Love | The Direction of Intention

The People We Share [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The days prior to our wedding were like an ever-expanding progressive dinner. Each day more friends and family arrived. Each night we hosted a dinner gathering at our home. Since we met later in life, since this was a second marriage for both of us, we wanted our passage into marriage to be a potlatch, a gift-giving. And, our greatest gift to give to our family and friends was – our family and friends – the people we love; we wanted our circles of special people to meet and come to know each other. These extraordinary people… to this day…our greatest gift.

Nine years ago today, the first wave of friends and family arrived. Our dear Linda, recognizing the insanity of planning a week of meals prior to a wedding, hosted the first dinner. In addition to a gift-giving, our wedding became a barn-raising. So many people, just like Linda, jumped in to help us. Sally and Joan strategized and then organized a crew to make our beachhouse reception beautiful. Susan assembled a team to decorate the hundreds of cupcakes she baked in our little kitchen. She flew the frosting halfway across the country with a note of explanation to the TSA. John and Michele made the run for coffee. Josh picked up the wine. In perfect midwest fashion, abundant food arrived. My sister and niece took charge and marshaled the incoming abundance. Judy brought her harp. Jim brought his guitar.

A barn-raising. A gift-giving. Each year, we have the great good fortune to remember, to tell to each other the story. To sit in awe and gratitude.

The day he arrived, my brother, Ken pulled me aside and said of Kerri, “You got yourself a good one.” Yes. I did. The same sentiment might be said of my entire life. The proof is in the remarkable people surrounding me, surrounding us, the people we love to share, the people who are our greatest gifts.

read Kerri’s blogpost about OUR WEDDING WEEK

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Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: abundance, anniversary, artistry, awe, barn raising, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, friends, gift giving, good fortune, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, potlatch, story, studio melange, the melange, wedding anniversary | 3 Comments »

A Different Criteria [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ~ John Muir

I once read that the word “wild” was only necessary to a people who’ve deluded themselves into thinking that they are somehow separate from or above nature, that wild is something that desperately needs to be tamed.

In a culture where many are predisposed to believe that one’s personal nature is fundamentally corrupt (sin-full) and, therefore, requires serious controlling, all of nature is destined to suffer the same fate. Rivers are dammed. Forests eradicated. Waterways and air polluted. It is inevitable. All of nature is reduced to the word “resource”. It is the ultimate expression of taming. A resource to be used and then discarded.

Human resources. We are not excluded from the reduction since we are the source and executors of the degradation. Is it no wonder that so many are so certain that their lives have little or no purpose, value, or meaning. Used and discarded. The magic and mystery of this enormous universe rendered inaccessible. Subdued. Tamed.

It’s never made sense to me.

There are other systems of belief on this earth that are not built upon separation-from-nature but upon relationship-with-nature. Wild and tame are not oppositional but part of the same whole.

In workshops – teaching what I most needed to learn – I used to tell people that “Nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed.” Start with a loving premise. And see what happens. It fosters a different view of the world. It fosters a foundational shift in the understanding of “self”.

Starting with appreciation-of-self leads naturally to appreciation-of-others. Inclusive.

People incessantly trying to fix themselves grow blind to others. It’s the path of self-absorption. Exclusive.

People who fundamentally love their nature…begin with love. In love, they are naturally connected to all of nature, through their nature. Interdependent. Unified. There is nothing to fix. There are expansive experiences. Rather than tame, there is caring for the health of the whole. From a grounding in love, there is an entirely different set of criteria for making choices.

In love, it is easy to see: what we do to nature, we do to ourselves. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NATURE

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, choice, choices, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exclusion, inclusion, John Muir, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, purpose, Reduction, relationship, self love, story, studio melange, tame, the melange, value, wild | 1 Comment »

A Silhouette [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A confluence of impressions.

Susan just sent a song by James Maddock. Beautiful Now. “You were beautiful then. But you’re way more beautiful now.”

And, at the very moment her text came in, this quote rolled across my screen: “The world does not give us very much now; it often seems to consist of nothing but noise and fear, and yet grass and trees still grow.” ~ Hermann Hesse

I looked at the quote as I listened to the song.

Sometimes it is simply a matter of scale. The current noise and fear seems so immense and yet the river keeps rolling. What seemed immense 20 years ago? 200? We hold hands and look into the night sky. “We’re not all that,” she said.

