Metaphor | The Direction of Intention

Peri Winkle Rabbit [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The birds on a wire brought my Periwinkle book to mind. Context is everything. It is now as relevant as the day I wrote it:

Peri Winkle Rabbit was lost.

All the other animals were lost, too!

There had been a fire. Peri Winkle was asleep when grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit shook her awake and said, “RUN!”

Peri ran. At first, Peri ran with her mom and dad, her sisters and brothers and grandpa Harry Winkle, too.

All the other animals were running, too, the deer and the bears and the foxes and the squirrels. Some were running in circles but most just ran away from the fire.

It was confusing. There were so many legs and paws running this way and that. Peri could no longer see her parents. She couldn’t see her brothers or sisters. Even grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit was nowhere to be found.

Peri stopped and got knocked down. She hopped back up and called out for her mother. She called for her father. She couldn’t see them anywhere.

A great paw scooped her up and she was suddenly eye to eye with a bear!

“This is no time for still standing, little ears!” said the bear.

“I can’t find my family,” squeaked Peri Winkle Rabbit. The bear was holding her very tight.

“We’ll find your family, little ears,” puffed the running bear, “But first we have to find a place safe and beyond the fire.”

The bear held Peri Winkle Rabbit close to his chest. Peri could hear the boom-Boom of the bear’s big heart as he ran swiftly away from the flames. Peri Winkle Rabbit felt so sad and so tired, she couldn’t help it when she fell fast asleep.

“Good morning, little ears!” The bear smiled as Peri blinked open her eyes.

“Where am I?” asked Peri.

“I don’t rightly know, “ said the bear, “but we’re now safe and far from the fire.”

That’s how Peri Winkle Rabbit came to be lost. She looked around and saw that the forest was gone! The other animals looked and they saw it too. All the green was now black and the mighty trees were charcoal twigs twisted in ruins on the ground.

The animals started to cry. Even the big bear cried. Peri cried, too. Together, they made lots of loud crying sounds and it felt good to wail the loss of their forest home.

And then, they each told their stories of escape from the fire. They told of their lost homes and missing family and friends. They told the stories of their cuts and their bruises, their fears and their worries. They told of how they came to be together, in that place at that time. Peri Winkle Rabbit told her story, too.

“What do we do now?” a red fox asked, which was exactly the question that Peri Winkle Rabbit was thinking!

No one said a word for a very long time. They looked at each other, all covered in soot, dirty and singed and ruffled and tired.

“Well,” a great ram began, “I am sure footed, I can help carry what’s needed.”

A hawk landed on the ram and said, “I can see far away and can help find your missing families and friends.”

The great bear said, “Yes, and I have a nose that can smell good smells for many miles, I will help supply all of my new friends with food!”

“I can gather nuts!” cried the squirrel, rubbing his nose with his hands.

“I have great ears!” cried Peri Winkle Rabbit! “I can hear what is needed and help find who can do it!”

And all the animals offered their great gifts in service to their new friends. They slowly began to do what was needed with whatever they could find. They found water and food. They found shelter from the rain. They looked for their families. They made new friends.

“Remember, a forest must grow back slowly, one day at a time,” said the bear when Peri felt impatient.” Our job is to help it grow.”

“It is all different than before,” said Peri, suddenly missing her old home.

“Yes,” said the bear. “We are all different now, little ears. The fire has changed us forever.”

Peri Winkle Rabbit wrinkled her nose.

The great bear smiled and hugged her close, saying, “Now might be the time for still standing, little ears, we don’t want to miss the lessons of the fire.”

So together Peri Winkle rabbit and the great bear sat very still, listening to the forest and thinking about all that had happened. And though she didn’t quite know where she was, Peri Winkle Rabbit wasn’t lost anymore.

A one-copy book made for a child who lost their family during Hurricane Katrina. I’ve never published the full text but thought it was time. I included photos of a few of the pages.

