Karinaland River

Life Always Loved Me Life always loved me – surely gave me everything needed, as baby absorbing parents’ hunger pain confusion helpless fear, Mama’s desperate fury Papa’s gentle absence, young and fierce survival bombs bullets catastrophe scarce rationed food no money ceiling crumbling, taught me sacrifice always I was in love with them and they have always loved me…   Whatever made me walk away seek new lands in München Kaulbachstrasse Paris New York Frankfurt Brazil Berlin Jerusalem Persia Italy Hawaii San Francisco North Berkeley – till I stopped running stayed firmly put falling in love with steep hill’s old talkative live oaks hawks participating watching me with care all places loved me and wrapped in awe I always loved them…   Yet home stays far away, removed so far hidden till I dare to be entranced by tender curious gaze of deer squirrel owl fox cat racoon opossum gopher coyote hummingbird hovering their eyes at times intensely gleaming with dreams improvising my basi...

  Getragensein Seemingly unrelated sequences, wild memories of old times arising from my belly, befitting our churning times. Two weeks ago, I have the urge to find those old paper stills of me standing on my sister-in-law’s horse. My brother Matthias and his wife Ingeborg live in on old farm house in a tiny village called Königshagen, in the middle of Germany. The thin booklet with photos he sent me back then – where is it? For so long it’s been atop my small old wooden desk. Second-hand, the first piece of furniture I ever owned in America. Acquired for $10 from one of the several very good second-hand stores in the Mission on Valencia Street. 43 years ago, I lived in San Francisco, sharing a flat on near-by Capp Street. Life was simple, walkable, affordable. Nowadays whenever I clean up, things disappear – where is the photo booklet? Here, alas, I am relieved to find it. Looking at Bill, the quarter horse, and me standing atop of him, a soft silence opens up in me. An inner stre...

  The Shards of my Papa’s Story The elements of my Papa’s initiatory story as a teenager can easily be detected in our fast-changing world in America. These days, I hear myself spontaneously sharing with friends and strangers an abbreviated version. In the past I did this very rarely. Even in our family, Papa’s story had been a taboo. My father evoked the traumatic events only two or three times. Listening, it would pain me to witness the toll the remembering took on him.   So why share now?  First, to honor my father as a man of peace, justice, and integrity. Second, to make clear to others, that I know in my own blood and nerve strings what these coming scary times might bring us. Seeing things early, before they are obvious, visible, palpable. Third, as a warning to those around me to take things seriously. As shocking as it might be. Good luck might keep many of us unchallenged, unscathed. We might stay under the radar, quiet. Perhaps serendipity will save our life. O...

  War and Peace   The endless experiment of humans trying to become real human beings here on Earth. It is difficult, a mystery. So much peeling-away is needed, first of all. Pain, fear, anger, sorrow, hate. And so much inconvenient truth would need to be faced. Ignorance, greed, envy, cruelty, hubris. When “ all we are saying is give peace a chance ” ends with a murder eleven years later, we must embrace that too. December 8 – forty-four years ago. When innocence gets punctured, we must learn what is offered. “I just shot John Lennon.” In that moment we could have learned that the world of stardom, celebrity, fame is inherently violent. Do we understand? We all are “ walking on thin ice ” when we think just ONE thing will save us, or the world. But simplicity is full of complexity, waiting to be understood. The paradoxes always belong together – ­this I love about the ancient wisdom and the Art of T’ai Chi Ch’uan. Yin and Yang are forming one reality, not two. Dividing into g...

  Thoughts on Shame, Acknowledgement, and Celebration Talking with my brother Matthias on zoom this Sunday morning – his early evening in Germany – we converse about the politics where each of us is residing, the wonders of aging, his recent travel with wife Ingeborg to Istanbul, the Middle East situation, and the frighteningly accelerated brutalization of language and spirit. Verrohung . Which mirrors the worldwide wars and tragedies. We talk about the Western world living so wealthily on the back of other countries and populations – Ausbeutung – continued extraction, exploitation and robbery. And how two days after major catastrophic storms and flooding, the media is highlighting angry complaints and whining voices about not enough gasoline, waiting in line, not fast enough this, not enough of that… never enough. Oh, how ungrateful we humans are. All this perhaps to cover up our fragility? In our talk Matthias and I celebrate our upbringing, our different lives across the ocean,...