When we wander the cemetery at the end of our street I sometimes see the headstones, not as location stones, but as boundaries-marked-in-time. Before. After. The leaping place of souls.
There are stones placed to indicate a borderline. I imagine the stone with the spray-painted message is one of those: beyond this point is the land of love. Who wouldn’t want to cross this border? Who wouldn’t want to step over this divide and wander in the frontier of love?
People stack stones to mark the way. To help others. To help themselves find the way home. Ease of passage.
This stone quietly standing along the bike trail does not call attention to itself. In fact, we’ve passed it many times and only just saw its message. Like a pictograph left by the ancients, someone-in-time felt compelled to leave a message on the path for others to see. A boundary in time? A borderline? A passage marker? An aspiration for travelers along this route?
Tiny helicopters capable of catching the wind and carrying the seeds of a maple, each a pod of wild-tree-possibility.
They require something more than luck to let-go and launch into space. With no control over the direction or force of the breezes, once aloft, they twirl to their seemingly random destiny. Some will find fertile soil and ample light. Most will not. The strategy of the mother tree is nothing more or less than to freely scatter potential, to litter the area with maple-dreams. The evolution of hope.
Some pods never launch just as some ideas never take hold. No matter. Creativity in all its permutations is an infinite game. The idea that lands in just the right spot at just the right moment may, in time, grow into a mighty tree. It may not. The perfection is in the process of plenty, not in the illusion of a single flawless ideal. “Throw many pots.”
On her piano is a notebook of songs and compositions. Hieroglyphs to me but she need only open her burgeoning notebook, decipher the magic writing, and play a song or composition capable of making me weep. Or smile. Or feel something so deeply that I lack words to express it. Her compositions are pods waiting to launch. Pages of plenty, ideas-in-sound, waiting for the force of the unpredictable wind to carry them…somewhere.
She is like the might-maple-mom. Freely scattering potential, littering our lives and those around us with ideas in word and music and paint. She’s so abundant – her idea-pods so ever-present – that we take them for granted. Each carrying the pip of a mighty potential, the germ of a forest of possibility. They are everywhere.
Some have found her intimidating and tried to constrain her promise, to lasso her imagination. Too bad.
Today she completes another spin around the sun. I can already see the next generation of magic seed pods forming. I can’t wait to see what wonder-of-her-spirit will take root and reach for the sky.
Sometimes I want to believe in magic. I want to think there is an angel at my side. I want to sit in the certainty of Rumi, knowing without doubt that the entire universe, the whole of infinity, is tipping in my favor.
Sometimes I want to know what tomorrow will bring. No surprises. I want to know that the good people will win over the rage-mongers and truth-spinners. Just like in the movies. I want to know that perseverance will inevitably meet ideal circumstance and all will be well in the end. I want to be at the other end of the week so I can tell the story of what happened, the story of stamina and fortitude fulfilled.
Sometimes I want to know that the eagle flying by at just the right moment or the hovering hawk or the owl hooting outside my window at midnight is bringing me a message: we’ve got your back. Fear not. Take another step. From our height we can see the meadow, the sun and tall grasses. We can feel the hope, breathe the calm.
Sometimes when she spies a heart-shape and kneels to capture it for her collection, I want the gentle spirit, the gnome or sprite living in the tree or residing in the leaf shaped like the symbol, to make themself visible to us and affirm that there is meaning in the mystery, that in this life there is more sense than we can possibly imagine. There is reason. A reason. Yet, I already know what it would avow if it allowed us to see it: the meaning of the mystery is always found right where we knew it would be, where we know it to be: in the heart. Our vast open hearts. We do not need to seek it or wish for it. We need only enter and listen – more than just sometimes.
“There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
There is another, a quote from the Gospel of Thomas: “The kingdom of heaven is spread out over the earth and people do not see it.” If people will just look.
Love. Heaven. Two words that carry the same meaning.
Years ago I understood (finally) that anything that calls itself spiritual but separates is man-made. It’s become a rule of thumb. It’s common sense. Unity, that which transcends boundaries and rules and fears and distinctions, is the aim. Poetry will get you there. A sunset. The quiet of a snowfall. Someone holding your hand.
I regularly disappear from time and space and enter something bigger when I paint. It’s the reason why I paint. When Kerri and I hike a trail I often leave my troubles and little mind behind. The birdsong takes me, the hawk that hovers, the wind through the cattails, the frog chorus, the buds pressing forth from the tree limbs. “I” am just passing through.