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

read Kerri’s blog about BIRDS ON A WIRE

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Power, Story, The Direction of Intention | Tagged: artistry, change, children's book, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disaster, forest fire, found, friendship, grief, help, helpers, helpful, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, listening, lost, service, story, studio melange, support, survival, the melange, togetherness, trauma | 5 Comments »

The Guardrail [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s a windy day and the chimes are singing to us. The wind is from the west so the temperatures are rising. We opened the windows. It feels as if the house is breathing, taking in the fresh air before the temperatures drop and the doors and windows are sealed against the cold.

I know that we are breathing. Kerri said that there’s nothing like a ride in an ambulance to give you perspective. She thought of our children. She thought of me. “Nothing else mattered,” she said. Each breath we take includes a sigh of relief.

Life can change in an instant.

We walked the rim trail. We sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It’s an awesome thing – especially for someone who is afraid of heights as I am – to sit on the edge without any guardrails. Full exposure. To me, it feels as if the canyon is pulling me over the edge. It’s disorienting. Of course, it is not pulling me, I know. The feeling, the fear, comes from inside of me.

I heard a powerful statement this week. With the supreme court’s jaw-dropping ruling on presidential immunity, with the Project 2025 plan ready to replace civil servants with those who will swear an oath of loyalty to the dictator-wanna-be, with a cabinet of sycophants and loyalists, there is only one guardrail left between our democracy and our nation being pulled into the abyss of fascism. The maga-clan isn’t even trying to mask their hatred, their authoritarian intention; it was on full display in Madison Square Garden.

The GOP has dissolved into a puddle of cowardice. Fearing it will lose a dollar, the business community and much of the media have tucked their tail, dropped their collective spine and are playing hear-no-evil-see-no-evil.

We are in the ambulance, now. What world will we leave our children?

The guardrail is us. You and me. Our vote. I suppose that is as it should be. A “Government of the people. by the people, for the people…” – a democracy in crisis – should necessarily depend upon the people to deliver it from the hands of an autocrat.

We are and should be the guardrail against tyranny.

It only takes a minute to read the full text of The Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s final thought in his very concise address are as relevant today as they were the day he dedicated The Soldier’s National Cemetery, November 19, 1863:

“—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is our turn. We are the guardrail. We are the generation that will determine whether or not our nation, “…conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…can long endure.”

Vote as if our democracy depends on it – because it does.

Earth Interrupted I, 48″x53″ mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GUARDRAIL

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, artistry, autocrat, courage, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equality, freedom, GOP, Grand Canyon, guardrail, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, MAGA, story, studio melange, The Gettysburg Address, the melange, tyranny, vote | Leave a comment »

Climb The Stairs [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was a rare treat to climb the stairs to the rooftop deck and gaze into the night sky, unobstructed by city lights. Years ago I worked with kids in Los Angeles, teenagers, who had never seen the stars. Standing on the roof, overwhelmed by the Milky Way, I thought about those children, now well into their adulthood, and hoped that they had, at long last, found a way to peer into the endless universe.

What else might adequately provide them the understanding of the impossibility of their existence, the enormity of their lives? What else might open their eyes and hearts to the necessity of community, the recognition that their lives only have meaning relative to the people who share this planet and this moment-in-time with them? Relationship is purpose.

We have seven days. In biblical terms that’s how long it took the metaphoric god to differentiate light from dark, land from sea, moon from sun, animals from humans. Rest from work. Humanity’s role in this story of creation is to appreciate the enormity of their unlikely existence. To steward. To name. To discern between merit and the meritless, between truth and lie. To distinguish good intention from ill-intention.

We have seven days until we vote. Although we might pretend this is normal, this election is like no other in our lifetimes. The issues have taken a back seat to the question of our existence as a democracy. We are determining whether or not we are still capable of distinguishing truth from lie, whether or not we are willing to toss away our freedoms and replace them with authoritarian rage, whether or not we will serve the needs of the greater community or the power-lust of an individual.

Seven days. We will either step forward as champions of light and truth or we will turn our backs on what we know to be true and fall backwards into the dark fascist promises of Project 2025.

