the kabbalah of YOU!

Last semester (last semester being this past spring semester, which has since past and left me no longer a student in the traditional sense) I attended a talk by Lori Palatnik titled "Kabbalah of You: Understanding Yourself and Others." Basically, there are three main essences or drives - חיים/Chayim/Life; ברכה/Bracha/Blessing; and טוב/Tov/Good.

These essences are evident in each person, and manifest themselves differently in a person's body and soul. Meaning, a person's body "relates" itself to an essence as does a person's soul. Knowing what "type" of person [I can hear Kate criticizing me already] we are, and what types our friends our, can really help us interact. Also, as was emphasized in Lori's talk, they really help us find our bsheret/soul-mate. Specifically, we look to marry someone with the things we are missing because we are yearning for the completion of one soul. (As reads my notes.)

Please find below a rendition of the three different essences as they apply to soul and body. Try to figure out which one you are. I, being a more complicated type of person, had to marinate over this for a few weeks before I finally became certain in which essences fit me best. (guess!)

חיים/Chaym/Life

Soul
- intellectually driven; bright; more "complicated"
- tend to be introverts
- out-of-the-box
- early memories; hold on to everything
- only "get" others of same type
- always thinking/trouble thinking
- minority in population (many Russians)

Body
- "thinking body"
- take everything in
- extremely intuitive, aware
- sense of people- beneath the surface, pick up on energy, "get" people
- often masquerade as ברכה/Bracha/Blessing body (i.e., sleep for escape; substance abuse possible)

ברכה/Bracha/Blessing

Soul
- tend to be extroverted
- optimistic; judge to good
- people-person--- people love because loves people
- adaptable
- trouble dating because likes everybody
- sees both sides of things- "sees the gray"
- "so busy having fun can miss out on depth of life"

Body
- pleasure body
- chill, laid back
- never get ulcers
- never, ever on time
- sleep in for pleasure of sleeping
- can be very lazy

טוב/Tov/Good

Soul
- pleasure doing what's right
- world of black and white
- loves rules, regulations, authority
- right/wrong
- judgmental/ non-judgmental (rare)
- very hard on other people, especially selves
- tend to be organized
- tough- strongest of three types; can handle more
- competitive

Body
- action, accomplishment-orientated
- always doing
- sleep as a necessary evil
- pleasure being busy

just a thought

Life is a one way street and
If you could paint it,
I'd draw myself going in the right direction,
So I go all the way.
Like I reallly really know but the truth is-
I'm only guessing.

gnarls barkley

today, my friends sent me:

this:
just friends

and this:

this is a poem I wrote for class three years ago.

Rose of Pain

His big toe stared back at me,
a skunk wandering the road at night,
visible in its impending death.

I stomped on it, made sure to grind it into the soil
with my stiletto.
I removed my foot from the point of damage
and viewed my work,
satisfied at the new passage to China.

I hate your big toe.
You crack your toes.
It makes me want to kill you.
It smells like the fridge-
you forgot to clean it during a 3-month vacation in Brazil.

When we lay next to each other in the night
and you touched me, it was the feeling like
falling hard into the concrete
and scraping your entire body
after hearing your father died.

Your big toe.

It would taste like the moldy milk
you left in the fridge.

There is dirt under your toe nail.
The nail is jagged and chipped.
The dark hair curls.

I want to kill you.

The sound of your approaching footsteps
Is revolting in its dirty browns and yellows.

Jesus will never forgive you.
I thought it was just a stage.
I was mistaken.

I love every inch of you.

Love.
I told my mom I loved her every day.
I really did.

I don’t love many people,
because my mom said love is liberating
and I’m a conservative.

Pfth.

Our family isn’t normal.

It started when the sweet
orange of faith came into town.

You gave me a rose
and I didn’t like the way it smelled.

I watched you flirt
with the cashier at the food store.
You didn’t see me.

Invisible.

When you come home,
I’ll rip you apart.

Sweet trash of roses.

The window was left open
to let in some air.
but ended up destroying the wood.

Shema Yisrael.

The wood was old, and that final blow killed it.

Grass lies still beneath the breath of one word.

her heart glowed with a degree of happy assurance

a word from our favorite modern philosopher, Martin Buber

(from Two Types of Faith)

There are two, and in the end only two, types of faith. To be sure there are very many contents of faith, but we only know faith itself in two basic forms. Both can be understood from the simple data of our life: the one from the fact that I trust someone, without being able to offer sufficient reasons for my trust in him; the other from the fact that likewise without being able to give a sufficient reason, I acknowledge a thing to be true. In both cases my not being able to give a sufficient reason is not a matter of defectiveness in my ability to think, but of a real peculiarity in my relationship to the one whom I trust or to that which I acknowledge to be true. It is a relationship which by its nature does not rest upon 'reasons', just as it does not grow from such; reasons of course can be urged for it, but they are never sufficient to account for my faith.
...
The relationship of trust depends upon a state of contact, a contact of my entire being with the one in whom I trust, the relationship of acknowledging depends upon an act of acceptance, an acceptance by my entire being of that which I acknowledge to be true. ...It is obvious that trust also has a beginning in time, but the one who trusts does not know when : he identifies it of necessity with the beginning of the contact; on the other hand the one who acknowledges truth stands to that which he acknowledges as true, not as to something new, only now appearing and making its claim, but as to something eternal which has only now become actual; therefore for the first the status is the decisive thing, doe the second the act.

this is what I've been listening to lately

pretty good, eh?

just, ya know, on me, on life, at this moment

Julie: how's it?
me: horrible
Julie: WHY!?!?!?!
me: i am just really cranky and upset and overwhelmed and underwhelmed and saddened and too much alive
Julie: oh

no
me: whatev
me: i suppose this happens to everyone three weeks before they graduate and their lives as they know it end and they have no idea what they are doing next and just an inkling of what they want to do and too much school work to do to consider it all

but, it'll be ok, right? i'll just listen to some miles davis or some josh ritter and have a cup of tea and everything will sort itself out, right?