Karinaland River

  May we drink and trust such beauty   Just 50 meters down the street from my home is the  Outlook  beloved by many people. From here the view goes westward out over the Bay, to the City of San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It is perfect for a lunch stop, sunset, fireworks, or an overnighter :)     Normally I will stand there letting my eyes roam freely. The other day I take my camera to capture the slow unfolding aftermath of a sunset. The spectacle gets better and better. I am alone. Once only a younger woman stopping her car. With an excited “wow” she snaps a quick photo with her cell – and off she is. Nothing comes close to truly tasting and sensing this evolving sky painting. Time needs to stretch its limbs wide & far, with a huge slow yawn, occasionally exploding and swirling with drama, then relaxing into serene golden joy, and slowly fading with a dark crimson purple sigh… into the grey ordinariness of oncoming darkness…   Today, a...

  Winter Miracles in Red   This past Wednesday morning, stepping from my bedroom cottage, climbing on the terrace wall to get ready to swing, a miracle – in German we say  Wunder  – flashes before my eyes: the Camelia bush has unfolded one of its magnificent velvet red blossoms. How can it be? ­It is way too early. But then, a second later, I understand: here is my birthday present :)  Flooded with gratitude, I smile back and carry the red miracle into my busy day….  Since my childhood, I believe that all things weave themselves secretly and unseen. Sometimes we get a glimpse – a miracle appears. The beauty that arises brings wonder, awe and joy – I could feel the movement of ephemeral braiding in my own limbs. And I regularly invented secret movement sequences for myself to mirror this phenomenon. December, the month of darkness, was especially the time for  Wunder  to manifest. A flickering flame of candle putting me into trance. Silence of snow...

Three Generations visiting the 641 Garage Memorial Mural     I came across these stills from August 2020:    My friend Fern bringing by family – thank you!   Lia Rose, Fern, and Lily Rose     At the Mural in its early months, with the so-helpful scaffold   We started in June 2020.  Here is the finished – and yet unfinishable – Memorial   in the dappled evening light of November 2022 Up to this day, people are bringing friends and family to experience the commemoration wall,  which now includes also several dozen names of the huge numbers of innocent Black people  wrongfully  incarcerated, and freed  only  after decades – lives stolen. May this Wall of Mourning remind us that Justice must be the base of a decent and free society –  may it motivate and move us towards a greater measure of Justice.

  December is here   This year most of my trees have been shedding their leaves later than usual, old apple tree was still working on it a few days ago :)    So, I am returning to a poem by the great African American poet, writer and educator Lucille Clifton. One of my favorites, poet and poem.      the lesson of the falling leaves     the leaves believe   such letting go is love   such love is faith   such faith is grace   such grace is god   i agree with the leaves     ––Lucille Clifton (1936–2010)   see post from last year: Karinaland River -  November 10, 2021