Emergence | The Direction of Intention

Open Space [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We awoke this morning to a foot of snow and a mountain of disappointment as 8 Democratic senators betrayed their party and their constituents, joining the Republicans to end the shutdown and any hope of affordable healthcare in the foreseeable future.

And so we sink ever deeper into the insanity of our times.

Insanity (noun): extreme foolishness or irrationality.

We are transforming rooms in our house, repainting rooms, cleaning out cabinets and repurposing old shelves. It is a balm for the insanity. It is to exercise a modicum of control in the only place we can: our home.

Heather Cox Richardson suggests that the same thing is happening in our nation. We are witnessing a changing of the guard. A cleaning out. A new generation of ideas and leaders are emerging as the old guard – on both sides – seems more and more inept. Hers is a message of hope.

Here’s how hope sounds: I urge you to take 20 minutes and listen to Bryan Tyler Cohen’s interview with Michigan senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. It is the most coherent, clear-eyed conversation about healthcare that I’ve yet heard. It is the sound of a new generation of leaders. Dr. El-Sayed is one of many well-intentioned believers in democracy, capable of debate, willing to fight for the good of the people of the nation, eschewing corporate money so those leaders are not beholden to the corrupt take-over of our government.

During COVID we transformed rooms of our house into sanctuaries, spaces of intentional peace. Our isolation became a retreat. Now, we are opening space, creating spaciousness. Spaciousness is our response to the airless insanity, the utter cowardice and incompetence at the helm of the nation.

And, to our expanding spaciousness we welcome the quiet that the snow brings. Rather than dwell in the disappointment of betrayal/capitulation, we’ll turn our eyes to the vast hope that open space and a new generation of bright lights promise to bring.

Greet The Day, 48″x48″, mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blog post about SNOW

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Emergence | Tagged: Abdul El-Sayed, artistry, Brian Tyler Cohen, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, foolishness, Heather Cox Richardson, hope, insanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Nietzsche, spaciousness, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

On The Mystery Trail [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s no secret that we watch hiking videos before turning out the light for the night. There’s something comforting about people unplugging from the national nonsense and thru-hiking The Pacific Crest Trail. There’s something reassuring about people reducing their needs to the simple basics only to discover that the real essential – as important as food – is companionship. Giving and receiving support. There’s genuine kindness to be found on the trail that is not found in our current national story.

Last night we veered off trail and clicked on a story about Bigfoot encounters. Beyond the curious tales, a few of which sounded more extraterrestrial than large-furry-creature, I was struck by the process each person went through to make sense of their encounter. In the absence of a sense-socket-to-plug-into, they defaulted to something recognizable: a religious explanation or contact with an other-world-alien, Hollywood style. One man has spent years searching for others who had a similar experience or for someone who might help him understand what he saw. He admitted that his story sounded insane – and, previous to his encounter, he said, “Had I heard someone tell a similar tale, I’d have rolled my eyes. Not anymore,” adding, “It opened me,” he said.

People do not easily stand alone in the unknown. It is not comfortable. Not-knowing is more doable with company.

Listening to their stories I recognized that the unknown, like life on the trail, has a way of stripping us back to basics. When all of the layers of our mind-armor – our “knowing” – are peeled away, we do the most human thing possible: we reach for others. Even if slamming the door on the encounter is the initial response, the second action is to reach. To corroborate or to find comfort. To have companionship on the mystery trail.

This morning we sat in bed sipping coffee and told the unexplainable stories from our lives. Our coming-together-story is full of the impossible-to-understand. Sometimes we ascribe it to chance and sometimes to kismet. Good guiding angels or happenstance, either way, for us, it is a kind of miracle.

Hamlet always jumps to my mind when I dance on the edge of these delicious questions of guidance or fate or coincidence: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet sees the ghost of his father and asks: “Be thou a spirit of health or a goblin damned?” Is this ghost from heaven or sent from hell? The rest of the play is a detective story, a young Hamlet trying to answer his question, trying to make sense of his ghost encounter. He pretends madness in order to investigate, to find the truth of what he has seen.

