Unbridle Your Enthusiasm

Posted on May 21, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog's trophy collection

Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog’s trophy collection

Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog is tough on toys. He does well with hard rubber Kongs and rawhide bones but the stuffed animal variety haven’t got a prayer. We long ago stopped buying them for him. Even as a small puppy he’d make short work of anything that squeaked or resembled a creature. More than once, moments after giving him a new toy, I found him sitting happy and content amidst a nest of fiberfill with the empty body-shaped sack of toy remnant clutched firmly between his paws. Dog-Dog has several admirers who are unaware of his destructive talents and bring him stuffed animals as gifts. Like offerings to a high priests in days of old, Tripper graciously accepts their offer and removes to the backroom for immediate slaughter. For reasons I can’t explain, we keep the heads from his sacrifices. We use the heads as sleeves for our knife set or as wine bottle covers; it’s our own little version of Game of Thrones.

I’m learning much from master Dog-Dog. Lately his lessons are about faith and exuberance for the sheer pleasure of being alive. For Tripper, every doorway is an opportunity for bounding, every fence an opportunity for discovery. Even if he hopped at the fence 30 seconds prior, his return to the same spot is no less enthusiastic. He does not assume that he knows what he will find there, in fact, he assumes that the world is new no matter which way he looks. He does not blunt himself with notions of knowing like we bipeds. He is a four-legged master of beginner’s mind. If he had an inner monologue I’m certain it would be, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,…”

During our late night pre-bed visits to the backyard, Dog-Dog routinely stops and stands very still (unusual behavior for an Australian Shepherd), and for several moments he listens. He feels the breezes. He smells the air. He checks in with me to make sure that I am standing firmly rooted in the present moment. When he is certain that I am present with him in his quiet enthusiasm for life, that I have given up all of my stories and distractions from the day, that I, like him, am breathing in the miracle of existence, revels for a moment longer and then lets me know that I am ready for sleeping. He turns and prances toward the house, satisfied with my progress and exhausted by the sheer wonder of it all.

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Tell The Story

Posted on May 15, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
"...and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes..." e.e. cummings

“…and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes…” e.e. cummings

Three hundred and sixty six days ago I met Kerri. What I thought was going to be a casual meeting, the beginning of a new friendship, was much more than I anticipated though I didn’t really understand the scope and depth of our relationship until three hundred and sixty five days ago. On that day, exactly one year ago, I went with her to experience a Taize service. Taize is a meditation service and she was guiding the music. I sat with her during the Taize and, in a single moment, on a specific word of the Lord’s Prayer, we had an experience so potent, so mystical that a year later I still am unable to explain or comprehend it. Our lives changed in an instant. The moment was so powerful that we sat in the church for hours after the service. We couldn’t move. We couldn’t leave that space.

Yesterday, we both cleared our calendars and spent the day telling the story of our year. Our telling was not for reminiscence. It was not like a new year’s review of things past. It was not a measure of how far we’d come. It was elemental. It was the kind of telling that communities used to tell when they renewed themselves. It was the kind of telling people used to do to define themselves. It was story as a sacramental act. We visited the fire and the transformation, the earth and the necessity of rooting, the water and the miracle of flow, and the wind of inspiration and ancestry. We generated by regeneration.

So, I offer this as an exercise: give yourself a gift, take some time, and tell the story of everything you experienced on this earth, in this life, over the past three hundred and sixty five days. Visit the awe, the disappointment, the hurt, the joy, the boredom, the loss, the discovery, the exhaustion, the wonder, and anything else that affirms your life as unique and gorgeous. No one else walked the path you walked. No one else can or will walk the path you walk. See it. You’ll be amazed.

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Trespass And Forgive

Posted on April 28, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my Yoga series of paintings.

from my Yoga series of paintings.

I’m back in the choir loft staring at the stained glass window. We’re having a conversation about the word ‘trespass;” it has lately been central to my meditation.

When I was a kid my cousin, Randal, and I used to trespass a lot. There was an old abandoned house built on a hillside. It had a big fence around it to keep us out. It also had the best tree swing in the world so it was worth the breach. Using the back porch as a launch pad, we could swing out over the hillside and let go, falling into a pile of mattresses and foam rubber stacked by all the trespassers. Many times we ran or hid when the police came to shoo us away, always returning when the coast was clear for another swing. It was thrilling.

