical or horizontal supports, depending on whether they tendril, twine, scramble or adhere.   I bought a Passion Fruit-Passiflora, a Pandorea Jasminoides Vine, and a Lavender Trumpet Vine-Clytostoma Callistegioides for my growing garden sanctuary, and filled it also with more favorite roses. 

For my husband (now paralyzed), I build a bigger garden.

I used to create and transform with clay; my pots occupied so much space.

My poet friend, Ruthie, has shown me that I can transform and trellis these words of my heart and soul.

Love,

 JOY

May 2004

"We have 613 commandments. The last one is probably the most important because it includes all the others:  kitvu lachem et hashira hazot. To be Jewish means to be a poet. There is poetry in the Jewish existence and we are commanded to see its poetic dimension. We are to write it down in order to share it with as many people as possible; every Jew is commanded to read the Torah, to write it and thus transmit it."

 - Elie Wiesel "Against Silence"

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I AWAIT THE SUN

I  AWAIT THE SUN


- Joy Krauthammer


A blessing

this early morn

sunrise

shining bright white light

narrow horozontal rim

top edging

thickly layered dark rain clouds

above and beyond

the Valley's mountains.
 
 
Sunday, Nov 21, 2004

I Await the Sun
© Joy Krauthammer
.
More sunrise and sunset photos from Joy:
http://joys-favorite-fotos.blogspot.com/2012/05/clouds-of-glory.html
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DRUMMING

Drumming, Drumming, Drumming

Women drumming, Women dancing.

I am sunning, I am singing

I am dancing, I am drumming

I am blesSing, I am loving, I am holy

I am drumming

on the conga, on the djembe, on my dumbek

I release

I let go

I breathe

I am free

- by Joy Krauthammer

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(What is "sunning"?

It is basking in the warmth of the Light and radiating it out into the universe.)

I AM IN AWE

.

Joy's Sunrise World
© Joy Krauthammer

I AM IN AWE
Before Dawn


- Joy Krauthammer

11-26-2002


I am in Awe

With gratitude
saying my prayers
I stand barefoot
on the cold grass
at the furthest edge
of my garden.

I have arisen
with the early morning
to greet the Light
to watch G*d’s colors
paint the sky.

Even the mountains
encircling my San Fernando Valley
are visible, twinkling clear.
They frame
my favorite purples and pinks
across the blue
on the horizon.

From my hillside
the colors I see transform
through the tall pine trees
which did not block my view
twenty-five years ago.

Strangely, and I confirm
with my compass
this transparent, art happening
miracle of the Holy One
is in the south.

Maybe G*d’s breath
has blown and swept the sun
from the east.

Ah, there she is,
bright sun
rising in the east
peeking through
revealed through
my apricot tree’s
changing colors leaves.

Now inside, the early light
shining through my window
makes translucent
the purple petals
of the bearded irises.

I am in awe.

Purple bearded iris
©  Joy Krauthammer

More of Joy's sunrise and sunset photos:
http://joys-favorite-fotos.blogspot.com/2012/05/clouds-of-glory.html
.
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VISIONS PAST DAWN

VISIONS PAST DAWN

- Joy Krauthammer

-1-

VISIONS PAST DAWN

ARE MY PRAYER

MY PRAISE

FOLLOWING EXQUISITE SUNRISE

A MOMENT AGO

ECSTATIC DISCOVERY

I HAVE NEVER BEFORE SEEN
DELICATE

TINY TRANSLUCENT TISSUE ENCASED FLAT SEEDS

INDIVIDUALLY PACKAGED

FOR NATURE 

ESCAPED FROM

BROWN BUMPY HARD SHELLED CLAM-LIKE

BLOOMING

PURPLE FLOWERED

FEATHERY LEAFED

JACARANDA TREE

SEED POD.
FALLEN ON THE GROUND

JOYOUSLY I COLLECT THEM

.

-2- 

and I thought I was happy earlier

during morning sunrise

seeing the shadow figure

very long, tall

of the tree trimmer man,

macho machine in hand,

vision on the far hillside white wall

when I went out to look

in the distance.

The shadow confirmed

that I did hear

the mysterious ((((bbrrrringgg)))) cutting sound

through the intercom in the kitchen

connected to Marcel's

open window bedroom intercom

I had forgotten to disconnect

while he is again

in the hospital.

Sometimes I see

 the shadow of a bird

and separately hear

its sweet song.

to my friend, luv for a Holy City Shabbat,

JOY

November 19, 2004
.

Noe Ortega trimming trees
His shadow I saw and heard his sound.
© Joy Krauthammer

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