Ultimately, like all of us, Hamlet finds peace, not because he finds an answer, but because he makes peace with life as an unanswerable question. “There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow…”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN AND CLOUD

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Filed under: Emergence, Flawed Wednesday, Identity | Tagged: artistry, Bigfoot, coincidence, comfort, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fate, Guidance, Hamlet, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, kismet, PCT, story, studio melange, support, the melange, unknown | 1 Comment »

How To Harmonize [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nature, in the intimate and in the vast, is not designed. It is designing. Our own nature confirms it.” ~ N.J. Berrill, You and the Universe (via The Marginalian)

In one of our famous conversations, Horatio suggested I read Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death. So, I did. Horatio has never led me astray. Boiled down to an essence, as a unifying principle for religion and science, it unpacks the human dilemma of being a finite animal with an unlimited imagination. We are unique among creatures because we know we will die yet we have the capacity to imagine ourselves infinite. And so, to live beyond the veil, we think we must leave a mark, to serve a greater purpose. We must seek or give meaning to our limited time. No other animal carries so great a burden, this split-dance of separation and unity.

It is an understatement to suggest that it has set me to thinking. It is the ultimate in creative tension.

For ages, artists have painted the Danse Macabre. Some are a painting a warning: it’s coming so be ready! Some are painting an appeal: it’s precious so live every moment of it!

And this is what Horatio’s recommendation has me thinking: It’s a cycle of movement, like the tides or the cycle of the seasons, the movement of the earth, spinning around the sun…It is movement. Life is movement.

I was hired at the software start-up, not because I know anything about technology or coding, but because I see movement. Dynamic whole systems. In my brief foray into the start-up, I learned that, in order to be successful, software has no end. It is never finished. It must constantly iterate. It must never assume a completion. It is, in that way, like a human being, constantly becoming, cycling through periods of stability and periods of chaos, through lostness and found-ness, each generation supporting the cycle of the next generation.

We confuse ourselves by seeking an answer to our end, as if the design is finished. As if we are complete. That is a statement of our denial. We are movement. Relationship. Cycle. Never complete.

She knelt to take a photograph of the daisies, each at various points in their life cycle. A perfect visual for the single question-with-no-answer at the core of our short season on earth:

“…how to harmonize our cosmic smallness with the immensity of our creaturely experience…” ~ N.J. Berrill

read Kerri’s blogpost about DAISIES

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Edges, Emergence | Tagged: artistry, becoming, creative tension, cycles, danse macabre, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, Ernest Becker, harmony, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, movement, N.J. Berrill, purpose, relationship, religion, science, seasons, separation and unity, story, studio melange, The Denial of Death, the melange, wholeness, You and the Universe | 1 Comment »

On The Morning Breeze [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The first hint of fall was in the air this morning. Is it a scent or something I feel riding on the breeze? I’m not sure. Maybe both. I stood at the door and breathed it in. It is like the return of a favorite friend.

I’ve been waiting for this moment. The plumes on the grasses changed color a few weeks ago – a sure sign of autumn approaching. The vine coiling around the rocks by the pond has already passed through crimson and yellow to brittle brown, a transformation that usually happens later in September. Breck-the-aspen-tree, stressed by all the rain we’ve recently experienced, is not yet changing. She must wonder if she’s been transplanted to a rainforest. I imagine she refuses to put on her fall color until she’s had a chance to wear her finest summer wardrobe. The bees are out in force and a little aggressive, a sign of summer’s end.

I’ve been meditating on my conversation with Judy. We talked about life’s changes. The hot fire that tests us and transforms us when we finally understand that we must let go of who we think we are. “Either I die or this dies and I’m not going to die!” she said, laughing the laugh of someone who has been forged in fire, someone who has let go of seasons past and moved with nature into the surprising new.

Standing at the backdoor, feeling autumn to my bones, I felt the ash of the fire all the way to my core.

