KS Friday | The Direction of Intention

Take It In [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 4, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

The morning air was cool and crisp. When I let Dogga out I stood by the back door and breathed in the hint of fall.

I laughed as I lingered by the back door because I had the revelation. It’s the revelation I have every year, the revelation that signals not only the change in season but a truth I wish I could hold onto throughout the year. It’s simple: life is a circle, not a line.

It’s useful, when so much of our unease is about “getting there,” about being some place other than where we are, to realize that it is not a line we walk, but a loop. Hurrying to “get there” when looping is nonsensical. Life as a cycle is much more amenable to presence-in-the-moment. It cracks the hard bark of desire and allows space for insight, gratitude, and appreciation.

Yesterday I read that this year, 2020, has been a decade long. I reminded myself, standing at the back door awash in my yearly revelation, not to wish a moment of my life away. To stand in it – all of it. This is certainly a time of disruption and the fatigue that comes with loss of balance and the comforts of the known. This IS the experience. This is life. This is what change feels like. Pattern disruption is meant to be a slap into awareness.

And, as it turns out, for me, that hint of fall in the air comes as a gentle seasonal slap. Slow down. Do not rush to get through it. This is precious life – all of it – no matter the circumstance. As Chris wrote months ago, “So, this is what it feels like to be in a pandemic.” Yes. This is what if feels like. We are in it.

It is the call of Kerri’s Millneck Fall. Stand still. Take it in.

Dogga races with great zest around the yard, protecting us from marauding squirrels. The frogs in the pond sound out, morning roll call. The smell of coffee pulls me to the kitchen. There will be plenty of time as we cycle around to make meaning of these days.

Millneck Fall on the album Blueprint For My Soul is available in iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about MILLNECK FALLS

millneck fall/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Pattern, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: 2020, appreciation, autumn, change, circle, cycle, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, fall, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pandemic, pattern disruption, presence | Leave a comment »

Face In [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 28, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

figure it out copy

“…gentleness can be a greater force for transfiguration than any political, economic, or media power,…” ~ John O’Donohue

Here is my utopian fantasy: The protesters put down their signs, the police put down their shields, the militia drops their weapons, the citizens of all races, creeds, colors, political identities and economic stripes come out of their houses and hold hands facing into a circle of their creation. Nothing need be said. What are we protesting FOR if not this?

We are excellent at pushing against what we do not want. We are practiced at screaming in rabid reactivity. Finger pointing and blame is among our most popular Facebook pass times. We like to make noise and bluster about the violation of our rights and ignite fearmongering fires warning of imagined assaults on our amendments. Propaganda and lie make for good reality television ratings. They provide permission to smash glass, loot, denigrate “others” and give cover to murder in all its forms, but are lousy foundations for a civil and civilized society.

Truth is intentional, not reactive. It steps toward an ideal. It provides a national focal point, a guide-star that will not cotton with lie and propaganda.

We seem utterly inept, absolutely incapable at walking toward what we profess. Our ideal is printed on our dollar bills and chiseled into the facades of our buildings: e pluribus unum: out of many, one. Our division is chiseled into our history.

My utopian fantasy is not so hard to realize but notice it requires a common first step: a putting down of weapon and rhetoric and dedicated division. The second step is also not difficult: reach out, take the hand that is closest. Circle up with those who you most disagree. The third step may be the hardest: say nothing. Defend and justify nothing. Prove or claim nothing. Face in, not face off. The greatest intentions, like the most profound truths, are often silent. Step four: live the circle.

We can figure it out. It’s no greater matter than walking toward what we want, what we espouse, instead of forever pushing against what we do not want. Perhaps our first truth is to admit that there is a lie built into what we chisel in walls and what we actually live. We need to intend oneness if we are to realize our central ideal.

Doc Rivers, a black man and coach of the LA Clippers said this yesterday: “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.” Love. Love back. There is no better or simpler statement of intention. Walk toward it.

He also famously said, “Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.” His dictum applies to nations as well as players: great nations want to be told the truth. Average nations want to be left alone.