Under the stars we have a choice: to continue our quest to realize the dream of a more perfect union, with liberty and justice for all – or to exchange our constitution for the autocratic craving of an angry despot. To honestly name what we know to be true.

There’s still time to climb the stairs, peer into the starry sky, and realize the power of our choices, what is at stake in this, our time, our moment.

read Kerri’s blogpost about STARS

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, autocrat, choice, choices, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, exclusion, existence, inclusion, justice, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, lie, Project 2025, relationship, stars, story, studio melange, the melange, The Milky Way, truth | 1 Comment »

So Do You [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

As you approach Monument Valley there is a blue sign and a nondescript pull out: Forrest Gump Point. It’s the place where they filmed the scene of Forrest ending his epic run. It’s now a place where travelers stop to jump out of their cars and into the road and have their picture taken. Photographic proof that “I stood where Forrest stood.” It is a whacky pilgrimage that none of us knew existed until we saw the sign.

No matter that Forrest Gump is a fictional character. He represents a way of being. A contemporary Buddha. A pure heart. Simple, honest and present.

In retrospect, it did my heart good to stand where Forrest stood. It did my heart good to witness so many travelers pull off the road and want to stand in that iconic spot, to want to get as close as possible to Forrest. Simple. Honest. Pure.

I thought of Forrest Gump Point this morning as I watched Jake Tapper interview speaker Mike Johnson. In a festival of gaslighting, Johnson tried to explain away the assertion made again and again by his party’s candidate that he would use the military against his political opponents. Johnson’s explanation: you are not hearing what you are clearly hearing.

Pretentious. Dishonest. Rank.

Forrest Gump did not know why he was running. He only knew that it was the right thing to do. He was running toward a truth.

Mike Johnson knows exactly why he is running and what he is running from. He also knows that it is the wrong thing to do. He -and his party of enablers – are running from the truth. They can pretend all day long that their candidate doesn’t say what he says, that he has not done what he has done, that he does not intend to do what he says he will do. Johnson knows, as they know, as you and I know, that he is lying, that they are lying. They are gaslighting. They are providing cover for a rapist, a pathological liar, a racist, a misogynist…an autocrat.

My wish for Johnson, the GOP, Bret Baier and his ilk, and all the voters that daily hide, make excuses for and explain away the behavior of their chosen candidate: I wish you would stop running from what you know to be the truth. I wish you would turn around and listen – simply listen – to the bilge that daily spews from your candidate’s mouth. I wish you would listen to the rubbish-explanations that daily clog your brains. I wish you would question your need to daily justify this morass. I wish you would check your moral compass and stop insisting that the hatred and chaos espoused by your candidate is in any way defensible or somehow worthy.

I wish you would stop telling me that I am not hearing what he is saying. I hear it. And, just like the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, so do you.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FORREST GUMP POINT

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, excuses, Forrest Gump, gaslighting, honest, Jake Tapper, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lying, Mike Johnson, Monument Valley, moral compass, presence, pure heart, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | 1 Comment »

Make Room for “Wow!” [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 21, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.” ~ Alan Watts

My inner schoolmarm just marched me to corner where I now sit wearing the dunce cap. Apparently I have been taking myself too seriously. I am confused since I started my campaign for serious-thinking after last week when I was marched to the corner and made to sit wearing the same dunce cap for not being serious enough! My inner schoolmarm is hard to please!

Quinn used to talk about course corrections – learning – as smart-bomb behavior. Rather than “ready-aim-fire” he suggested the correct sequence was “fire-aim-ready”. Too much of life is wasted on the notion of readiness. Live-and-learn rather than learn-to-live.

I laughed aloud when I read the phrase on the wall of an airbnb: “Live your life as an exclamation rather than an explanation.” I wonder how much of my inner air-space has been dedicated to explaining my life choices to myself in the guise of imaginary conversations with others? Why do I spend so much time telling myself the story of myself? You’d think I have nothing better to do and no one else to talk to. I’d much rather fill my inner air-space with a constant, “Wow!”

