Karinaland River

  Sommerträume – Summer Dreams Out of nowhere, my brother Matthias announces that he is sending a package from Germany. Mid-year, not for my birthday. What will arrive? Mail across the ocean is not dependable anymore and postage has become very expensive. Arbitrary tolls have to be paid in Germany and here, so with the huge postage increases I had to give up sending presents to my family in Germany. What a loss. When his parcel arrives two weeks later, a colorful woven textile emerges. Marvelous. So much joy. Freude . His hands spin the wool with a spindle, the threads get died, then he weaves. The beautifully crafted gift brings consolation – a piece of him in my home. I drape it on the couch, admiring it daily. Times of pandemic, my own health issue, and now, for the past year and half, it is too dangerous for me to fly.  Having not seen my siblings and family for seven years, I feel most bereft  t his summer. D reaming of magic carpets. Yes, my old childhood habit of t...

  Perpetual Promise   Sometimes people from the past appear out of the blue. Recently, a former long-time student of mine writes to ask about my current T’ai Chi classes. She is a memorable and lovely person, and a good writer.  “ I would so love to take one of your classes again — they still linger in my mind as times of great pleasure, peace and progress. ”  We catch up a bit on our lives in our e-mail exchange. I write back about possibilities for her to join. And we add to all the previous p’s: pleasure, peace and progress – possibility. This strikes me as a wonderful game. I add my own p’s as the days go by. There are word-wizards in the world, I am not one of them. But the palpable popping of the syllables is enticing. Just like the dry seed cups of my poppies ready to spread precious potential. Fleeting gentle explosions, play of lips. All the p’s pouncing…   Luscious memories of lingering on the floor with dictionaries. What is progress? I am on my belly...

  Simple For many years now, my life has been shifting to more and more simple. Not by chance – I work on it. Eliminating unnecessary distractions, setting clear priorities, keeping needed focus. Those are my tools in order to be of good use. In our age of “more-not-less,” I find myself an outsider. Limiting everything to essentials, to stewardship of land, students, and my own destiny. Simple life. As an eight-year-old, my relationship with Spirit is a secret refuge, my citadel. Precious. I dialogue with elusive, yet palpable, "spirit presence" through  feet,  sky, moon, trees, sounds. It lives in all things and everywhere, inhabiting my body, too. When alone, I dance in slow-motion, feeling that clearly something  unknown  is flowing through me. Or I engage in shapeshifting, seeing the world from the viewpoint of a tiny daisy in a meadow.  At age twelve, I start inventing slow sequences, gestures, postures. It's a language, an architecture. An invisible r...

  Steady and Smooth   Another meditation on qualities which we have  most likely  not explored enough. Our times are fast, rough, and ruthless. After Slow and Sweet here comes Steady and Smooth . Sounds boring, right? Who needs it, when we can successfully act rash, forcefully, flashy, edgy, getting attention quickly – succeeding in the short run. Increasing quick spikes of addictive highs, followed by devastating lows. Dullness that craves fantasies and passive hope. How to get into the groove of pleasurable active-ness? When you repeatedly sound the word “smooth” out loud, extending the vowel into an elongated cooing caress – mysteriously, soothing rivulets will start permeating your heart-body. Like a trance. Listen. Try. One long out-breath....   It feels good to sail smoooothly… all along refining sound and technique. Mindful, curious repetition, relaxing our nervous system, becoming reward, rather than achievement. In my teaching, I have noticed with old ...

Slow and Sweet   where to turn for true sweetness? slowly drink tender streams of nameless soothing? not related to fast rash harsh sugar stuff we buy, are addicted to, but rather singing swooning   flowing glowing snowing sowing   murmuring melodies, gentle waves quietly lapping at the shore of soul’s secret lake, deep inside, waiting breathing, listening with yearning ears, heart aches can we pacify the savage greed, more more more not enough?   going for the spectacular, advertised and sold as fun biggest, loudest, fastest – are we too dull, deaf, numb so insensitive, not even recognizing what is salty truth? Playful life offers  spontaneous  steady sparks,  small  sacred insights   creeping reaping weeping seeping   where can we taste slow and sweet? searching between split seconds, confounding gap amidst an in  and  out -breath, swaggering in sloppy slow-motion seeking to amaze us, sweeping our cheeks’ smooth skin snow ...

  Die Blechtrommel   The Tin Drum by Günter Grass holds a special place in my life. It has history. Growing up in Germany, I am reading it for the first time in 1966, at the tender age of thirteen. Later I keep returning, to the English translation as well. Published in 1959, the novel is part of early post World War Two literature engaging in the necessary work of collective re-membering via literature – Erinnerungsliteratur . There is no walking forward without doing the work of “re-collecting” as an act of repairing, bringing light and insight. Artists often know how to do this well. Shame, guilt, denial. The novel’s broader historical setting is familiar to me already, thanks to my unique parents. Both looking to new ways of dealing personally and collectively with the nation’s horrific past. Political satire, subtle and grotesque humor, poetic imagery, all embodied by the voice of the ‘untrustworthy’ narrator named Oskar. For my young teenage spirit, the style of magic r...

  Honesty as an act of resistance full moon freely illuminates forlorn nights will try to teach us wistful winds, the chimes will speak direct and multi-languaged, but never double tongued   as an act of resistance skeleton of sand, grains, waves soundless honest shapes, sign language whatever we always obeyed, submitted to avoiding, actively ignoring plain truth courage to be   bison being, human memories still haunting us because we did not ask, could not face what is in front of us till death enters as an act of revelation we never admitted, but it was always present   whether rudely robbing, extorting enslaving, exterminating, hiding history not willing to unmask, we take part passively gladly removed, also seemingly so innocent fierce rays of suffering now reveal helpless resisting   cold tragedy, troubled business of peace directly avoiding deft dialogue, within, without dutifully we remain deaf-blind to what is in the picture till clearly a...