After her brother passed, Kerri asked, “How can the world go on if he can’t perceive it?” The world will go on after we can no longer perceive it. All of our current noise and fear will wash away with us. Yet the grass and trees will continue to grow. The more we understand our actual size in the vast universe, the more beautiful we become. We’re not all that.

It was a brilliant day. Hot. The water sparkled. The rocks of the jetty were made a silhouette by the glistening. I was suddenly filled to the brim by a brilliant poem that Horatio recently sent. The River Flows Into The Sea. “I could feel the truth of it in my hands,” he wrote. The mystery. I watched Kerri snap her photo and was completely overwhelmed by her shimmering. Sometimes what I feel is too large for the universe to contain. I am made a silhouette. This amazing life! Here for a moment, all that.

Embraced Now, 48″x36″ mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about GLISTENING

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Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Love | Tagged: artistry, Beautiful Now, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, fear, Hermann Hesse, James Maddock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mystery, noise, perspective, presence, scale, shimmer, sparkle, story, studio melange, the melange, universe, vast universe | 6 Comments »

Strive To Be One [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.

Sometimes I pause and reread the previous few weeks of my blogposts. My first thought after my latest read was, “Good God! I’m bipolar!” I’ve learned not to listen to my first thoughts. They are not nearly as considered or considerate as the thoughts that follow. I am lately writing about love.

Love. This is the rest of James Baldwin’s quote: “I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Love takes off the masks. The masks we fear we cannot live without. The masks we can no longer live within. It is a tug-of-war. It is vulnerable to be seen. Yet, to grow, old identities, like suits of armor, must be discarded. To grow up it is necessary to show up, to step-out-there.

Jonathan once told us that a tree must split its bark in order to grow. Snakes shed their skin. And people open their hearts and learn what it is to love.

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~ James Baldwin

I found some measure of comfort about my nation (and my latest writing) in James Baldwin’s guiding words. Perhaps we are in a struggle to remove an old and ugly mask, still in place. Racial division. Misogyny. We fear what we will see if we drop this patriarchal mask. Yet, our love of country is requiring us to grow. To take a hard look at who we are and where we’ve come from. To shed the mask we can no longer live within. We are bigger in heart and spirit than our original colonial notion. The mask of divide-and-conquer is suffocating to the world’s greatest democracy, a nation of immigrants come together under the banner e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

Love makes us dare to grow up. Love makes us strive to be one.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEARTS

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, daring, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, e pluribus unum, grow up, heart, identity, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, masks, mature, misogyny, quest, spirit, story, studio melange, The Fire Next Time, the melange, unity, USA, vulnerability | 5 Comments »

Shadow Singular [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on September 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

She began taking pictures of our feet when, early in our lives together, we traveled to The Netherlands, Belgium and France. The point was not to capture our feet, rather it was to record the variety of surfaces we walked upon. Cobblestones and ancient wood. Mosaic tile. The unusual and the seeming ordinary, though, when traveling, no surface is ordinary. For awhile we entertained assembling a collage of the many many surfaces were we found our feet standing. A quirky memory wall.

Adding to her series of traveling feet she began capturing our shadows. It’s now common for her to say, “Wait!” I know exactly what to do. No questions required. My job is to hold still until she snaps the latest edition to her shadow collection. I love them. To me, they are our version of the Balinese shadow puppets. Wayan Kulit. At best we are aware of the shadows we cast, the projections of our minds. Our lives a moving grand illusion.

Like the feet series, the shadow collection serves as markers of our life together. Trails we’ve hiked. Bridges we’ve crossed. Friends who entertain without question our odd request for a shadow portrait.

I just read a story about a man who tried to outrun his shadow. He was, as you might imagine, unsuccessful. It was a particularly poignant story for me since I spent many of my younger years trying to escape my shadow. I was, like the man in the story, unsuccessful. Though, unlike the man in the story, I stopped running. Some small grace whispered in my ear to stand still, to turn and look at it. To really look. To walk with it.

