Popcorn Trail [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Late at night, standing on the platform awaiting the train to take us home, the moon and clouds gave us a spectacular show. I knew that the moon was a waxing gibbous and realized that, although I’d known and used the word since I was young, I had no idea what the word “gibbous” actually meant. It sounds like something related to gibbons, small apes that swing through trees. Is the moon gibbous because it swings through the sky? No! The moon is gibbous because it is greater than a semi-circle yet less than a circle. Gibbous describes the shape! Bulbous. Convex. Protruding.

Yesterday I unrolled many small canvases and pinned them to the wall in my studio. They are like a small flame I’ve kept for alive for over 35 years. They refer back to a large odd shaped canvas I stapled to the deck of my apartment on a sunny day, overlooking Hollywood. I had a very limited paint supply, a few cans of paint used for animation (computer animation was not yet possible so artists painted images on cells with acrylic paints), grey, blue, and white. I had a small jar of cadmium red. I taped a few housepainting brushes to long sticks and made myself a promise to “have fun and not think too much.” And I did. I had fun. I didn’t think too much. I played. In those few short hours, I painted the single piece that would influence my work for the rest of my life. I knew it was special. It was pure. It sold before I could adequately document it (remember the age before the ease of digital cameras?). It sold before I had the opportunity to install it in a gallery and show it.

I call the many small canvases my “narrative paintings”. They are a popcorn trail that I dropped as I wandered into the forest of my artistry. Some of the pieces are studied and lifeless. Some are playful and shallow. Some are raw and heart-full. I tacked them all to the wall to guide me back to the original impulse, that moment of artistic purity.

I am gibbous though, at this age, I am no longer waxing. I am greater than a semi-circle but have not yet completed my full life circle. In my time on earth I have been what Kerri calls a “strider”, someone trying-too-hard to climb the ladder of success. I have pursued my artistry like it was a wild animal, setting traps to capture what I could not easily understand. I have finally learned, or have lived long enough to realize, that I am and have always been what I chase. No traps necessary.

I follow the popcorn trail back to what I experienced that day in Los Angeles: the simple joy of being alive. A conscious moment enthusiastically expressed through a little grey, blue and white paint, punctuated with some surprise cadmium red.

IN THE NIGHT on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY © 1998 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON AND CLOUDS

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Happy Harbinger [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 8, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The space between our garage and the neighbors fence is a narrow passageway. It is out-of-sight-out-of-mind. As the original debris field of the house, there are mounds of earth that I long ago learned I’d never be able to dig out. A shovel cannot penetrate the bits of brick and wood, old cement and wire, that have long since petrified and are covered by a thin layer of dirt. Gnarly weeds grow in abundance, some taller than I am.

The passage is a neighborhood animal trail for the fox and opossum so we occasionally toss old broccoli or carrots gone rubbery for the critters to eat. Tossing critter snacks is the only time I ever visit the passageway. On a recent snack-toss-expedition I was astounded to see a mighty sunflower rising high above the weeds! A sunflower towering above the debris field. It felt auspicious. An affirmation. A positive sign of good things to come.

I looked at the sunflower in utter disbelief. It looked at me with amusement. I ran into the house to grab Kerri so she could marvel at our happy harbinger.

There are few things on this earth that human beings have so thoroughly endowed with positive symbolic meanings as the sunflower. Happiness. Health and longevity. Good luck. Abundance. Loyalty. There is no dark undertone, no shadow symbology with sunflowers. It is the Shirley Temple of symbols.

From the outside, our life together this past decade probably appears to most like a debris field. Our career implosion left bits and pieces of us scattered all over the tarmac. And yet, you would be hard pressed to find two happier people, two more intentionally grateful human beings.

Yesterday we discovered chunks of tar on the back patio. Looking up we saw that part of the roof over our sunroom had peeled back, probably from the recent wind storms. As I prepared myself to panic, Kerri smiled and said, “I am going to choose to be grateful that we found this before it really became a problem.” My panic hissed out of me like air from a balloon. No panic necessary. No need to get lost in the problem. Just gratitude with an eye toward solutions. I clamped the layers down until the roofing guy could come.