I’ve trespassed a lot this past year, not into abandoned properties but into places within myself that I had erected fences, places I was not supposed to go. That is the necessity of growth. Transformation always requires a trespass. In stories it is the equivalent of leaving home and going where you are never supposed to go, the place where the monsters live, the place where the entire society (your psyche) tells you never to go. And, so, it becomes the one place that you must go to grow. It is usually ugly and messy and filled with betrayal – and that is the point: all the order dissolves into chaos so that a new order might emerge.

And, in the trespassing within, we trespass against others, especially against people we cherish. They are part of the old order. When the internal order dissolves, the outer order dissolves, too. That is also ugly and messy and filled with betrayal. There is loss of friendship. Love is tested.

My stained glass window tells me that forgiveness – of self and other – is a necessary step on the path to the new order. Trespass is a wrecking ball. Trespass is thrilling. The cops in the head (to borrow a phrase from Augusto Boal) will drive by to run you off or make you hide. The cops in the head will tell you that you are not safe or that you are doing damage that cannot be repaired. Fear wears a badge of authority. Fear wags a finger and calls you traitor, liar, or coward.

Trespass makes all things true and nothing true; that is the point of chaos. All location points disappear. My stained glass window tells me that forgiveness is new location point. It is an anchor. It is a sign that the new order, the butterfly, is emerging from the mush of chaos. Just as trespass is an essential movement away from the known, forgiveness is essential to return home. And, in story terms as in life, when you come home, finally and at last, after all of the trials and all of the betrayals, after all the mess and ugliness, you are new, so home is new, too. When you trespass, leave, and return, you find that there are no more fences and no more badges keeping you out. You find that the swing is available anytime. Love is reformed and everything becomes possible.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Take The Time

Posted on April 23, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

photoLife is so fragile. It hinges on subtleties, kindness and happenstance.

When the bird hit the window it sounded like a gunshot. It was early morning, the sun was just above the horizon and I was outside with Tripper-Dog-Dog-Dog. The sound startled me but Tripper was across the yard to the bird in heartbeat. I screamed, “Stop!” The Dog-Dog stopped even though his mouth was open and the bird was in it. Trip backed away and I took him into the house. He’s a good dog.

The bird, a finch, was stunned. It sat on the porch, its heart racing. Kerri came out of the house and sat with the bird. She started talking to it, placed her hand on the ground in front of it, and the bird stepped onto her fingers. She carried it to the sunny side of the deck and they sat together. The finch closed its eyes. Kerri continued talking to it, whispering that it would be all right and if it wasn’t, not to be afraid. After several moments, the finch opened its eyes, sat up, and shook itself back to life. And then it flew away. Kerri began to cry.

The sun was warm and the air was cold. It was a new day. We sat in the sun and drank coffee. We worked on Back To Center. This evening, Kerri led the Taize service and told the gathering about the finch. She talked about the feeling of connection and the fragility of our lives. Later, I asked her what the experience with the bird was about for her. She told me that, in the scope of all things, we are all just little birds. Gaze into the night sky and consider your place and you’ll know what she means. Then, she added, “You have to take the time to be kind. It’s as much a gift for you as for the receiver. It’s a gift both ways.”

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Hide The Horse

Posted on April 22, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my archives. This one is called 'Angels At The Well.'

from my archives. This one is called ‘Angels At The Well.’

I first learned this story prompt from Rick Stone at The Storywork Institute: I come from a people who (fill in the blank), and from them I learned (fill in the blank).

Rick’s story prompt was with me when I awoke this morning because I’ve lately been thinking about my grandma Sue. Kerri and I just started rehearsals on our Back To Center concert series and for some reason Grandma Sue has been present when we rehearse. She passed away several years ago and I adored her. She was small in body but big in spirit. Over the weekend my mother said of her mother, “She took everything in stride and adapted to whatever came her way.” Grandma Sue did not resist her lot in life, she made the most of it. She had fun. She created fun.

I’ve been rolling over and over in my mind a specific story about her that happened before my time on this planet. The shorthand goes like this: the glue factory was coming for an old horse that lived in the pasture next to her house. She knew the truck was coming so she hid the horse in her kitchen.