Isn’t it poetic that after all that time running, I now hold hands with a woman who regularly stops me on the trail, not only to look but to capture our shadow – singular – as it stretches out before us, leaning in, two people blending together as one?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SHADOWS

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday, Love | Tagged: artistry, Balinese, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grace, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, markers, memory, running away, shadow, shadow puppet, stand still, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange, Wayan Kulit | 1 Comment »

Infinity Squeeze [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

When Dogga comes back into the house he always gets a “thanks for not running away” treat. It’s a serious sentiment. In this life he was strapped with herding two artists. We have not been the easiest to contain. Each day we are glad that he chooses love over the easier path.

Twenty four hours before we were to hit the road and travel to their house for a short visit, we wrote Kate and Jerry that we were so excited that “we were already sitting in the car waiting for morning.” It was only a small exaggeration. We were THAT excited. Kate suggested that we go back in the house because we were making the neighbors nervous. I assured her that we always make the neighbors nervous. “I would not have expected less of you…” she wrote. Banter is one of my favorite love languages.

I yelled at Braden. He was three years old and started running toward the busy street. When I yelled at him he stopped in his tracks and burst into tears. There was authority in my voice – more than I knew I possessed. Love sometimes sounds like an alarm. It booms.

We drive into the city late at night to find the club where Craig is performing. It is waaaay past our bedtime but we are giddy each time we go. We are the oldest people in the club and everyone affectionately makes fun of how we dance. Old bones do not move like young bones. The first time we saw him perform he gave us earplugs. “You’re gonna need these,” he said, smiling. Sometimes love looks like earplugs, funny dancing-delight and a foray into the unknown.

One of the greatest gifts Kerri has given me (and me to her) is the understanding of how to fight. I did not know how to do that before we met. Dogga hears the coming storm and slinks into the bathroom to get out of the way. Great love sometimes requires a mighty tempest. A heart-cleansing rain. Sometimes choosing love sounds like thunder.

It’s why we give Dogga a treat every-single-time he comes back in the house.

Our love-of-life is a full color palette, banter-filled, adventurous and many-textured. Life lessons: sometimes love is very loud. It rarely looks like a Hallmark card. Always it is a choice to support, to help, to nurture, to guide, to recognize, to acknowledge and appreciate this very complex infinity squeezed into a tiny four letter word. It’s worth the choice every single time.

[“Choose Love” flag is from Penzeys Spices, one of our favorite shops and Bill Penzey, a favorite positive voice trying to make the world a better place]

read Kerri’s blogpost about CHOOSE LOVE

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Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, banter, choose love, complex, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, EDM, Hallmark cards, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, love language, Penzey, Penzeys Spices, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

The Abdication of Answers [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Truth is a pathless land.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I confess. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life looking for answers. Mostly, the answers I sought concerned questions like “Who am I?” or “What’s my purpose?” I sought the answers as if they actually existed. Somewhere out there. I thought I’d find it if I kept looking.

“The whole of life, from the moment you are born until the moment you die, is a process of learning.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

It took a while but one of the later versions of myself quite suddenly understood that there was no answer to find. There was a life to be lived. I might arrive at answers – if I still needed answers – on check-out day. And even in that passing moment, my answers would most likely be a learning experience. A discovery.

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

On hot humid days we walk along the shore in hopes of finding a cool breeze. Our hot-day-walks are slow, ambling. Kerri stops periodically to take a photograph: the bamboo growing beside the marina, cornflowers in the community garden, a seagull atop a light post. We talk about what matters and what does not. The quiet river running beneath our conversation is the abdication of answer-seeking. We revel in the birds splashing in the birdbath, the first sip of coffee in the morning, the smell of onion and garlic sautéing…slow walks on hot days. Noticing a kindness. Answers are nowhere to be found. Presence is everywhere.

“When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Lately Kerri says, “I’m not all that. We’re not all that.” There is freedom found when perspective arrives, an undeniable truth in a vast, vast universe. We are passing through. Nothing more, nothing less. How we treat each other is on the list of what matters. Do we help or hurt others in the time we share together on our passage?

read Kerri’s blogpost about BAMBOO

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: Answers, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, desire, discovery, helping, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, learning, life purpose, love, mattering, presence, purpose, questions, sharing, story, studio melange, the melange, understanding | 1 Comment »

In All The World [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on July 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

There’s nothing better in all the world.

Love is like that. It’s the way it’s supposed to work.

And aren’t we beyond fortunate?