From the top of the ladder I could see the sunflower. It looked like it was watching over us. I remembered the lesson of one of Aesop’s Fables: what looks like a tragedy is often a gift. What looks like a boon sometimes brings a curse. And, in time, the curse will eventually open the way to a blessing.

“Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” I quipped with the sunflower. It simply smiled in reply.

RIVERSTONE on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s music is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUNFLOWER

http://www.kerrianddavid.com

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Expect Awe [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I can’t remember what we were searching to find. What I know is that we forgot what we were doing because we bumbled into a James Taylor concert recorded by the BBC in 1970. He was 22. An old soul. His performance in 1970 buoyed our spirits on a humid stormy morning in 2025.

While there was a break in the rain we ran outside to check the rapid growth of the sweet potato. Last week we discovered a sweet potato in the stair-well potato basket that seemingly overnight had become an alien. Hot pink tentacles reached from the basket like so many periscopes. We pondered what to do and decided to experiment and planted it. If you are a farmer or otherwise schooled in the art of growing things, please feel free to roll your eyes. Since we are not farmers and total novices at growing things, the explosion of leaves from the once-hot-pink-tentacles seems to us like a miracle. I hope this awe never dissolves into the ordinary. I like running outside with the express expectation of being amazed.

Yesterday we scrolled through some pictures taken in the fall of 2021. Following my father’s funeral we drove into the Colorado mountains to walk a piece of land by a lake, the place where he most loved to go to fish. The place where he found his peace. We lit a candle. We walked around the lake. We marveled at the color of the leaves, vibrant yellow, hot red and orange. We grieved and told stories. Looking through the photographs filled me with gratitude: at the time we knew we had to go to the mountain to celebrate his life and so we did. Four years later that inner-place of loss is full-full-full of gratitude for a simple soul who lived a simple life. The photos of that day at the lake served as a two-way-door, one way to a moment-gone-by and the other opened to this moment, teeming with appreciation.

I know without doubt that this ride is limited. Why wouldn’t I expect awe?

“It won’t be long before another day/ We gonna have a good time/ And no one’s gonna take that time away/ You can stay as long as you like./ So close your eyes. You can close your eyes, it’s alright/ I don’t know no love songs/ And I can’t sing the blues anymore/ But I can sing this song/ And you can sing this song when I’m gone.” James Taylor, Close Your Eyes

GRATEFUL on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SWEET POTATO

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Follow The Dream [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

As if the world was not topsy-turvy enough, last evening, just as the sun was setting, I opened the back door and was met with a wall of rising heat. The sun was going down and the temperature was going up!

We are in the land of Lewis Carroll. Logic spins like a wheel of fortune. Alice awoke from her Wonderland dream when she stood up to the Queen of Hearts. She awoke when she’d had enough of chaos and challenged the madness. It was a threshold moment, marking the passage into adulthood. Everything we need to know is in the story.

Do you remember Field of Dreams? “If you build it, he will come.” It’s a story of the power of following a dream no matter how irrational. Lately I’ve thought that our democracy is like the baseball field built in the middle of a cornfield. How irrational is it to imagine and then create a single nation, a field, that attracts and is home to people from all over the world! A nation where a wildly diverse populace governs itself. By the people, for the people, of the people. Build it and they will come.

Redemption is one of the themes of the movie. As is true in life, redemption for the characters comes after reconciling with their past. All of it: the good, the bad, the ugly. Redemption is a door that opens when a person or community – or nation – is brave enough to honestly look at and deal with the full scope of their history. There’s a good reason that Honesty is the first step in the twelve steps of addiction recovery. An honest reckoning opens the door to the pathway that leads to a second chance. It clears the vision, clarifies the dream.

Challenge the madness.

Say, “Enough!”