FIGURE IT OUT on the album RIGHT NOW is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about FIGURE IT OUT

figure it out/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, KS Friday, Love, Possibility, The Direction of Intention, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: circle, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, Doc Rivers, figure it out, ideal, intention, John O"Donohue, Kenosha, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lie, love, propaganda, right now, silence, transcendence, transfiguration, transformation, truth, utopia | Leave a comment »

Question It [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 21, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

bridge box copy

Mist covers the mountain and the mountain disappears.

I just learned a new term: astroturfing: “…the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial connection.” ~wikipedia

This morning I stumbled onto this term because someone we love has swallowed the bait and jumped enthusiastically into a conspiracy sink hole. It took us less than 30 seconds to research the organization and discover its connection to Russian bots. It’s a mirage meant to attract the lazy-minded and whip them into malcontents. Pull the curtain and Oz is revealed as nothing more than a 2nd rate magician who understands the power of slight of hand. Look over there.

I feel as though I could and should use this quote every day:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ~ Isaac Asimov

The real problem of our nation in these times is a dedication to ignorance. It took us less than 30 seconds to pull the curtain on this cult-sham-of-angry-misinformation meant to influence our elections. Yet, we know that no amount of love or appeal matters. Our loved one is lost. It is the nature of cults to provide absolute answers to the fearful. The cult provides the appearance of comfort and community. “Welcome!” The organizing principle is always Us versus Them with the not-so-subtle doctrine that Us is superior to Them. It is the nature of cults to isolate their members, play on their low self-esteem, steel them against fact or reason or the appeals of loved ones to open their eyes. It is an aspect of cults that the adherents have no idea that they are in a cult.

There’s no use shouting, “Wait! Look! Open your eyes!” We have become the enemy, Them. We are inferior and data and fact are an an assault on the comfort, the easy answer, a threat to new-found absolute superiority. The tub of purple Koolaid has already been distributed and consumed by the faithful.

I remember teaching students to check their sources. It’s become even more important in the age of the internet and social media. Kerri and I hold ourselves to that standard. We check our media. We check the sources of our media checks. It is a simple basic: don’t believe everything you hear. Check it. It is the hard line separating ignorance from knowledge. We cannot have a debate of ideas and ideals without it. We cannot build a bridge to the center, to compromise and collaboration, if astro-turf manipulation is so easily embraced as a grassroots movement, if dedicated ignorance is comparable to research, study and questioning.

30 seconds. It seems like such a small thing to ask, a simple kick of the tire. Check what your hear. Question what you are being sold. A question is never an assault on belief.

Yet, it seems too much to ask. We watch as the mist descends. The mountain disappears.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about BRIDGE

bridge/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: AS IT IS, astro-turfing, Bridge on AS IT IS, conspiracy theory, credibility, cult, cult mentality, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dedicated ignorance, false credibility, gaslighting, grassroots, ignorance, Isaac Asimov, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lazy minded, malcontent | Leave a comment »

Stack It High [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 14, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

a shred of hope copy

It’s day 4 of the salmonella blues. We think the offender was the green onion in the tabouli. We made a big batch on Sunday and it was delicious. And then it wasn’t. If it was possible for our world to get even smaller, more constrained, we found the way.

If we wanted to, we would stack the tales of woe one upon the other: pandemic, broken wrists, lost jobs, and today, the top of the woe-stack would be bad onions. We simply do not want to focus on that particular stack. So, instead, we stack our tales of gratitude: we are safe in our home, we have ridiculous amounts of love for our crazy dog and oversized cat, we are healthy (mostly), we have each other, we have incredible family and friends. We live our art. In fact, during the moments we feel sorry for ourselves, all we need do is slide the stacks together for side-by-side comparison. The gratitude stack is a mighty mountain next to the wimpy stack of woe.

This morning, when we felt that we could sit upright, we went into Kerri’s studio. She brought a word to mind and began playing, improvising. My job, as always, was to hit the record-button and stand still. What she played lifted me. I couldn’t help but look out the window, the sun sparkled in the leaves of the tree out front. I was overwhelmed by the feeling that everything was going to be alright. No matter what.

I told her about my feeling and she said, “Oh, that’s good! The word I chose to play was ‘hope.'”

