Karinaland River

Solitary   by   Albert Woodfox   https://groveatlantic.com/book/solitary/     … Solitary Confinement is rampant and common in American prisons, jails and immigration centers. Albert Woodfox had mild claustrophobia, as he said. There are many moments when the incarcerated person can slip into insanity, voluntarily or involuntarily.      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/books/review-solitary-albert-woodfox.html   “For a crime he did not commit, Woodfox would spend more than four decades     in solitary confinement: 23 hours a day in a 6-by-9-foot cell.”     How cruel is America’s mass incarceration system?    How much  I-N-J-U-S-T-I-C-E   are we willing to tolerate in our country?     “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”   –Dostoyevsky     In the process of aging, I have gradually turned into a person of quiet inner joy, from a childh...

Sometimes Life offers us completely Unexpected Gifts   Such a thing happened when I decided in December 2020 to take up my cello again. One of the best decisions in my life, especially with losing my husband four years earlier and retiring from documentary filmmaking. The previous pandemic months, I had spent much time outdoors, working in the garden, and on my new project which involved community: the  BLM Memorial Mural  on the garage doors, often painting with friends, masked, and on a scaffold. When working alone or with collaborators * , this would become social time, talking to passersby of all ages, neighbors, dogs, and once in a while a special visitor. What a tragic year of loss, deaths, killings, fires, insanity and cultural awakenings. As the pandemic’s first winter with our Californian rains was looming, I decided to muster courage and take my cello out of the closet. 30 years had passed since I had touched it, always in fear that I would never again be able t...

  Hagebuttentee und Johannisbeerschnaps     Harvesting and preparing my own rosehips for tea…     The other day I am plugging half of the already red rosehips from the wild rose bush with the with huge thorns, each thorn a beautiful monster announcing danger. This brings childhood memories of Hagebutten  – rosehips. How our maternal grandmother would take my brother, sister and me on walks in the country side. In the summer we would gather wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, coming home with purple lips and fingers and full buckets for her making jam. In the fall we would collect rosehips getting pricked, and she would make jelly from it, lasting for months.      The old wooden pig of my paternal grand parents     I cut the rosehips open, and use my finger tips to scrape out the seeds. These rosehips have only a tiny bit of the famous white “fuzz” which I remember vividly as inducing itching back in the old...

Looking Back, and Forward... inhabiting the Present Moment Recently when asked to offer T’ai Chi classes at a couple of different places, I pulled out my 2008 brochure and read it again. Here an excerpt:     For more than 40 years, I have allowed the practice and principles of T’ai Chi Ch’uan to work on me and through me. As it merged over the years with other studies, skills and interests of mine, I increasingly saw myself teaching from the perspective of a woman born into Western culture. For me, T’ai Chi as the “Mother of All” is a musical sphere that embraces the melodies of Yin and Yang, the pulse of full and empty, the Breath of in and out. When this ancient philosophy is experienced in the body through the Senses along with gentle Awareness, a song arises, we remember, and new pathways open, as well as forgotten possibilities. We dare to unlearn.     The laws of our human existence come into focus: Gravity & Alignment, growing Roots & playful Balance, ...

"I just want to learn how to be free" During the heatwave, so much needed to be squeezed into the early morning hours. Airing the house, watering back yard to help a few plants to survive, spraying around house to cool it down, teaching classes and private session, taking a walk, all had to be done before 9 or 10 am latest. Under heat dome it was up here 108 F in shade, 94 F indoors, 85 F coolest night temperature. Despite it all, I was able to paint for brief periods on the mural. It faces west, and at 11:30 am the sun sneaks around the corner and hits the garage doors, so the short window for painting is over. Too hot and too glaring for the eyes.   This morning more on new “Angola 3” panel which is the fourth new panel, all of them in progress.      You can see the penciled lines & text, and the smear :) from bracing my hand when painting. And I tried out the 3 mm paint pen for Albert’s entry. The lower panels go slow, they ask me to contort, half on knees or ...

  Honoring Labor     Does America honor physical labor, workers, or service givers ?    No, perhaps in words, but not in practice.  But unionizing has been coming back, and is having some spectacular successes. It’s in the news, even written about this Labor Day, and I am so thrilled. Workers’ dignity is elemental.     Stewarding my backyard – a double lot sprawling up the hill with 108 steps – asks me to engage daily in very physical labor which is not “recognizable” to most people. Normally garden services and immigrant laborers (often undocumented) are hired weekly to do this kind of work – unseen. It is the rare person who will ask: “You are taking care of all of this? That is a lot of work!” Yes, it is, and I love it. Once a week I might have a helper for 2-3 hours, Nicky or recently Emma, and they love it too. Labor, hard physical work, is nowadays unknown to many people. We are seduced into endless conveniences, even if they are promising t...

  Goldenrod and Asian Pears – Golden Times   Bounty of Indian Summer. My blooming goldenrod stalks waving in the breeze, calling out to me – their tiny sunburst blossoms emanating a fuzzy golden softness that soothes. And the Asian pears have been ripening patiently into big golden globes, hidden within in their dark-green-leaved home, the shapely tree. Season of Gold.   September is Time of endings and change, of yellow and earth, lingering sweet summer memories…   Here in California, it looks and feels like fall, very dry and hot – it is the time of wildfires,  heat waves,  shorter days, transitions, memorials, paradox and transformation…      I harvest goldenrod’s  leaves and  blossoms for making  healing oils,  tinctures, and teas. Nourishment for spirit, soul and body. My goldenrod oil works wonders for arthritic pain or injuries. If my hands and fingers start aching from too much garden work or cello practice, I mass...