I grew up playing in her house. I know her kitchen. What makes the story miraculous to me is that 1) her kitchen was teeny and 2) you had to climb some stairs to get from the back door into her kitchen. This tiny woman managed to get an old horse through her back door, make a right hand turn, and climb some very narrow stairs. And then she “hid” it from the owner and the glue factory search team.

I do not doubt the truth of this story for a moment and if you knew my Grandma Sue you would not doubt it either. She was a champion for the underdog, a lover of the small moment, a believer in the extraordinary in the ordinary. She lived from her heart and not her need to make sense. What do you do if the sweet old horse next door is in imminent danger? Anything you can.

This morning, as I awoke, I was again thinking of my Grandma Sue and Rick Stone’s prompt came to me. I smiled because I come from a people who act on what they believe- against all odds. And from them I learned moxie and perseverance.

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Love Yourself Better

Posted on April 5, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
this one is from the archives. I painted this 10 years ago.

this one is from the archives. I painted this 10 years ago.

He said, “The current goal is to love myself better.” And then he added, “Not so much a goal but something that needs teaching from our own mind.” His statement begs a great question, an ages old question: Can the mind teach itself? Really, the question is can the mind see itself clearly enough to teach itself?  Or, the question within the question: Can the mind teach itself to love itself? I scribbled the questions in my notebook and beneath them I wrote, “Is love teachable? Is love reachable through the mind, especially self-love?

We’d been chatting for a while and had covered a lot of territory, from Monte Blanc pens to typewriters to soap use around the world, clean water, the difference between good and bad scotch, the shapes of the 50 states and how they might influence personal identity and we’d somehow wandered into the epicenter: self-love.

His statement nailed the universal dilemma perfectly. It was a declaration of separation. The self watching and wanting more for the self. The separation is in the language: to love myself better. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t made this statement. Which part of the self will better love the other part of the self? Which part of the mind will teach the other to love?

It is where myth meets the everyday. Every human being who has walked the earth has wrangled with separation and the yearning for self-love (re-connection to self, unity). The human journey is a walk from separation (birth, if you want to take it literally) to reunification (death). The story lives in mythologies the world round. If we were still willing to read our mythologies (religions) metaphorically, we’d see it. For instance, being expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge is the story the ancients told of the experience of separation. The inevitable bite of apple from the tree of knowledge brought duality consciousness: male/female, us/them, mine/yours, haves/have-nots, me/you. Separation. The rest of the story, not often told, is how, through out the rest of our lives, we seek the Garden where there lives a second tree: the tree of everlasting life (unity). We journey from knowledge (separation) to everlasting life (reconnection). The death need not be literal. To die to the self is necessary to experience the SELF.

Here’s the great paradox: loving another person is an act of self-love. The path to self-love is found when we serve something bigger than our selves. Think about it: the movement is always from separation to joining, from isolation to connectivity. The obvious question is, “Connectivity to what?”

Self-love is not found when the mind teaches the mind but when the mind gets out of the way of the heart. The love is always there. Love is never missing. Self-love reveals itself when the definition of self grows beyond our own skin. According to our latest neurological science, we experience ourselves as separate because we dull ourselves to our fundamental connectedness to others. In other words, we cultivate a story of isolation and then set about the real work of our lives: to see beyond what we think.

And then he said, “You know what else I just realized?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I just landed myself in a blog post.”

Yep.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Welcome Her

Posted on March 23, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my children's book, Lucy & The Waterfox

from my children’s book, Lucy & The Waterfox

The spring brought with it the birth of Annie Evelyn Domig. Her proud papa, poet, philosopher, and world-class actor, Chris Domig and zen warrior wife, Janelle, made me cry with the announcement of their daughter’s birth (both for the beauty of their words but also the sheer celebration of walking this life with people I love). Here’s a snippet:

Now I see that peace between nations will
only come to us as child, (then as now)
the weight of time witnessing her first cry,
(unsure where to turn, but willing to learn)
intuiting her way towards a mother’s heart,
followed by sleep reconciliatory and kind.

The sound of her name, forty long weeks,
tuned words to song, tossing variations
on a theme to each other, playing by ear,
(not forgetting the Austrian Aussprache).