Get honest.

I took some small comfort when I read these words this morning: “…it’s never too late to reconcile with the past and find peace.” Follow the dream “…even when it seems impossible or irrational.”

“Go the distance.”

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE © 2003 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CORN

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Special Delivery [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Iris is a goddess in Greek mythology. She is like the postal service, delivering messages between the gods and humans. In ancient Greek, Iris means rainbow. ‘Iris links the gods to humanity.” She links humanity to the gods. Tease that tidbit of symbolism apart and she provides the connective tissue linking people to wisdom, human beings to truth.

Although rainbows appear as an arch from the ground, they are actually complete circles, light refracted and reflected through water droplets. The ancient Greeks would never have been able to see the full circle since it takes an airplane to see the whole of Iris but I bet they had no problem seeing the circular nature of truth; the end-less nature of wisdom available if one can climb high enough to see it.

Kerri tells me that it is not unusual to find a single iris all alone in the field. One messenger carrying one message at a time! This messenger stopped us in our tracks because it seemed so out of place. It was a surprise akin to the discovery of a frog in our little backyard pond. “Now, how did you get there?” I ask.

Later, I allowed myself to entertain the notion that Iris was bringing us a message. Her missives are always encouragements. Have hope. Keep the faith. Draw on your courage. The wisdom is within you. I liked the idea that Iris brought us a letter and that the envelope contained a morale-boost, a heartening. Her timing was impeccable. Her simple beauty inspired awe.

Today, as I write this, the nation is alive with Good Trouble protests. I wonder what it will take for the republicans, so dedicated to keeping their heads firmly planted in the sand, to receive the messages from Iris? I wonder what it will take – what they and we will lose – for them to climb high enough to see the circular impact of their actions? Can they possibly believe that undermining their constituents and driving them into poverty will not bring a tsunami to their shores? Do they not understand that turning their backs on the truth to protect a liar transforms them into tissue-paper-fools, too?

In a time that they have lost their collective spine, eschewed their moral compass, it is my hope that they receive a special delivery from Rainbow Iris, a single flower in a field: Find your courage now.

GALENA on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about IRIS

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Weeding Revelations [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 11, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.” ~ Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

I can’t believe I am writing this. The truth is that I enjoy weeding. While Kerri tends to the herbs on the potting bench, I pull weeds from the cracks between the patio stones. I am sometimes shocked at the satisfaction I feel when the deep root emerges with the stem. “Nice!” I exclaim to myself, dropping it into my plastic bucket.

It has not always been true that I enjoy weeding. Initially, it used to feel like a fool’s errand, an unwinnable war. Each new day would reveal new weeds – more weeds – overtaking my gains from the day before. Redoubling my weed-pulling-efforts seemed to produce the opposite of my intention: more and more weeds.

In retrospect I realize that I came to home ownership later in life and my weed wars were waged when I was relatively new to the job. I wanted to impress my new wife with my manly yard maintenance prowess. I’d mowed thousands of lawns in my life and all of them belonged to other people. This yard, our yard, did not yet feel like mine. I was in denial that I actually had a yard to tend.

I also had an Aussie dog whose sole mission in his young life was to carve multiple velodromes through the grass in his gleeful running of circles. And, as it turns out, Aussie pups, when overheated by running circles, dig deep holes in the earth to reach cool soil that they can lay on it. The backyard destruction was total and provided every gleeful weed known to humanity a perfect opportunity to sprout with unbridled enthusiasm. So they did.

I do not know when the crossover happened. I do not know when I surrendered the fight. I don’t imagine it happened all at once. There was no grand epiphany, no lightning bolt of illumination. Over time the war turned into a game and then the game turned into a meditation. One day, I walked into the backyard to quiet my mind and began to weed – and realized what I was doing. “Good for the heart. Good for the soul.” Brother Patrick’s words of so long ago came to mind. Never in my life did I think I would have a yard. Never in a thousand years did I imagine I’d love to quiet my mind by weeding. My wandering soul giggled at the revelation.