What’s atop the gratitude-stack today? A little shred of hope.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about A SHRED OF HOPE

Kerri lingers in Facebook limbo. Everyday I ask with increasing mock-suspicion, “What exactly did you do?” Her indignation resurrects her almost-lost Long Island accent, “Idintdoanything!” she huffs. So, if you desire that I might live another day, consider subscribing to her blog. It will keep me out of trouble and for that I will chuck you on top of the stack of gratitude. The view is excellent up there so give it some thought.

a day at the beach

a shred of hope ©️ 2020 kerri sherwood

a day at the beach ©️ 2017 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Gratitude, hope, improvisation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, salmonella, shred of hope, uplifting, woes | Leave a comment »

Allow A Glimpse [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 7, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

lost sketch copy

One of the challenges arising in our Melange is what to publish on DR Thursday or KS Friday. After 130 weeks, we both feel the need to produce and publish new work and not draw from the archives. It’s a good sign.

Today, after reading Wade Davis’ must-read article about the end of the american era in Rolling Stone, Kerri decided to go into the studio, focus on a single word, in this case, “lost,” and improvise. It was thrilling. I cannot describe the feeling of watching her finally and at last do what she is meant to do on this earth. Standing at the open end of the piano holding the iphone to record, I can feel the vibration of her playing ripple through my body, the pounding rhythm through the wood floor enters through the soles of my feet.

There is a moment 15 or 20 seconds after she begins playing when the music takes over, when she is no longer playing from her thinking-mind but from the deeper place. Her face relaxes. Her posture changes. The piano hops. She merges with the music and I feel like weeping or laughing or both the handful of times I’ve seen it happen. When she merges, it opens the door for me to enter, too. That is the power and magic of an artist: access to the deep-beautiful.

I’ve never met an artist more resistant to their artistry than Kerri. I’ve met artists before that feared their artistry because they get lost in it. They walk to the edge but fear the leap. That might be Kerri’s plight but I don’t think so. My New York girl routinely stomps on edges, shouts profanity into canyons and leaps into voids. She is no shrinking violet. No, I think she feels betrayed by her gift so she betrays it in return. I think she feels lost. It is why the word resonated with her this morning.

And now, add two broken wrists to this complexity. It’s six months since her fall and her right wrist, her melody hand, is not recovering. It’s limiting. Her motion is greatly impeded. I cannot hear it but my ears are not the ears that matter in this equation.

This morning she improvised a few different pieces. For me they were gripping. For Kerri they were frustrating. So, rather than give you the full recording, she chose to offer a short sketch, a phrase. A timely piece and appropriate metaphor on almost every level: lost.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about LOST

all my loves

lost (a sketch) ©️ 2020 kerri sherwood

all my loves ©️ 2020 david robinson

putyourfingersonthekeys WITH EYES jpeg copy 2

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, KS Friday, Metaphor, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, betrayal, complexity, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, improvisation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lost, metaphor, piano composition, Rolling Stone Magazine, Wade Davis | Leave a comment »

Stand and Trawl [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 31, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

untitled interlude copy

I call it her daily horror trawl. Each morning, as I make breakfast, Kerri scrolls through Facebook. She yips and growls and exclaims, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!” It is akin to intentionally hitting your thumb with a hammer or repeatedly smacking your head against the wall. Purposeful pain.

This is a new behavior. It corresponds with the pandemic, what feels like the intermission between act one and act two of life. Some folks saddle up to the bar. Some folks hit their hands with hammers. Kerri tosses her fishing net into the e-weeds.

After breakfast she gives me a summary of the horrors. Occasionally, there is something positive, a cute puppy story or a blast-from-the-past photo. Mostly it’s grisly stupidity and loud proclamations of ignorance. And vacation photos. This morning, she showed me Craig’s post. Green Day’s prescient song from 2004, American Idiot. Check out the lyrics! Now everybody do the propaganda/ And sing along to the age of paranoia. I laughed heartily. The horror trawl is not without its prophets and rewards.

I know it’s hard not to look at the collision. The wreckage is strewn across the e-landscape and magnified over the air waves. People can’t help but gawk at the fight. I’m finding that all I want to do these days is go down into the studio. Mostly I stand in it and look. I rarely touch my brushes and am curious about that. I don’t sit and that’s also curious. I suspect I don’t want to bring the outer world into my inner sanctum. It’s too soon. The fire is still raging. I stand in my momentary escape and breathe. Then, without fail, I go back up the steps and say, “Let’s take a walk!”

