Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on March 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Chicken Marsala thought-nugget from the melange to help you start the new week

Faith is one of THOSE words. So, as is my practice when wading into one of THOSE words, I look it up before writing about it. And, as is always true when writing about one of THOSE words, I find beautiful ambiguity within the proffered definitions. 1) complete trust or confidence, 2) strong belief based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

Complete trust. Spiritual apprehension.

My life has taught me that truth (another one of THOSE words) can only be found within the paradoxes. If you can reduce something to a singularity, a black or white concept, something graspable, then it may be a rule or law but is never a container of truth. THOSE words point to deep experiences, the mysteries that cannot be fully grasped or squeezed into a container. Love is one of THOSE words, too.

We designate the first week of spring by a heavenly marker known as the equinox. Equal night. We look to the sky to understand the happenings on this earth. I’m happy to report that my first sighting of tiny green shoots breaking through the crusty earth in my backyard happened this week. The first sign of spring. The resurgence of green life after months of root-resting hibernation.

I couldn’t help myself. For kicks I also looked up the definition of the word apprehension. It smacked to me of being yet another one of THOSE words. Yep. 1) anxiety or fear, 2) understanding, grasp. Anxiety. Understanding.

Standing before a blank canvas I often feel as Chicken Marsala. I tie on the blindfold and step. Sometimes I step boldly with complete trust. Sometimes I step timidly with great apprehension. It is a full spectrum of faith. And, because I can never know (another one of THOSE words) the best I can do is practice.

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sometimes faith takes a little practice ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Chicken Marsala Monday, Language, Uncategorized | Tagged: anxiety, apprehension, art, artistry, belief, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, confidence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, easter, equinox, faith, humanness, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, one step at a time, practice, proof, society6.com/chickenmarsala, society6.com/kerrisherwood, spiritual apprehension, spring, the melange, trust, truth | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on March 19, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Chicken Nugget from the melange to help you start the week

I appreciate the Chicken Nuggets – especially today’s – because I know the back story. Without knowing where these drawings with words came from or why we took the time to develop them, they could be tossed off as so much fluff. A nice sentiment. But.

What is it to stand in another person’s shoes? To understand the feelings of another? An other. Not me. Nice sentiments are rarely easy when put into practice.

There is a direction in Empathy. It is a reach toward an other. To reach out. To reach across a boundary, seen or unseen. To try. The direction is important to grock. ‘To understand’ is a fundamentally different thing, a radically different direction and intention than ‘trying to be understood.’ It suggests an openness to possibility, a willingness to consider. A shedding of the armor. It unlocks the magic of “what if….”

There is a big drum banging the opposite narrative – closed doors, closed ears, closed eyes. It is easy to believe that we-the-people are incapable of listening, that we are unwilling to consider and are only adept at shouting each other down. Putting each other down. Closing off. Closing down. But.

Take a walk today. Count the moments of generosity that you see. Count the times that others reach. Count the times that you reach. You might be surprised how different your actual experience is from the prevailing narrative. Human beings are, for lack of a better analogy, a pack animal. We run together. We die when we close-off. We wither when we turn in. No human being, if we are honest with each other, knows who they are absent of relationship with others. We know each other together. Reaching is what we most naturally do. We reach when we see others hurting. We open doors. We run into burning buildings, not for ourselves, but for the sake of others. It is infinitely more common to reach than to withdraw. Fear may demand a narrative of opposition, of irreconcilable difference, of standing alone in singularly righteous shoes. But, to believe it, you’ll have to close your eyes. You’ll have to disappear in the corridors of your busy, busy mind.

Today, do what is most natural. Open your eyes. Reach out. See what they see.

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read Kerri’s thoughts on Try To See What They See

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try to see what they see ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Chicken Marsala Monday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, Chicken nugget, consider, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, empathy, generosity, heart opening, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, listen, open heart, open mind, Opposition, reach, reach out, see, see what they see, society6.com/chickenmarsala, the melange | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on March 12, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Chicken Marsala thoughts from the melange to help you start your week:

Almost every spiritual tradition offers a form of this thought: make no assumptions. Sometimes it is called ‘detachment.’ Sometimes it is called ‘the middle way.’ Often, it is referred to as ‘presence.’

It sounds so simple. Be where you are. Be here now. Aspirations always sound easy but are never easy to realize.

In my past life as a consultant/facilitator I regularly issued two “caveats” prior to beginning the work of the day. The first was, “Have the experience first, make meaning of the experience second.” The idea of opening to an experience, that they might actually be capable of stepping out of their roiling story of assumptions, was a revelation to my clients.

And, that’s the point. The revelation, the insight, the heaven-that-you-seek is just on the other side of the story-fog that obscures your experience of life. That is why it shows up so often in all-practices-spiritual. Quiet your mind. Make no assumptions. Open to what is there beyond what you think is there.

However, we are human. That fast running inner monologue, that incessant storying of experiences, pre-and-post occurrence, is what we do. So, a good first step toward the quiet mind, toward the suspension of assumptions, is to make life-giving assumptions. Our runaway minds chug down a track so why not put that train on a generative track: assume awe.