The book says Annie means Prayer,
and Evelyn is one who brings Life
together she mends our broken circle.

Each day of life, a new hope. Each day lived as a prayer. Every child should enter this long walk with such a blessing (I suspect that they do but it is rarely voiced so beautifully).

Judy (she-whom-I-revere) gave me an image. It was meant for me but I see and feel it all around me. She wrote that I was like a bulb buried in the earth, gathering energy, ready to break from my confines and stretch my new growth, cracking through the earth’s crust and reaching toward the sun. Isn’t that a great image of birth (or rebirth)!

Yesterday, as I lived my greatest experience of vulnerability to date, I thought about Annie and the circle breaking and mending, breaking and mending; this life is both sturdy and fragile. Every rich life has an equal share of both breaking and mending. We are not meant to be static. Life is dynamic and vital and vitality requires breaking through to reach for the sun. How lovely that this year the return, the mending, the new green shoots pressing against the thawing earth, is signaled on the day of equinox (equal night) by the welcome arrival of dear Annie.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Spin A Web

Posted on March 17, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from the Yoga series by David Robinson

from the Yoga series by David Robinson

Quinn’s study smelled of cigarettes and books. There was always a red felt tip pen and a yellow pad for note taking or for his latest composition. Quinn didn’t type and I doubt that he ever touched a computer. He had to feel the pen move across the paper. He was a sports writer though, in truth, he was more a poet philosopher. For Quinn, sports were a path to illumination. He filled his articles with haiku, analogies to chaos theory, Michael Murphy, and George Leonard.

One day while sitting in his study, talking about athletic achievement and success, he said, “You have to cultivate your serendipity.” What a terrific phrase! Serendipity is one of those paradoxical words that imply both coincidence and destiny. So, according to Quinn’s coupling of “cultivate” with “serendipity,” we must either promote coincidences or encourage destiny. Or both.

I responded, “So, in other words, the harder you work, the luckier you get.”

“It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s much more than that. Of course you have to do your work. But you also have to share your work. You have to show up, be visible, ask lots of questions, and seek the masters in your field. You have to show what you don’t know. In fact, you have to operate from what you don’t know. There’s always a better way to make a shot or shoot a basket. To cultivate your serendipity is to never stop learning, never stop improving, never assume that you’ve got it.” He paused and then said, “What you don’t know can be an obstacle or it can be connective tissue.”

Quinn watched me take it in. I knew we were talking about more than athletic achievement. He was trying to help me. At the time, I was an accomplished introvert and was wrestling mightily with sharing my work. I had no problem painting the paintings but telling galleries about my work seemed an utter impossibility. Sharing meant I would have to talk to people. It meant I’d have to say, “This is my work and it is good work.” It meant claiming my gift beyond the thoughts and opinions of others. Quinn was teeming with blarney and always seemed at ease in a crowd though I knew even then that we shared a similar demon. He doubted his gift. He recognized my struggle because it was his struggle.

After a moment he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke and continued, “It’s like spinning a web – and the silk, the connectivity, is spun from seeking what you have yet to learn. The more you share your gift, the more you ask others what they see, the more people know about your gift, the higher the odds that a path to success will open. You have to spin the web.” I nodded my head, taking it in. I remember being daunted by what he was telling me. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes filled with mirth, and said, “Success is really about letting yourself learn; always learn.”

I nodded and stared at the floor. He took a drag on his cigarette and as he blew the smoke he added, “No one does this alone.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Remember Your Trick

Posted on February 12, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Tennessee TripperDog-Dog-Dog

Tennessee TripperDog-Dog-Dog

The newspaper is using words like “biting” or “frigid” to describe our current temperatures. My favorite was this morning’s weather paradox: sunny and bitter. Sunny and bitter sounds like an umbrella drink I might order at a Tiki bar or a perhaps a comedy team. If I had twins I’d name them Sunny and Bitter.

After standing on the deck for several minutes, making sure that the arctic winds blowing off the lake had subsided, Tripper-dog-dog-dog and I took a walk. Certain that we would not be cut in half by the wind, braving the sunny-bitter paradox, we high stepped through the snow drifts, stretching our faces to reach the sun. It was glorious. It was not as advertised: sunny, not bitter.

