Birth and Death… and Birth Again

My brother Gene passed into the Great Mystery a few days ago. I feel like I’ve lost a limb. Dr. Eugene Frederick Karson was born on October 23rd, 1935. A brilliant, athletic, consistently curious, and compassionate man, he was my idol, my inspiration, my...

Return of the Butterfly: From Fleur, with Love

Sometimes the best way to read a novel is to write one. Over a decade ago, something like that began happening to me. I’d already been working at the craft of fiction for many years when it occurred to me that it might be interesting to try writing a first...

An Immodest Proposal: Zero Tolerance for Child Abuse

“And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the...

Singing in the Dark Times

Today I find myself turning again to those fateful lines from  Bertolt Brecht’s Motto to the Svendborg Poems, penned in 1939: “In the dark times  Will there also be singing?  Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.” In 2017, we...

Love in a Time of Climate Change

We’re living in some seriously dark times. Yet all around us ~ and inside us ~ the generous, green spark of life continues to bring forth new discoveries, new pleasures, new opportunities to dance our way into what Fleur Robins likes to call further incarnations...