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read Kerri’s thoughts about Assuming Awe on Chicken Marsala Monday

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assume awe ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Chicken Marsala Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: assume awe, assumptions, awe, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detachment, inner monologue, inner peace, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, quiet mind, society6.com/chickenmarsala, spiritual, spirituality, story, storying, the melange, the middle way | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on March 5, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

“What do I see?” It is, perhaps, the most important and fundamental question any person can ask. Seeing is never passive. It is never pure. Interpretation begins the moment you open your eyes. The ‘see-er’ stories – gives meaning to – what is seen. It is a simple truth: the very act of opening your eyes is a creative act.

Every moment of our lives is new. What else? You have never lived this moment before. You will never live it again. We blunt ourselves when we tell ourselves the story of ‘same-old-same-old.’ We dull ourselves when we weave the belief that this day is routine, that this moment of life is nothing new.

We blur our seeing and muddle our moments by asking the wrong question(s): how do they see me? what do they think of me? These are impossible crazy-making questions to answer. They generate a directional challenge. It is not your superpower to determine what the world sees when IT looks at YOU – mostly because you can’t. The world is not looking at you. You are seeing it. IT is not giving meaning to you. You are giving meaning to IT. That is your genuine superpower.

The thought for today from the melange: open your eyes. See the new-ness. Create this moment as unique in every way.

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read Kerri’s thoughts about this Chicken Marsala Monday

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this moment unique in every way ©️ 2016 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: Chicken Marsala Monday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, creation, creative act, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, giveing meaning, interpretation, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, moment, moments, perception, presence, seeing, seer, society6.com/chickenmarsala, story, storying, the melange, The Seer | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on February 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

If blocking your creative arteries is the goal then there is no better illusion to consume than trying to be perfect. Eating the idea that you can be free of flaws or experience mastery without mistakes is guaranteed to clog your capacity to move. Notions of perfection turn the imagination toward the fear-monsters and breeds an especially severe inner critic. Perfection is like the Medusa, give her your gaze and she’ll turn you to stone.

Imagination, creativity, learning, growing,…are words of movement. They are experiences of free flow. If investments like perfection crimp flow, then granting simple graces like trial and error, or “seeing what happens” will inevitably open the channel. Creative flow, like profound learning or wild imagination happens when inner-judges retire; it happens when nature is allowed to take its course. Nature is movement. Falling down is a necessary form of movement. Perfection is about appearances. Learning is about process.

From studio melange on this Chicken Marsala Monday comes this simple reminder. Try. Remove failure from the gallery of options. Get on the bike and ride. Expect to fall down. It’s the only way to learn how to stand up.

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check out Kerri’s thought’s on this Chicken Marsala Monday

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Education, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, creative flow, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, failure, falling down, flow, grace, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, movement, natural process, perfection, process, society6.com/chickenmarsala | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on February 19, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

High atop the list of obstacles we erect on our creative life path is this: I don’t know how…. As a coach, I heard it daily from clients. As a consultant, I heard it regularly from business leaders and educators (the pronoun changed: we don’t know how…) Artists regularly lock up in the face of a monstrous HOW?

When I was a young erector of massive obstacles in my path, Quinn would smile and say to me, “Nobody knows how. Just start.” I thought he was being flippant with encouragement but lived my way into recognizing that his advice was not only sound but it was sage.

Knowing how to do something is never a prerequisite for action. It is, however, a really good excuse to prevent action.

Knowing how comes second. Always. It comes after the fact, after the experience of trying and adjusting and learning. It comes at the end of the day, looking back. That’s when “how” becomes visible. Today’s Chicken Nugget via the studio melange is timeless and simple advice. It would make Quinn smile: sometimes the best thing to do is start.

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check out KERRI’S thoughts on this CHICKEN NUGGET

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Uncategorized | Tagged: action, artistry, blocks, changes, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, chicken nuggets, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, how, innovation, inspiration, just do it, just start, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, life, obstacles, Peter Block, process, society6.com/chickenmarsala, the answer to how is yes, the melange | Leave a comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on February 12, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

We were 14 hours into a 17 hour drive when she asked the question. “If we’d had a child, what would we have named it?” After much laughter and too much coffee we settled on Chicken Marsala. Chicken kept us awake for the rest of our drive.

No one can accuse us of not being productive. We are a creative melange of paintings, music, plays, books, children’s books, and, now, cartoons. For over a year we attempted to syndicate our strip, Chicken Marsala (the imaginary child of an aging couple…) and were met with much enthusiasm but not syndication. We produced months of strips and single panel nuggets (chicken strips and chicken nuggets. Titanic wit, yes?).

Brewed from our studio, from the pile of creative perseverance that is stacking up below and above the ping pong table that serves as our archive , we’ve decided to offer a daily blend of goodness, thought, laughter and beauty. It may come fresh off the press or it might be aged and, like Chicken Nuggets, it might be looking for some light. Art is made to share, not archive. Either way, welcome to the melange. Chicken’s day is Monday. This nugget has everything to do with Valentine’s week and a quiet reminder that the universe of feelings is so much bigger than words can possibly contain.