Life in the interlude. We stand together, making some sense and perhaps finding a wee-bit-of-grace in the liminal space.

UNTITLED INTERLUDE is on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART

read Kerri’s blog post about UNTITLED INTERLUDE

a snippet of FEEL THE RAIN

untitled interlude/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

feel the rain ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: american idiot, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, green day, in between, interrlude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liminal space, pain, pandemic, paranoia, propaganda, released from the heart, untitled interlude | Leave a comment »

Step Back [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

slow dance copy

When we first met we danced in the front yard. We danced in the kitchen. We danced in downtown Chicago. We skipped through airports. We crawled out of second story windows to sip wine on the roof. A spirit of play and celebration ran amok in our togetherness.

Later, we had a slow dance party. All of our pals came over with their favorite slow dance music. We played the songs, slow-danced on the patio, sipped wine, ate snacks, and laughed a lot. With Linda and Josh’s tricksterism, it became a wild line dancing free-for-all. Joy-full. It was meant to be a yearly tradition and, perhaps, in a post-pandemic world, the slow dance party will return and fulfill its promise.

Fulfilling promise.

Yesterday for my melange post I used an old cartoon, a Chicken Nugget. I spent some time poking around the hundreds of strips and single panel offers that we sent to the syndicate. They liked Chicken Marsala but wanted us to further develop it. At the time, we thought it was good and, although we tried and tried to “develop” it, Chicken languished. That was a few years ago. Looking now, I can see what was missing. “These aren’t very good,” I told Kerri. “The writing could be better. I could have drawn them better.”

Each week we look at our archives to choose a piece to write about in this Melange. Most often we are hyper-critical of our past work. “Yuck!” Kerri says. “Oh, god!” I say, “I can’t believe I ever showed that piece!” It’s what happens when you grow, when you improve. Your best work is never what you’ve done in the past but what you imagine for your future.

They teach an important skill in art school – step back. You can’t see it if you are too close – and you will always be too close when you are creating. Let perspective work for you. It’s a slow dance: step away. Step forward. Step away. Leave it alone. Step back into it. Forget it. Look again.

Life is like that, too. You can never fully see it in the moment. It requires a step back, an intentional step away. It takes some time to recognize how varied and beautiful it really is.

SLOW DANCE in on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN

read Kerri’s blog post about SLOW DANCE

dancing in the front yard

slow dance/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

dancing in the front yard ©️ 2013 david robinson

Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective, slow-dance, step back, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Mourn The Loss [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 17, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

last i saw you copy

28 years ago, on this day, Kerri’s older brother, Wayne, died of lung cancer. If you want to know how she feels about it, you need only listen to LAST I SAW YOU. Grief made utterly beautiful in its yearning.

It is the gift of the artist to transform, to turn the darkest day, the breaking heart, into something bearable. It is the gift of the artist to communicate what cannot be captured in language, to transport us, in a safe way, into and through the hurt so we might touch the unfathomable depth of love. It is the gift of the artist to open new pathways and possibilities, to guide communities into and through impossible conversations. To point the way to a new story, a new perspective growing from an old and ancient root.

In my mind it is the greatest loss when an artist turns against their artistry. The entire world loses on the day an artists says, “Why bother.” There’s no money in it. The artist loses most of all because they’ve bitten the poison in the American apple. They wither and die. Not everything is or should operate like a business. Education is not nor ever should be a business. Worship is not a business. Healthcare is not nor ever should be a business. Run them that way and the priorities flip. The greater is lost in the lesser. When making money becomes more important than health or care or spirit or the expansion of minds, we lose our way. We send our kids back to school during a pandemic to open the economy. Sacrificial lambs. Throw them into a volcano to make it rain.

What we value in this nation is abhorrent.

And then there is Kerri. What a gift. What a loss. She read today that someone is now making silverware out of old CDs. “Look,” she said, showing me the article. “We have a basement filled with CDs! Maybe we should have gone into the silverware business!” Proving to herself once again that her gift is less than worthless. Worth less gift. No business.

Great! I thought but did not say. A world filled with forks but void of your music. No one to lead us through the dark, no way to reach the truly beautiful.

