Karinaland River

 This past Saturday  I received  a beautiful e-mail from Stephen Steinberg* in New York , a colleague and admirer of Bob, going way back. He is one of the few academics who has been kind enough :) to give me periodically advice on matters of Bob’s legacy. I like to share because his letter is so eloquently written! With quotes, Steve highlights the insightful and poignant new foreword by Gerald Early who throws his net of wisdom wide, leaving the reader breathless, ready to dive into Black, Lives White Lives . Dear Karina,    Thank you for sending a copy of  Black Lives, White Lives.  I am overwhelmed by Gerald Early's foreword. He reaches deep into the cognition and emotions that prompted Bob to take on this laborious project in the first place. Early captures the brute reality when he writes: "Whiteness was a gift and privilege; Blackness was a stigma, a harsh unrelenting form of social confinement. If Whites could be universal, the mark of humanity itself, then Blackness wa

  In February,   University of California Press   is releasing my late husband Bob Blauner’s book   Black Lives, White Lives , with a new insightful foreword by Gerald Early, in a re-issue of the original 1989 version.     https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520386013/black-lives-white-lives     Here is how it all came about:     In May 2020 – time of a world-wide pandemic and uprisings over George Floyd’s brutal murder by police – literary agent Andrew Blauner* asked me about the status of  Black Lives, White Lives . It was out of print, so we suggested to UC Press to re-issue it. Andrew asked Gerald Early, renown Black author, scholar, and culture critic, who accepted to write the new foreword, an astonishing, deep and beautiful essay. And then in 2021, I spent several months shepherding the book’s publication through the steps of re-design of cover and interior, as well as fine-tuning the reframing of the book’s content on the back cover for our current times – 33 years later.     This

  Yesterday, January 27, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day.   Each year, I activate that remembrance by contemplating our human compulsion to othering, vilifying, excluding, exploiting, criminalizing, punishing, and exterminating a group of people. German born post-war, I am vigilant sensing right away fascist ways of thinking, and governing. Germany’s history is edged in my bones with the fervent wish for Justice for all. Most importantly, before it is too late and we as citizens find out that the state (and its executioners) killed innocent people. Years later we might argue we did not know. But how can that be? We might ask ourselves – post-war born German, or American born. We were and are complicit.     Justice starts before incarceration: with equal rights and human rights for all through access to food, housing, medical care, education, protection from racism, from hate crimes, etc.    In our current America, all of us are asked to wake up – from the false idea of the

Maybe three weeks ago the hellebores started to show their beautiful faces, some of them freckled, so delightful, like friends visiting. They are also called snow rose, and are a winter blooming plant – this year especially early. They are not showy, till you get close and are struck by their blossoms’ delicate features. Each morning I marvel….  

  A Winter Tale   I painted this scene when I was about 11 years old.   An introverted and shy girl, who translates her loneliness, quiet despair, and a hint of witty defiance into a peaceful snowy winter night.   Karina’s painting of Karthauser Irrenanstalt (Mental Asylum), Regensburg, Germany, 1964     What do you see?     The painting is true to life: the wall of a centuries old cloister, a lonely street lamp – instead of a full moon – illuminating the curved street with a soft yellow sheen, centered one of the bare chestnut trees that line this road, buildings in the background behind the wall, all is covered in snow, still falling. We live just down the street.      At night I can see this scene from my upper bunk bed through the window of the tiny room we three siblings share. It becomes a dream scene filled with yearnings. For the painting – I remember – I carefully chose the elements’ composition, simplifying real life to its essence, burying a tale underneath the soft snow.  

  Die Liebeswellen dieser Welt… waking  up with those words on my tongue a few days ago…  shockwaves, air waves, sound waves, ocean waves, lava waves… birth waves, heat waves, death waves, Todeswellen…   arising and falling…   destroying and birthing… dissolving and reweaving…   A beautiful delicate ring emanates when I strike the  brass bowl that I hand hammered  50 years ago.  I introduced my bowl to you on Jan 11. It’s not a singing bowl, but it sings with a high & lower note, half tones & overtones, despite its very thin wall.       Since childhood I believe that all things and beings emanate their original  Song , vibrations that we humans might not hear, but we can know when tuning in. Animals, plants, trees, and some humans, are able to discern the Song’s melody and rhythm. Like a wave it rises and then ebbs. It is like our signature or name, only deeper, it comes from the Soul announcing its presence.    For example, water in a singing bowl responds to the vibrations, e