It had been more than a few days since we could venture out and Tennessee Tripper-dog-dog-dog was eating the baseboards, chewing on cabinets, and pacing from door to door. We’ve been teaching him tricks to keep him occupied but he’s a fast learner and mostly bored with “stay” and “shake” and “roll over.” When I realized that I was pacing door to door with dog-dog-dog I knew that advanced cabin fever was setting in and we needed to run (he runs and I watch but it sounds better if I use the royal we. I like making you imagine that I am fit and running through the arctic snow with the dog-dog).

As I stood in the field, face to the sun, watching him romp and run, I had one of those moments that I am certain will appear in the slide deck that will move through my mind’s eye at the moment of my death. All of my stories dropped away; all of my senses flung wide open. There was the cold air and the warm sun and the sound of Trip leaping and playing in the deep snow. There was the sound of ice clacking in the lake, squirrels cursing in the treetops.  I had no past and no place to be. I had no cares or desires to distract me. I was present. I was there, fully alive.

I think Tripper sees those moments. The Dog Whisperer tells us that dogs are energy sensors and I’m convinced Trip sees my aura. During my moment of presence, he stopped his romp and we stared at each other. If he could talk, he’d have said, “Finally! I was beginning to doubt that you’d ever get this trick. Want a cookie?” I smiled and as if to prove a point, Tripper-dog-dog-dog sat as if by command. His eyes glistened, saying to me, “I remember my trick, will you remember yours?”

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Be Holy

Posted on January 22, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Eve, by David Robinson

Eve, by David Robinson

Pastor Tom asked the question, “What does it mean to be holy?” It caught me by surprise because I was sitting in the choir loft reading Paulo Coehlo’s, The Zahir. For the record, I usually pay attention to Pastor Tom’s sermons; he’s a gifted storyteller and one of a handful of preacher’s I’ve met who is actually rooted in a greater spirituality and not the rules and restrictions that bind the religious. He’s not a judger; he’s a seeker and his sense-making lens is Lutheran Christianity. We are just beginning our friendship and since I have a remarkably different lens I look forward to all that we have to share. But, on this Sunday I was plagued by an odd and surprising inner imperative to take The Zahir to church and read the next sections. I’d stopped in the middle of a chapter and I awoke with my inner nag screaming, “Take it with you! Finish the chapter! Now!!” I’ve learned to listen to my inner nag.

Life is funny. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be hanging out in a church. Many years ago I used to hang out with Father Lauren and talk theology. I was not Catholic but attended a Christian Brother’s college; the college had a great theatre program. Father Lauren was a Franciscan and came into the theatre one day to find an artist to help him make some banners for a high mass. I was the artist he found and we were immediate fast friends. He was more interested in the mystic than the pious aspects of his faith and I, too, am drawn to the mystic in any faith tradition. I began attending mass so we could compare notes. I found (and find) my greater spirituality in rivers, the arroyos, and the wind; his faith was solidly grounded in the rituals of the church.

Father Lauren believed in original sin: it is the idea that nature is corrupt – particularly human nature – and must be controlled. I believe the opposite: nature is perfect and health comes when we align with our nature and stop trying to control it. We talked for hours about the differences in our orientation to life. I appreciated our conversations because we weren’t trying to sway the other or win a point. He was not trying to convert me and I was not invested in being right. We were trying to appreciate and understand the other point of view. We were asking the other, “From your point of view, what does it mean to be holy?” To Father Lauren, a human might become holy if they transcended their nature. To me, a human is holy because he or she is nature; the challenge is to recognize the truth of your nature. As someone once said, “There are many paths up the mountain.” Father Lauren and I were like travelers swapping stories from the road. I loved our exploration of faith and life.

I was sitting in the choir loft and had just finished reading this passage from The Zahir: “Yes, we are all cathedrals, there is no doubt about it; but what lies in the empty inner space of my cathedral?” If you saw yourself as holy, how might you fill your space and time? Paulo’s response to his question: we need, each day, to rebuild ourselves, to improve our structure as best as we can so that we might understand and accept this: we are capable of loving another person more than we love our selves. To be holy is to love another more than you love yourself. To be holy is to fill your personal cathedral with the love of another. That’s the exact moment Pastor Tom asked, “What does it mean to be holy?” My inner nag smiled and whispered, “Told you so.”

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