“My paintings,” I said, feigning alliance, “are destined for a thrift store.” I’ve given up the fight with her (though, by this post you can see that I am a liar).

I continue to paint with no illusion about “sales” or “showing” or the other necessities of “business.” It’s for me, now. Transformation of dark to light can be selfish, too. Personal. After all, for me, it’s always been a spiritual path. Business necessities pale in the comparison.

If you want to know what I [and Wayne] feel about Kerri turning her back on her artistry, you need only listen to LAST I SAW YOU. Listen for the strings. It will break your heart.

LAST I SAW YOU is on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY

read Kerri’s blog post about LAST I SAW YOU

meditation

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, business, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, healthcare, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, pandemic, Sacred, value, values, worship | 2 Comments »

Learn to Look [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

part of the wind dandelion fluff copy

“At the heart of beauty must be a huge care and affection for creation, for nowhere is beauty an accidental presence.” John O’Dononue, Beauty, The Invisible Embrace

I read yesterday in my Brain Pickings that Georgia O’Keeffe believed her close-up paintings were “a magnifying lens for paying attention.” I read and appreciated this phrase: Painting these close-ups was a way of learning to look, a way of removing the blinders with which we gallop through the world, slowing down, shedding our notions and concepts of things, and taking things in as they really are.

It is the astonishing miracle of a human being: we can choose to see or choose to not see. Also, we can choose what we see or we can choose to deny what is right in front of us. In any case, seeing is predicated on slowing down, on taking the time to “shed our notions and concepts of things.”

Seeing is an intentional act or perhaps it is a creation-in-the-moment – which implies it is an intentional relationship. In this way, as I understand it, seeing the beauty of this life is a decision, it is a lens. It is a dance.

I’ve never been in a hot-air balloon. Kerri had the experience once, it is the source of this composition. Hovering in a basket above the earth, moving with the wind, very few controls. It was, I imagine, an exercise of giving over, of letting go. I think seeing is like the experience she describes of hanging in the basket of a hot-air balloon. All concepts of hurry-up or getting-things-done drop away. Hard time dissolves. There is nowhere else to be. And, in that space, beauty makes known her presence. She opens your eyes.

PART OF THE WIND is on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL

read Kerri’s blog post about PART OF THE WIND

from the archive: blanket of blue sky, 2004

Filed under: KS Friday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, blueprint for my soul, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Georgia O'Keeffe, hot air balloon, intention, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lens, Part Of The Wind, presence, seeing, slowing down, taking time | Leave a comment »

Sing [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

sing

The story is famous in these parts. It goes like this: when I met Kerri I told her that she needed to know two things about me: 1) I don’t sing. 2) I don’t pray. She gave me a sideways knowing look and said, “Oh, that’s too bad.”

I had some very-traumatic-early-in-my-life-singing-experiences. Lots of shame and humiliation led me to an adamant preemptive proclamation with my musician-soon-to-be wife: I do not sing. No way. Don’t even ask. I’ll watch from the sidelines.

Of course, within a few months, she had me in a ukulele band, a choir, and a band. It turns out I like to sing. The problem, she taught me, was not in my capacity to sing, it was in how I hear sound. I hear an octave up. She taught me how to hear. I am now a confident parasitic singer (i.e. I sing just fine with others, just don’t ask me to sing alone).

I’ve spent my life teaching people to see. How beautifully ironic (or perfect) that I needed to learn to hear.

Early in the saga of Beowulf, he is caught in a swarm and blinded by bees. Because he was blinded, he had to develop other senses; his heightened senses were critical in combating and defeating the monster Grendel. Late in his life, he retired as a beekeeper. He not only made peace with bees, they become his allies. At the very end, his bees are his greatest strength. They defeat a dragon plaguing his kingdom.

The great stories are with us for a reason. They can help us navigate and craft our own life stories. For instance, the greatest wounds can be limits or they can lead to new and vital gifts. I’ve learned from Beowulf that the path you take – limit or liberation – depends on the story you argue for, the focus you choose. When I met Kerri I was arguing for my limitation. I do not sing. Period.

Another recurring theme in the great stories goes like this: when you are ready, the right teacher appears.

read Kerri’s blog post about SING