Karinaland River

  Celebration and Mourning  Art reminds us of life’s sacredness – translates it for us into many languages. In my five decades of creating and performing theater, making social issue documentary films, writing, and using other forms of artistic expression, I kept learning and experiencing first-hand the transformative power of art. (Art in contrast to purely commercial entertainment.). At its best – as happened to me two weeks ago – the magic of entering another world via art is a visceral and sensual experience that transforms us.  We enter with our body and senses alive, wide open.  Art offers an alternative vision of how to gaze at the “other” and truly see by allowing it in.  In a technology-obsessed world, we forget this is possible through very simple, even static, old-fashioned means. But it requires skill and vision of the artist. Commitment and responsibility are required, from artist and audience alike. When we look at or listen to art we are not just there to consume, we tak

  Surprise On Friday I am reminded of how much I savor surprise. The need for quick adjustment tests my agility, mentally, emotionally, physically. How it enlivens. Even bad surprises do that. In the morning I am reflecting and journaling. It is my late husband’s seventh death day. October 20, 2016 – he leaves the world with a last breath in the early morning, here at home. As response, I cuddle close in bed, my hand on his heart, an occasional beat still fluttering for a long while…. He is on his journey. It is not a surprise, and yet I am stunned. Utterly bereft. A deep wailing song erupts from my throat as I keep striking my big brass tube with the mallet, soaring through the empty house, just before dawn on a warm autumn morning – seven years ago.  My commemoration in 2022   here – each year so different.  On silent paws, transcendence has been setting in, another kind of closeness. The loss' pain, the disorientation and the grieving, all became compost for my inner growth, in

Occupation and Oppression – A Palestinian Might Say "A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare." Mahmoud Darwish  (1941 – 2008, poet & author, Palestine's National Poet) View with a heart from my bedroom cottage                                A Palestinian Might Say   What?   You don’t feel at home in your country,   almost overnight?   All the simple things   you cared about,   maybe took for granted. . .   you feel   insulted, invisible?   Almost as if you’re not there?   But you’re there.   Where before you mingled freely. . .   appreciated people who weren’t   just like you. . .   divisions grow stronger.   That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do.   (Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens.   Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.)   Yes, a wall. Ours came later but. . .   who talks about how sad the land l

Panoramic Vision for Collective Healing     Panoramic vision is historically informed vision – all inclusive. Voices asking for slowing down rather than blindly escalating – we need them. We need to remember our own as well as others’ historical stories and sufferings, put them into the equation, find room for understanding. Acknowledging the often-unconscious forces of collective memories, which in any conflict, on all sides, play themselves out. A very difficult task that humanity is facing globally. Humanity’s future might depend on it. Collective memory has been of interest to me all my life, and I have highlighted its importance throughout my work. History is a part of us. So, I was struck by yesterday’s essay of  António Guterres (Portuguese Secretary General of the United Nations), titled “Why Israel Must Reconsider Its Gaza Evacuation Order.”     https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/israel-gaza-united-nations.html     But any solution to this tragic, decades-long ordeal o

  Winged This whole past week, sound of war planes in the early mornings, where are they sent to? To war? Or is it preparation for Fleet Week and Blue Angels in the Bay Area? My first years in San Francisco, it would scare me to death. I would duck, and be astonished that nobody else did. People would ask me smilingly why I looked so frightened? I simply could not understand how people would voluntarily want to live with the sounds and symbols of war, the fear inducing noise, danger of impending destruction and death. It is an acquired taste. Only those in the military, in war zones, or those living in Black urban neighborhoods, intimately know the terrorizing sounds of helicopters hovering low.  Winged beings are considered divine , winged things not so…     Dragonfly helping me to find comfort in discomfort   On Wednesday, finally another beach visit. The weather is wondrously hot, the Farallon Islands visible. A group of visitors exclaiming and pointing, they spot whales spouting