That must be why I’m sitting in the corner. Perhaps my inner schoolmarm is not so unreasonable after all. She may have something of value to teach me. An inner “Wow!” is the response of someone who is looking out on the gorgeousness of the world. Focus out. A rolling inner explanation is self-absorbed. There’s no room for “Wow” amidst so much “MeMeMe.”

No wonder I currently don a dunce cap and sit by myself in this sad little corner!

Maybe wearing this silly dunce cap has nothing to do with my seriousness or lack thereof! Maybe, to escape my punishment, all I need do is ask, “How can I help?” Or, “Who can I help?” Or maybe I should look out the window at the autumn trees and witness the “Wow!”

Or, maybe I should sit here for awhile longer, invested in the impossible, and continue trying to explain myself to myself.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE THE GOOD

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Random | Tagged: alan watts, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exclamation, explanation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, other focus, readiness, self absorbed, self reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, witness, wow | Leave a comment »

Enter The Sanctuary [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.” ~ James Baldwin

It was the end of a blistering hot day and my brains were baking. We walked the path in the afternoon sun to see one more arch. Turning into the shade we squeezed through a narrow passage way and stepped into a sandy sanctuary. It was easily 20 degrees cooler. It was ancient. People had been coming to this place to escape the heat for centuries.

I thought of the sanctuary when I watched the clips from the faux-interview. I wish I was surprised but I was not. During his interview with Kamala Harris, the absurd lengths Bret Baier went to protect his fox-audience from basic information should have been astounding. It was not. To twist a phrase from Forrest Gump, “Propaganda is as propaganda does.” Sad. And consistent.

And dangerous. Fox News is not like a box of chocolates because you always know what you are going to get. Hatred. Fearmongering. Victim TV. Brain-baking. Division, division, division.

I realized that all of my eye-rolling, my utter disbelief that fox-viewers will swallow without question such large chunks of tripe, can be boiled down into one single question: “What are they afraid of?”

The answer is as old as our nation. Perhaps they are afraid of losing their made-up history. Perhaps they are afraid of losing their place in the caste?

“According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first appearance in print of the adjective white in reference to “a white man, a person of a race distinguished by a light complexion” was in 1671. Colonial charters and other official documents written in the 1600s and early 1700s rarely refer to European colonists as white.

As the status of people of African descent in the British colonies was challenged and attacked, and as white indentured servants were given new rights and status, the word white continued to be more widely used in public documents and private papers to describe the European colonists. People of European descent were considered white, and those of African descent were labeled black. Historian Robin D. G. Kelley explains:

“‘Many of the European-descended poor whites began to identify themselves, if not directly with the rich whites, certainly with being white. And here you get the emergence of this idea of a white race as a way to distinguish themselves from those dark-skinned people who they associate with perpetual slavery.‘”(facinghistory.org – inventing black and white)

Inventing white and black, dividing black and white. Colonists, always greatly outnumbered by the people they colonized – therefore deeply afraid of the people they colonized – relied on one highly useful trick: divide the people so they will fight amongst themselves.”

Fox News, as yesterday demonstrated by Bret Baier, works to carry on the colonial tradition.

“After Bacon’s Rebellion, Virginia’s lawmakers began to make legal distinctions between “white” and “black” inhabitants. By permanently enslaving Virginians of African descent and giving poor white indentured servants and farmers some new rights and status, they hoped to separate the two groups and make it less likely that they would unite again in rebellion.“

What they are afraid of is insidious: the fox is afraid that we will unite. They are afraid that we will fulfill the great promise of these United States of America. They are afraid that we will stop demonizing each other according to made-up lines of division and treat each other with the respect and divine promise of our nation: that all people are created equal. That all people deserve to be treated fairly, taxed equally, afforded an equal playing field…

The fox fears that we will come together, cooperate, and finally see through the manufactured division, the if-you-gain-I-lose fantasy. They fear we will see-through and transcend the colonial-control-game, that we will step out of the brain-baking heat of division, and enter the ancient place, the sanctuary known as rule by the people and for the people. For all people.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SANCTUARY

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Leave a comment »

Scratches On The Wall [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Scratches on the wall. Petroglyphs, the only evidence that remains of a people who once lived in these canyons, who lived by the river we’ve named Fremont. We do not know if they had a name for the river. We do not know if they had a name for themselves. We call them the Fremont, after the river. A location name.

