Fall Circle

There’s a chill setting in, drawing out an amber palette which lights up for a moment golden before it smoulders to a brown. There’s a rain coming down, transforming the world into a muted darkness suffused with potent measures of melancholy and romance. Für Elise in the key of G. I welcome it. I know…Read more Fall Circle

Thankful

Part of me will always be suspended in disbelief. Dangling where there is no ground, no up or down, nothing more substantial than a mysterious ether. But I am not afraid. I am grateful. I know there are plenty of reasons to be worried, sorrowful, pessimistic. Plenty of tragedy, injustice and hate embedded, looming and…Read more Thankful

A Gentle Autumn

This autumn in northern Europe is unseasonably gentle and warm. The turning of the leaves from deep green to all the colors of flame and sunset, the baring of elegant dark, sloping branches, the abundant soft coverings on the ground, the scents of damp earth, fallen apples and acorns, crumbling organic growth. All these magnificent…Read more A Gentle Autumn

The Edge of Summer

Summer is moving steadily and surely towards autumn. We are right on the edge of it. The deep lush green of an unusually long, hot growing season is giving way to the blazing colors of countless sunsets. First it comes in fitful bursts: swathes of yellow, lashings of red, streaks of pink. Growing bolder and…Read more The Edge of Summer

Awake and Dreaming in Berlin

A tall man sat cross-legged on the floor by the sliding doors of the Ring Bahn, the train that runs frenetic loops above the crowded heart of Berlin. He was not a young man, not quite middle-aged either. Heavily intoxicated, he was probably heading home after a long night partying along the Spree, or cruising…Read more Awake and Dreaming in Berlin

Sense of Fall

There is so much tragedy in the world. Though it has always been present, prevalent, stubbornly persistent, it seems alarmingly close now. Too close. For many of us in the west, the world seems to be edging closer to a deep, dark abyss—especially after the events of the past week, the month, the year. It…Read more Sense of Fall

For Now

It begins with a feeling, barely there. A song from a dream you can’t remember. It might just be the most beautiful song in the world, the way it strains your nerves with effort to recall. Once floating in waves of melody, bathed in golden light. Now adrift in fragments are the embers, unwilling to…Read more For Now