Beyond the dictionary definition, I am learning about resilience. Resilience is not a rigid bulwark. It is an open hand. Breck-the-aspen-tree bending with the wind. New sprouts arising through the ashes after the forest fire. It is autumn announcing its arrival on the morning breeze.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PLUMES

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Filed under: Edges, Emergence, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, autumn, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, fall, fire, flexibility, identity, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrisherwood.com, life changes, nature, resilience, seasons, seasons change, seasons of life, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation | Leave a comment »

Barnacle And Beauty [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on May 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Let me describe the present moment. It is morning. A gentle rain is falling outside, tap-tapping a steady rhythm on the gutters and pools in the driveway. The window is open just enough so the smell of new rain is carried on a slight cool breeze. We sit, feet beneath the quilt, writing. Dogga was asleep in his favorite spot at the doorway but must have sensed I was about to write about him. He stretched, yawned, groaned, and jumped up on the bed. He nestled in and is once again asleep. Oh, yes, and there is coffee.

I was compelled to write about the present moment because I just read to Kerri an article in the New York Times about the social side of artificial intelligence. AI companions. At first it begged the question, “What is real?” but then I caught my prejudice. Are the conversations I have in my head real? Are my perceptions of the world real? Why should the conversations people are having with their AI companions be any less real than the nonsense that daily runs through my noggin? There is, according to the report, an epidemic of loneliness in these un-United States and true companionship is, apparently, hard to come by. It smacks to me of another layer on the bubble: people create their AI companions and AI companions learn how to respond to their creators from their creators…

There was no filter used to capture this pink-purple sky. It’s one of the things I appreciate about Kerri’s urge to aim her camera. She rarely attempts to alter the image. To make it something else. She is drawn to photograph the present moment with all of its flaws and barnacles. And beauty and grace.

Last night, during our 3am banana-and-trail-fest, we bumbled into a series of videos: people who have decided to live off the grid yet are documenting and sharing their homesteading process on YouTube. We’ve been following Martijn Doolaard for a few years and delight in the travels of Foresty Forest and his dog Rocko. Alternate lives. Old world craftsmen-and-women using-but-not-lost-in the wonders of new world technology. Sense-making.

My 3am revelation? I’m drawn to these people because of the balance they seek to establish: hands and feet firmly rooted in the traditions of dirt and toil and presence, while at the same time appreciating and using technology to capture their present moment. To share. To create. To suggest to us 3am sleep-deprived watchers that there is, indeed, a balance to be struck. No need to get lost. Barnacles and beauty available during this time of intense change.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SKY

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Filed under: Edges, Emergence, KS Friday, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: AI, appreciation, artificial intelligence, artistry, beauty, change, companionship, craftmanship, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, foresty forest, grace, homesteading, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, martijn doolaard, presence, present moment, sense making, story, studio melange, technology, the melange, wonder | Leave a comment »

Arrive [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on May 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, why you must sing, dance and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.” ~ Krishnamurti, Think On These Things

The amaryllis is making a reach for the sky. The first time I saw it – a bulb encased in pink wax – I wondered what alien life form just entered our house. We had to ask the same questions we’d need to ask if it was an alien creature: How do we take care of it? How do we feed it? The answer was simple. Leave it alone. That answer confirmed my suspicion. It was an alien after all!

There is so much in this life that I do not understand. In fact, if I am honest, I think most of this life is beyond my capacity to comprehend. Last night, not ready yet for sleep, I watched a nine-minute youtube teaching by Thich Nhat Hahn. Stop Running. The title caught my eye because so much of life feels like running. Running to explain, Running to justify. Running to judgment. Running from fear. Running toward gain. I wanted to hear some thoughts about standing still. In that way, I might understand why there is so much running. In the end, his answer was beautifully simple: rather than run, arrive. Be home.

Rob made us laugh. He’s one of several people who lately reminded Kerri and me that we are not normal. “I didn’t mean for that to sound like it did!” he exclaimed. He’s helping us sort out our plan B. It’s true. Our “normal” in comparison to others is alien like the amaryllis. Rob is attempting to help us see what is special about how we are doing life. And, like everyone, we are mostly blind to ourselves. To our unique choices. To our “one wild and precious life.”