The Fremont River is named for an American explorer, John Charles Fremont, so the people who scratched pictures into the rock over 1,000 years ago also carry his name. As is the nature of history, we locate them from our point of view. We build an identity-structure and civilization-story about them based upon our story of them. We’ve placed them in our narrative timeline, 1 – 1300 CE. We have no idea how they thought of or marked their time.

We have no idea what became of them. They disappeared into time. We have no idea what the petroglyphs mean or why they scratched them into the canyon walls. We wonder at the semiotics, the inner symbolic life that produced such strange (to us) images that remain on the red rock walls.

This morning, through my COVID aches and chills, I watched the news. I would like to say that I am mystified by the civilization-story currently being spun and supported by half of my nation but I am not. I would like to say that the hatred and fear-mongering of the red hat tribe is as much a mystery to me as the way of the Fremont, but it is not. The concurrent xenophobia and wild-eyed-creation of an internal enemy (anyone not in a red hat) has roots that are all too easy to see. It’s a fascist popcorn trail, a page from Hitler’s handbook. The language is identical. The images, scratched into the red-fox-walls of our time are all too easy to interpret. A frightened and misinformed populace is easily manipulated. Fooled.

What is a mystery to me is the inner symbolic life of my nation’s conservatives that seem so ready to trade our sacred democracy for a populist authoritarian. What scratches on the walls of their minds are so easily storied into hatred. What has so hardened their hearts that they embrace with cheers the repulsive bile spewed by their candidate? It is as incomprehensible to me as the petroglyphs of the Fremont.

All societies disappear into time. Ours, relative to the Fremont, is still in its infancy. We can only hope that an explorer in some distant future finds our petroglyphs – and although a mystery to them, we will have known that we transcended the authoritarian threat and overcame the fox-fear-fantasy, manufactured hatred and dark lies. And, over the next thousand years, our scratches on the wall tell the tale of how we matured to fulfill the promise of our sacred ideals. Out of many, one.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PETROGLYPHS

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Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, Capitol Reef, civilization, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Fremont, hatred, ideals, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, lies, narrative, one, out of many, petroglyph, petroglyphs, possibility, promise, Sacred, semiotics, society, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 3 Comments »

Look In The Mirror [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…the Impressionists took seriously what we now often fear: that when life changes outwardly, culture must change inwardly.” ~ Jason Farago, How the Impressionists Became the World’s Favorite Painters, and the Most Misunderstood

If the word zion means “a holy place”, then Zion National Park is aptly named. Even overrun with tourists crammed in shuttles, it remains sacred. Beyond us. We are, after all, a mere blip in its history.

“Imagine how long it took to sculpt these canyons!” Charlie exclaimed. Eons. I overheard a woman on the path to the Narrows say, “It invites awe.” It is good to occasionally put our lives in proper perspective, to glimpse our smallness. Invite awe. That is one of the roles of the sacred.

While the world’s first democracy was being formed in the 5th century BCE in Athens, Greece, the grand walls of Zion were already much as they are today. Both were sacred: the new idea of “rule by the people” and the impossible grandeur of the ancient canyons.

In our present day democracy we are meant to be in service to something bigger than ourselves. The people across generations. That, too, is one of the meanings and roles of the “sacred”. To give us perspective relative to the higher ideal of our constitution as it matures in the future.

The maga-clan would have us flip the equation and dismantle the sacred. The outward changes are visible everywhere. Lies replace truth, self-service erodes the constitution, the higher ideal. The red candidate claims to have all the answers, fundamentally misunderstanding and undermining rule-by-the-people. We are, after all, a democratic republic not an authoritarian cesspool.