It’s been that way ever since.

“I don’t like weeding as much as you do,” she said, pruning the mint and tending the peppers. The potting bench is her happy place.

“I know,” I said, pulling a clump of crabgrass. It came out, roots and all “Nice,” I said aloud. Our old Aussie left his cool soil perch and came to investigate.

“What?” she asked.

“Our yard,” I said. “It’s so nice.”

PULLING WEEDS on the album RIGHT NOW © 2010 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE POTTING BENCH

www.kerrianddavid.com

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That Is Everything [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

On these unseasonably hot summer days, Dogga can be found lounging by the air conditioner. Surrounded by his favorite toys, snowman, candy cane, baby, bone and red, he basks in the artificial arctic breeze. He is, by nature, a snow dog. Winter is his preferred season, snow is his favorite couch.

Today, the 4th of July, is his twelfth birthday. We can hardly believe it since it seems like only yesterday that, while watching the Dog Dock Jump at the local 4th festivities, we talked of someday having a dog. In our telling of the story – we are artists, after all – Dogga was born at the exact moment that we were dreaming of him. I had not yet moved to the Midwest: three months later, driving the Budget truck across the country, loaded with all my worldly possessions (paintings, an easel and a chair), we saw a sign for “Aussie Pups” and, promising that we’d only pet the puppies, we stopped.

Dogga and I moved into our new home at the same time.

We’ve grown grey beards together. Neither one of us runs as fast or tolerates the heat like we used to. He enjoys standing in the middle of the backyard barking in the four directions just to see if anyone barks in reply. I sometimes feel like this blog is my version of doing the same thing.

He has grown to fear loud noises, thunder and fireworks, so we stay close-by on his birthday, on the 4th of July. And, truth be told, hanging with Dogga is more fun than watching the Dog Dock Jump or the Pie Eating Contest or cooing at the fireworks with the crowd. His enthusiasm is infectious. His bright eyes and open face, his unbridled joy, remind me of the good things in the world. His agenda is not hidden: it is loving us.

He is our reason to celebrate – simple, pure and honest – at a time that a dark shadow clouds our nation’s celebration, a time when almost nothing is simple, pure or honest.

Our agenda is loving him – on his birthday and everyday. That is all. That is everything.

DIVINE INTERVENTION on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA

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Show Up! [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 27, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

They young reveler looked at me and shouted over the music, “It’s great seeing you here!” He offered a fist bump and guided me through the secret handshake that followed the bump. We laughed.

At first I was puzzled. I didn’t know him at all yet he was genuinely delighted to see me. And then it occurred to me. In his eyes I am old. My beard is gray. He was happily surprised to find an old guy dancing in the raucous sweaty crowd at Chicago PRIDE.

Kerri leaned forward and told him – well, shouted over the throbbing thunderous music – that the performer on the stage was our son. The young reveler looked like she just slapped him. “WHAT?!” he exclaimed. He turned and told his friends. They looked at us as if hell had just frozen over – a remarkable metaphor since it was 105 degrees at 7:30 pm. Parents at PRIDE! Parents celebrating and supporting their son! Impossible! Unimaginable! Fist bumps, high-fives! The young reveler shook my hand enthusiastically saying, “No Way!! No Way!!”

Their dancing resumed, more enthusiastic, more joyful, in a world made new with wondrous possibility. The word spread. Proud parents were at PRIDE, dancing! Hunky boys fanned Kerri to keep her cool. She stood on the curb so she could take pictures of the stage above the festive crowd. “You’re Craig’s Mom!” I heard declared again and again. More hugs and introductions.

Later, exhausted, on the train ride home, Kerri said, “I think it was really important that we showed up.” I knew what she meant. We unintentionally showed up for more than Craig’s performance.