Between the alien amaryllis growing in our sunroom, conversations with Rob and a brief teaching by Thich Nhat Hahn, I am fully confident that I need to cease all attempts at understanding anything at all. Maybe it is time to arrive. Maybe it is time to arrive, to stand still and fully breathe-in all the possible awe teeming in this mysterious ungraspable universe.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about AMARYLLIS

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Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: alien, amaryllis, arrive, artistry, awe, composer, connected, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, Mary Oliver, normal, not normal, possiblility, released from the heart, story, studio melange, the best so far, the melange, thich nhat hahn, think on these things, understanding, unique, universe | 2 Comments »

Welcome This [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 28, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

My series, Earth Interrupted, is as yet incomplete. I started it like I start most things – a happy accident – or more accurately, my brush giving voice to something rising from the deep that had not yet hit my brain. I completed five canvases and then stepped away. It needed to simmer. I needed to simmer.

The Lost Boy – my play with-and-about Tom Mck – took over a decade to germinate and find its place on the stage. My new play, Diorama, is an idea that has been with me, stewing, for many years. Last fall it rolled out of me in a process that felt easy though I know better. It took a long time to find “easy”. Now the real work comes: finding the path to performance and release into the world.

I spent the morning looking at my Earth Interrupted series. I’ve not visited these pieces since just prior to the pandemic – so it’s been awhile. The original impulse must have stewed long enough because the series is calling me back – though not in the usual sense. I have no images in my mind. I have no real passion to explore the initial notion behind them. I do, however, want to get lost in what I know will be the slow evolution, the process of allowing the image to find me, not through my mind, but through my quiet. I yearn for the quiet. I quite literally ache for the stillness that I experience when I paint. It’s the process that calls.

This series began as a meditation. It feels as if the sun is reaching through a thick layer of clouds. I am lucky. I listen for the voice rising from the deep. It’s been a long time. I welcome this meditation returning, breaking the surface at long last, and signaling that it’s time to come back home.

Earth Interrupted 1, 48″x53″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN AND CLOUDS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Emergence, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, calling, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth interrupted, easy, germinate, happy accident, homecoming, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, paintings, process, quiet, simmer, stew, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Celebrate And Release [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If this was a painting it would be titled “The View from the Kitchen Window in the Middle of the Polar Freeze.” It’s lovely and abstract yet also carries hints of an impressionist sky. One hundred years of painting history all wrapped up in a single frozen moment.

When I lived on the west coast I experienced my share of earthquakes. They were of varying intensity, some subtle shakers, another knocked my neighbor’s house off the foundation. And although they were different in character and spanned a few decades of time, one thing remained constant: in the moments that followed the quake, the best of human nature stepped forward. People immediately reached to strangers and friends – it didn’t matter – to ensure that everyone was alright. A shared experience, a shaking-to-the-core, loosened all the protective layers. The light came through the frozen facade.

As we’ve written, the polar freeze has driven us into the basement to clean out the stuff-of-life collected over three decades. It’s been a minor fascination that our cleaning process has inspired stories from friends about the time that they cleaned out the stuff-of-their-lives. Amidst the many stories we’ve heard, there is a triple constant: the stuff they saved, just like us, are the artifacts of their children with the intention of someday giving the treasures to their children. Clothes. Finger paintings. Trophies. Sporting equipment. Children’s books…our collection fills many shelves that now dip from the weight of too many books packed onto too small a shelf.

The second constant: the children do not want what the parents have saved. The museum of parenthood. The cleaning commences once the parents realize that saving the artifacts was, in fact, something they did for themselves. And so their life review is called “cleaning out.”

The third constant: the cleanse is actually a portal. A next chapter, another identity, lives on the other side of the purge. New light calls through the frozen memories. The memories warm in the telling. The sharing of the tales of parenthood, lovingly mourned and with gratitude, celebrated and released.

I Will Hold You, 29.75 x 39.25, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FREEZE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: artifacts, artistry, celebration, children, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life review, memories, memory, parenthood, passage, portal, release, stories, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Stand At The Fork [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on January 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Once in a vision
I came on some woods
And stood at a fork in the road
My choices were clear
Yet I froze with the fear
Of not knowing which way to go
One road was simple
Acceptance of life
The other road offered sweet peace
When I made my decision
My vision became my release.

Nether Lands by Dan Fogelberg

It happened again. We were making dinner and, before she said it, I knew exactly what she was going to say. “I’ve been here before,” I thought. Deja vu. I understand these moments as affirmations of being on the right path. The first day we met was a festival of deja vu.