During our latest midnight conversation, she said, “I realized that I am not all-that.” Followed by, “When you understand that you are not all-that, you finally get out of the cage.” She is wise. It’s hard to try and be what you are not. Separate. Above. Better than. From such a lofty ego, the most important things are missed. Unity. Love. Heaven on earth. If people (like me) will just come down and look.
“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does.” ~ James Baldwin
We watched each day as the pink tulips passed through their many phases of life, each beautiful and surprising. As they neared the last chapter, I thought they echoed orchids. The subtle pinks ran to the edges of the wrinkling petals, heads bowed, devotees in quiet prayer.
Initially, the tulips brought hope and light into our house. For weeks the table had been stacked with so-much-paper, a mammoth project. We cleared the table of its heavy burden and replaced the weighty paper with a row of delicate tulips. We’d catch ourselves staring into the dining room; inevitably one of us would say, “I love this.”
20 would call it the contrast principle. The delicate lightness of the tulips were made more pronounced because of the heaps of paper that preceded it. Perhaps. All I know is that the tulips lifted my spirit like few other things have in these winter months. They became a celebration of love. A symbol that joins daisies in our canon of symbols and will forever signify a step into love. A new chapter. A next chapter.
As it bowed its petals, as they began to fall, we found ourselves more rapt in their beauty, not less. Their age made them translucent. Fragile. Their impermanence somehow made them eternal. As it should be. Passing through transformation.
Posted on February 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
The world is upside-down. Father earth. Mother sky.
Today is the day we send messages of love. In grades school I remember that we scribbled Valentines to every single person in our class. And then we delivered them to each student’s unique construction paper mail envelop. I didn’t understand it then but I do now. Love does not exclude. Love has no bounds. It would not be Love otherwise.
Today is the day.
The sun came out after a long period of hiding its face. We were instantly energized, the light reaching the inner nooks and crannies of our soul. Yes, two people, one soul. We stood outside and aimed our faces to the sky for maximum rejuvenation. Just like a flower or a leaf. Eyes closed, drinking.
The world is downside-up. Sky and earth. One soul. Messages of love. No bounds.
Posted on February 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
The closet in Kerri’s studio is just like my grandma’s purse. Anything and everything can be found there. It is a clown car of surprises. Need a snack? A kitchen sink? A wrench? A pile of napkins? An idea? Simply reach in the magic closet and what you seek will be found.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“The stuff I had hanging on the previous refrigerator.” She smiled, reading my mind, “Did you really keep the stuff that was hanging on the old fridge? Oh, yes I did!”
“Of course you did.” I confess, I was surprised. She reached into the magic closet and in a nanosecond pulled a shoebox from the void.
Opening the box, she rooted through the contents. “I can’t find it.” She frowned.
“What?”
“The Huggy-Huggy sticker. It used to be on the fridge!” Now the search was getting serious. When she gets that tone, I know she will not rest until she’s unearthed what she’s looking for.
“What’s a Huggy-Huggy sticker?” Her look tells me that my question is inane. I knew better than to ask “Why are you looking for a Huggy-Huggy sticker?” Her reasons are her own and the question might have inspired ire.
She rattles around inside the box. “Oh,” she whispers. “This might work,” she says, handing me the small piece of paper. “I think my mom sent this.” On the backside there are two coupons – one for a fuel injection cleaning. The other for auto-air-conditioner-inspection. On the frontside is a coupon for free hugs. Redeemable from any participating human being.
“This week is Valentines Day,” she says by way of explaining her reach into the void to find a Huggy-Huggy sticker that once stuck to the fridge.
“Oh,” I say, thinking of Albert, the last time I saw him, in Los Angeles, standing outside a conference room with a cardboard sign that said Free Hugs. He was a good sport, a good friend, and was doing me a favor. I was about to co-lead a training in the room and wanted to stir people as they came in. To my surprise, although intimidating, Albert received several Free Hugs from several participating human beings. It opened people’s hearts. We had a good session with so many open minds following the example of their hearts.
“It’s from the 90’s,” she said, bringing me back to now. “A simpler time.”
“Yes,” said. “Not so long ago.” I re-read the coupon. My favorite phrase: it expires the day after eternity. Open hearts opening minds. No real expiration date.
“This week is Valentines Day,” she repeated. “Don’t you think it will be a good thing to write about?”