I thought of something the MC said to crowd after Craig’s set, “Are you going to take care of your trans brothers and sisters? Are you going to take care of each other?” he asked. The crowd cheered and he added, “Remember, if one of us is marginalized, all of us are marginalized.” Words of caution made more relevant – and poignant – by the manufactured hatred of our times. The demonization of “the other” marginalizes all of us.

Now, more than ever, it matters that we show up for each other. I was heartened by the No Kings protests. I am heartened each time a community shines a light on masked ICE agents and shames them away from brutalizing yet another human being. Our presence – our witness – in this moment matters more than we will ever understand.

CONNECTED on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE

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A Poet’s Revelation [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Some enlightened poet/scientist named this little flower Shooting Star. The flower evoked for the scientist streaks of light arcing across the night sky. The scientist must have had a profound experience one night, gazing into the stars when, suddenly, the stars seemed to go haywire, zipping across the sky.

My first ever meteor shower happened while I was a teenager. I was in the mountains. I lay in a meadow with my friends and watched the heavens dance. It made me understand how so many cultures on this earth believe that shooting stars are either souls returning to the earth to be reborn or the souls of the recently deceased leaping into the other world. Souls in transition leaving a brilliant, momentary trace of light behind them.

Still other cultures believe that shooting stars are messages from the gods. Affirmations.

The message I received from my night in the mountain meadow watching the stars arc across the sky? I am infinitesimally small in this vast universe. And, I am intimately connected to everything. It’s a poet’s revelation.

The scientist who named the flower Shooting Star must have had the exact same realization.

[Bonus hope: A poet’s thought in a world of oppression in which we are connected to everything]

I Look At The World ~ Langston Hughes

I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face—
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face—
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind—
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.

Blueprint For My Soul on the album The Best So Far © 1996/9 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s albums – borne of her poet’s revelation – are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about SHOOTING STARS

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Step Into The Mystery Fandango [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on May 30, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our ferns came on like gangbusters. One day they were little seahorses poking their heads from the ground. The next day (it seemed) they were standing tall, mature, a thick rich green forest of fern-fandango.

Fandango is a Spanish dance. It is also a slang term for extravagant behavior. Gangbusters is an idiom that originated from a 1930’s radio crime show and means “with enthusiasm” or “with great energy”.

I loved that she thought to take a photo from the top, a birds-eye view looking down into the dark secret center. It made we want to reach in, to discover the mystery of the fern fandango.

An enigma is always a Siren’s call to the human mind. It’s why we sail to the edge of the world or send rockets to the moon. It’s why we crack the genome or climb to the top of the mountain. It’s why we travel to foreign lands or seek the center of our paradoxical belief.

What is over there, in there, beyond? It is human nature to ask, to ponder, to relentlessly pursue questions. Questioning is the epicenter of science and the arts.

Our curiosity is greater than our fear. Ultimately, it is the reason that I have some small hope for this nation, currently in a frenzy of curiosity-killing, book-banning, history-scrubbing, white-washing, bible-thumping, mind-numbing, heart-clubbing, immigrant-ousting, truth-drowning…A whipped-up, full-on fear fandango meant to blunt all questioners.

People die when fear and panic rule their actions; they become incapable of thinking. People wilt when narrow pat-answers are forced down their throats. Authoritarians are gifted enemy-creators – enemies provide easy answers as long as no questions are permitted. Critical thinking is an authoritarians greatest foe. But, sooner or later, as is always true, the panic-stricken public tires of eating dross and have no recourse but to question the need for so much fearmongering and panic creation. Questions are the antidote to fear, the cure for toxic dictatorship because questions build the road to truth.

Questions are what drive the little seahorse ferns to pop their heads through the crusty soil. Questioners seek the light, they reach for the sun.

People blossom when curiosity calls and they answer. They join forces and mobilize. When disaster strikes, when corruption poisons the body public, people come on like gangbusters, rallying around hot questions like, “Now what?” They join hands and step together into the mystery fandango that holds the promise of leading to a better world – for all.

WATERSHED on the album AS IT IS © 2010 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FERNS

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