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA

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Filed under: Family, Love, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, animals, artistry, bloggers, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, family, fortunate, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, middle age cartoon, musician, painter, pets, responsibility, safe, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, writers | 1 Comment »

Joy All The Way Around [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although he is mostly black, our Australian Shepherd, like most Aussie’s, is tricolor. In addition to black, he sports rich copper and white fur patches. His eyes are auburn, lively and penetrating. Again, like most Aussies, he makes great eye contact because is always on the look-out to be one-step-ahead of our next move.

One step ahead.

I grew frustrated when he was a puppy and we were attempting to train him to walk with us. He could not, would not, walk by our side. Instead, he pulled-like-a-sled-dog to be in front of us. He seemed impossible to train. And then, one day, on a walk in a forest preserve, we let him off the leash and he raced ten paces ahead of us. He was delighted and kept exactly ten paces ahead of us. The penny dropped in my slow-on-the-uptake-mind. His job, his very reason for being, is to clear our way. To keep us safe. It’s not something he thinks about or intends, it’s in his DNA.

It has become a source of great joy to open the backdoor and watch his delight, racing out in front of me to clear the yard of potential marauders. Taking out the trash has become one of my favorite things. My Dogga has my back. He has our backs. Being one step ahead of us is his job, his purpose, his reason for being. Our well-being is his well-spring of joy.

It’s funny to me now, how he has become one of my great teachers in the art of non-resistance. I thought I was trying to teach him to walk-on-a-leash and, in truth, he was trying to teach me how to better walk in life. How to get off my leash and out of my tug-of-war. How much better is life once I ceased trying to bend him to my will and learned to listen to and lean into his gifts!

This is what I’ve learned from Dogga’s teaching: there is joy all the way around.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA PAW

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Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, Aussie, Aussie pup, Australian shepherd, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, master teacher, non resistance, purpose, story, studio melange, teacher, the melange, tripper dog-dog-dog, well being, wellspring | 1 Comment »

Very, Very [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 27, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night, sitting on the deck enjoying the waning light, I had a great idea for this post. I didn’t write it down so, of course, I have no idea what my great idea was. All morning I have tried to retrace my mental footsteps but alas, they, too, are lost in the mist.

It would be just like me to write about perception. This is a curtain separating the backstage V.I.P. area from the raucous dancing audience. Kerri tried to take a photo through the curtain. Cameras and purple permeable curtains might serve as metaphors for all manner of my blah-blah. Focus placement, assumptions, obstacles, yada-yada! But, none of that well-worn blather was my great idea.

I’m rarely in V.I.P areas since I am rarely a V.I.P. In fact, this particular V.I.P. area was my first and I have to admit I liked it. I didn’t get crushed in the crowd. I wandered freely. There were drinks had I wanted one. And chairs. Security didn’t blink when I walked up and stood at the apron of the stage. I adored watching the dancing furries and acrobats prepare to take the stage. To me, backstage is magic precisely because it’s behind the curtain: the furries take off their furry heads and sip drinks through straws; the acrobats smoke a joint, laugh and talk politics. Now, backstage magic might be a fun post but it wasn’t my great idea.

I did ponder the designation (of course). It wasn’t just an I.P, important person section, it was a very important person section. Wow. Very. More important than important. Since Craig was performing and we are his parents, I suppose we earned the adverb. Kerri did for sure. I didn’t give birth to Craig (thank goodness! I’ve heard stories…). She did so is most certainly a very. I’ve only moved his stuff a few dozen times but was happy to don the extra designation.

That we were fortunate enough – from a place of privilege – to watch our son perform on a BIG stage, and perform well, – also was not my big idea. He wanted us there and made it happen. There’s nothing better on earth than having a son who wants to share his artistry and successes with his parents. The V.I.P. was icing on the cake, an experience everyone should have once in their life.

That was big but it wasn’t my great idea.

I suppose half the fun of losing a great idea is the search-and-rescue effort to find it. I know it’s in there somewhere. As I grid my recent past in search of some great abstract idea, I couldn’t be happier to have found so much actual-beyond-greatness. Heart experiences. New experiences that resurface all the stages and backstages of my past. A son in his bliss. A mother in her bliss. A crowd of adoring people sharing their bliss.

Maybe writing about bliss was my big idea! If it wasn’t, it should have been. People who I love in their bliss. Nothing better. Very. Very, very.