Posted on February 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
In our house, no single question evokes more genuine excitement than, “Do you want to go on errands?” Vertical jumps. Full body wags. Circle zoomies. Finally, a “sit” so we can clip on the small leash that we call his necktie. He gets gussied-up for errands.
Last week Kerri wrote that our bar of contentment is low. It’s true. We don’t need much to feel fulfilled. A walk in the sun. A good cup of coffee. Cooking together. Laughter with friends. Life reduced to the moment.
We recently had a significant-morning-conversation about our egos. We discussed how these past few years have lowered the bar on our self-images. “I’m not all that,” she said, summing it up.
Quinn used to say that, “There are six billion people on this planet and you’re the only one that gives a damn about what you think.” Or how you look. Or what you feel. The other five-billion-nine-hundred-ninety-nine-million…are more concerned with how they look and what they think and feel. You are not the star in their movie. He was a terrific perspective-giver.
It’s a powerful day when you realize that you are not all that. It’s a powerful day when you realize that you are the single steward of your gifts and like any other gift they are meant to be given with no regard to how they are received. Your job is to give your gift. It’s an especially powerful day when you realize that your gift is no better or worse than any other person’s gift. It is just uniquely yours. It is not better-or-worse-than.
When the measurement falls off, when the ego takes a much needed belly punch, then the fun really begins. Flow. Love of what you do and who you are. A giddy return to child-eyes. A low bar of contentment means more and more contentment. Paint to paint. Play to play. Unbridled enthusiasm at the simplest of things. Like full body joy when going on errands.
Posted on January 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Leigh is an authority on rock art, the pictographs and petroglyphs found in caves and on rock walls around the world. People, for whatever reason, leaving a mark. Leaving their mark. Ritual? Aesthetic? I relished conversations with him as I peppered him with questions, speculating about their reasons.
Brad once said – that when he passes someday – he wants a plaque on a bench so that people will know that he was here. Future bench sitters will read the plaque and wonder who he was and why his name is on the bench.
Recently 20 brought to our house several drawings, conte crayon on newsprint. They are figure studies Duke, his father, did years ago when working with a model. They are gorgeous and free, the drawings of a master. Most are signed. I sign my paintings, too. I want people to know that they are mine, that I created them. Looking at the drawings, now that Duke is gone, I was taken by the power of the marks on the page, his signature, reaching across time to tell me, “This was my work. I was there.”
When BabyCat passed the vet made an impression of his paw for us. A keepsake. A reminder. I doubt BabyCat cared at all but we did. It helps us stay connected. It prompts us to tell stories.
Dogga’s beard is as grey as mine. He sometimes groans when he stands. He snores at night and we smile, knowingly. A few weeks ago, for a day or two, he was in pain, limping for unknown reasons. Although I knew it was not serious, an achy joint or pulled muscle, I was terrified at the depth and scope of what I was feeling. Love is like that. He stepped through the snow and left a print. I stared at it, taken by it, like Duke’s signature or a petroglyph scratched into stone. I watched him prance his circle-of-patrol and was utterly grateful for my terror, for the depth and scope of what I was feeling.
Love is like that. A bottomless impression he has left in me that I will carry to the end of my days.
Love your fate. Bring love to the moment. You will find strength there.
When I was a teenager I was on a bus trip to camp. Imagine it. A bus filled with excited teens, bristling to hit the mountains for adventure and mischief. And then the bus broke down. A tsunami of disappointment was rolling through the bus until the counselor laughed at us. He challenged us to embrace this, our fate, part of the adventure. “This is it! Your adventure has already started.” he said, “Why resist it because it doesn’t fit your picture?”
Kerri and I are addicted to watching mountaineering documentaries. They boggle the mind of the average homebody because the conditions for the climb or the hike are often miserable yet there are smiles and laughter amidst the misery. In a recent film, a trek through extreme circumstances and conditions, one member of the team said, “You have to focus on the adventure and not the plan. If you fill yourself with expectations of good weather and an easy path you will be miserable.”
On the broken-down bus or the trail with the adventurer, the message is the same: get out of resistance of the reality of the moment. And, maybe, that is what it means to bring love to your fate. It’s great to have a plan. It’s necessary. But when the bus breaks down or the snowstorm blows in unexpectedly, when the job falls away, when the wrists break…As philosophers, poets, and sages across the ages have advised: be where you are.
We daily remind ourselves: the adventure has already started. Why resist it because it doesn’t fit the picture.
The Direction of Intention 