Most of my life I was terrified to sing. A professor in graduate school challenged us to walk into and explore one of our fears so I took a class: singing for the utterly petrified. That wasn’t really the title of the course. I can’t remember the title because I was in a heightened state of panic the whole semester. We had to choose a favorite song to sing. I chose Nether Lands by Dan Fogelberg because it was the first album I ever owned and I used to play it over and over and over. I knew the title track by heart. I figured I’d have a better chance of staying conscious if the song and lyrics were already beaten into my brain. The fact that I am writing this so many years later is proof positive that I survived.

When we met I told her, a consummate musician, “I don’t sing and I don’t pray.” Better to spill the beans upfront than to torture her ears down the road. Managing expectations, yada yada.

“That’s too bad, ” she said. A few short months later I was singing in her choir, band and ukulele band. So much for conviction! She told me that my problem wasn’t singing, it was hearing. I had to learn to hear. I loved the implication: walking into fear requires learning to hear. I’m still learning. Deja vu!

It happened again. Carefully opening the small step ladder between the piano and the cello to hang the lampshade in her studio. “I’ve been here before,” I thought, positioning the legs of the ladder. I knew she was going to tell me to make sure the feather clip was in front. I knew she was going to wrinkle her nose. I had no idea what would come next.

It’s what I love about a good deja vu – you’ve both been there before and have no idea where you are going. It stops you for a moment of appreciation. Affirmation. Always at a fork in the road: simple acceptance of life and sweet peace. I have a feeling that, no matter the choice, all roads eventually lead to the same place. Hanging a funky cool lampshade. A wrinkled nose. Learning to hear. A deja vu. An affirmation of being right where I am supposed to be.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LAMPSHADE

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Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Gratitude, KS Friday | Tagged: a shred of hope, affirmation, appreciation, artistry, boho, conviction, Dan Fogelberg, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deja vu, expectations, fear, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lampshade, Nether Lands, panic, shred of hope, singng, story, studio melange, the melange, voice | 1 Comment »

Follow The Popcorn Trail [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 3, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

More than a decade and a half ago, a friend, a mystic, gave me a short-hand for my ikigai, my life-purpose. We were having a casual conversation when she got that look in her eyes. Nodding to some whispering voice I could not hear, she turned to me and said that she saw no career for me. Mine to do, my job, had (has) three aspects: to express what is true, to reach people through their hearts, to help them to believe (in themselves).

I confess to being a bit distraught at the “no career” part of her message. “What about my career as an artist?!” I wanted to protest but kept my panic to myself. I wanted her to ask the future a surprisingly pertinent question: In the absence of a career, how will I make a living? I kept that question to myself, too. I knew what she was telling me was true. Apparently I will bushwhack my way through life to the very end.

I thought about our conversation, her message to me, this morning while staring at Kerri’s photograph of green teasel. Staring at our prompts I never know what will pop into my mind. I never know what popcorn trail I will follow when we sit down to write. I am constantly surprised by the memory or idea that reveals itself. It’s akin to consulting the oracle: Why did this memory flood my heart and overtake my mind while staring at green teasel? It’s why I love writing our posts: the cultivation of surprise.

Looking back I have to admit that the whispering voice was spot on. When we write – and we write together every day – my hope is to reach people through their hearts. We laugh because I am much more “heady” in my writing than Kerri, who is all heart. Perhaps the whispering voice saw clearly our daily dedication to writing. Expressing my truth in word and image. It is the singular constant in my otherwise seemingly incoherent passage.

Wild teasel is a medicinal plant. In an age before modern medicine I would have sought it to treat my Lyme Disease. It’s an anti-inflammatory so I’d make a tincture to help my aching joints. I’d be filled with the wisdom of self-healing, connected to and grateful for the plants that surround me.

Perhaps that is why wild teasel inspired a memory of my mystic friend? An oracle. Nature’s healing. The sagacity of hindsight. Grateful for the wisdom and good hearts that surround me. The willingness to follow the popcorn trail, especially when it makes absolutely no sense, but knowing in my bones that it will lead to a delightful surprise: a memory of Ikigai revealed. A worthy life-purpose that can only be found in giving your gift to others.