Here is again an entry that started as a comment, written by  27-year-old  Aysha, a friend and student of mine. Knowing myself how hard it is to lose close family when living overseas, I always enjoy hearing about people’s background, their ancestors, and cultures. And death is an occasion to ask for stories, and memories…     " We lost my grandmother yesterday, Ved Kumari Pahwa. I called her Naani - she is my mother's mother. She was born in 1942 in pre-partition Punjab, now part of Pakistan. Karina asked me what I remember of her and that question sparked a conversation with my mom and dad, with lots of laughter. My dad shared a funny story about how my Naani believed that babies should get lots of sunlight, so when I was a baby she would sit me so that I was looking directly into the sun and I would just sit there and squint for hours... Sunlight remains my #1 priority when choosing a room to rent. I don't have too many memories of my Naani because I have lived most of

  What would I tell my friend John if visiting him this afternoon? That the winter skeleton of my tulip tree started to erupt into bloom, the cups of its flowers so promising, so inviting…   In the 12 months from January 2016 to beginning of 2017, I experienced the deaths of the three most important people in my life.   My mother first, my husband 9 months after that, and three months later my colleague John Knoop. The three strong pillars of my life were gone by January 12 th  when I found this closest friend and confidant dead in his bed. He was 77. I have not yet spoken of him in this blog.    John was the best listener I have ever encountered – ever. After a bicycle accident that almost killed him,  he stoically made the best of loss of full motion in his legs and hands  for the next 20 years . But you would not have known any of this when sitting with him and sharing a few sips of Mezcal. John and I would talk for hours, always interested in each other’s perspectives on politics,

The Empty Bowl     Two nights ago around midnight, a golden honey-colored bowl is glowing in the night sky.   Its color intensifies as it slowly sinks   into the dark horizon. It is the moon, inviting us to selectively fill our emptiness. Our nights and days, our mind and body, breath and heart.   The wide-open bowl, ready to receive, and hold nourishing visions and efforts.  What is most essential?  Perhaps an offering of berries, a smile, the sound of bells, tears of gratitude, the beauty of a hand gesture, seeds, serenity, glimpses of freedom, water…      When I studied design in the early seventies at the Technical University in Munich, we had to do a four-month internship in a factory. I chose the company WMF ( Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, in existence since 1853 ) , a factory located in the tiny village of Geislingen an der Steige near Stuttgart. It was well-known for its elegant designs and manufacturing of high quality household goods. One high point was assisting the Gl

  Being a judge comes with great authority, moral authority, and hence with even greater responsibility.   This case is telling us a lot about America at its worst, and its best.    Socrates said, four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly and to decide impartially. Listening to  Judge Timothy Walmsley  in this case, I was moved.  He models the capacity to put ourselves in some else's shoes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/07/ahmaud-arbery-murder-sentencing   “A resident of Glynn County, a graduate of Brunswick High, a son, a brother, a young man with dreams was gunned down in this community,” Judge Timothy Walmsley said before pronouncing the sentences . “As we understand it, he left his home apparently to go for a run, and he ended up running for his life.”     The courtroom was still as Walmsley paused for a minute of silence — a fraction of the five minutes Arbery ran before he was cornered and shot.  Walmsley said he

Ahmaud Arbery https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/us/mcmichael-bryan-sentencing-ahmaud-arbery-killing.html   Mr. Arbery was a jogging enthusiast, and his family has said that he had jogged into the neighborhood on the day of his death.  Marcus Arbery Sr., his father, told the court, “Not only did they lynch my son in broad daylight, but they killed him while he was doing what he loved” more than anything: “running.”  

Lamassu – Ancient Winged Guardians   (still by Karina, 2019, at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Assyrian Art, 883-859 BC) Five legged: two front paws and three more legs... Celestial Guardians, don't we need them?  What do you see?

Winged Divine Beings blessing and protecting (still by Karina, 2019, Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Assyrian Art, 883-859 BC) blessing and protecting