At one time in our history, being found liable for rape would have disqualified a candidate. Multiple felony convictions would have immediately ended a presidential campaign. Outlandish and persistent lies, inflicting real harm on people in the nation, would have horrified the electorate. A campaign driven by thuggery and grift would have burst into flames and disappeared from the public stage. An insurrectionist would once have been jailed and forgotten. And yet, here we are. Outward changes.

“…when life changes outwardly, culture must change inwardly.“

Ethics, moral decency, service to a higher ideal are completely absent in the maga-canon and the Project 2025 playbook. That so many in our nation, despite all we know, are willing to vote for a rapist, a liar, a grifter, a felon, a misogynist, a racist, a fear-mongerer…gives us a mirror with which we might glimpse our inward changes. The loss of the sacred. To fifty percent of our nation (it seems by the polling) our system of governance has been reduced from a sacred ideal to a superficial transaction. There is an unholy price to pay for winning-at-all-cost.

We have a choice in November. We can continue to create and protect our Zion, our rule-by-the-people, or we can take it down, throw it away and give the reins of power, not to the people, but to an angry narcissist who threatens to seek retribution and eliminate his political rivals.

Luckily, the choice is not his. It is ours. Look in the mirror while there is still time. Take a good hard look. Help others to look in the mirror and then vote to sustain rather than scrap our sacred democracy.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ZION

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective, Power | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, democratic republic, higher ideal, holy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, Sacred, story, studio melange, the melange, Zion, Zion National Park | 2 Comments »

Two Moons [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

Looking back it makes me laugh. I advocated – more than once – with skeptical school board members that daydreaming was not only useful but a necessary activity. The inception of every worthwhile invention, every startling work of art, every passionate pursuit, begins with a daydream. An idea somewhere out-there. A student staring out the window is rarely wasting time. I wonder how much life Shakespeare or Einstein or Marie Curie spent gazing into imagination-space?

And what about the light of the moon? More than once we’ve chased the moon and stood at the shore in awe. Moonlight evokes a silent reflection. It pulls me into a different kind of imagination-space: not “out-there” but inside. “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past…” (Sonnet 30, William Shakespeare) Things past. Memories.

Many years ago, deep into the night, I stood beside a backyard pool and gazed at the full moon. I knew my life was about to change radically. A leap. I was scared. I whispered, “I don’t know where you will lead me but I will follow you.” Recently, standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, watching Kerri snap photos of the brilliant full moon, for some reason I vividly remembered that long ago poolside moment. I smiled and whispered, “So this is where you led me!”

I couldn’t be more grateful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, daydream, full moon, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lack of imagination, Marie Curie, memory, moon, poe, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments »

“We Have A Problem.” [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday I opened the door to the basement and heard a waterfall – not the sound you want to hear coming from your basement. I knew it was a waterfall because two years ago I opened the basement door, heard the sound and asked myself, “What’s that sound?” I’m sharing this with you as proof-positive that I am capable of learning and retaining what I learn. This time, I knew without doubt – because I remembered – the cause of the sound. Waterfall.

The first time I heard the waterfall-in-the-basement-sound I could not imagine that the sound was water pouring from the ceiling. It was inconceivable since it had never happened before. I was ankle deep in water before I allowed the penny to drop. That’s the great thing about learning: greater efficiency in understanding the situation, fewer steps to right-action. This time I didn’t need to investigate. I simply turned and announced to Kerri, “We have a problem.” We knew exactly what to do. We knew exactly what our day held in store.

It’s a line. Past experience is useful in present and future choices. To ignore past experience – to ignore what we know – is called ignorance. I thought about the line between knowing and head-in-the-sand as I stared into the sky. Sometimes it’s a curse to see all-the-world as a metaphor. We stopped on the path so Kerri could take some photos of the storm line over the lake. It was distinct. The light behind the dark clouds was startling, hopeful.

Here’s what I thought while staring at the line in the sky: we had four miserable years with the maga-candidate as president. He left us a bloody mess. His time in office was a daily festival of chaos. He lied so liberally that media organizations initiated a daily count of his lies and instituted fact-checkers as a regular part of their reporting. He mismanaged the greatest health crisis in a century costing thousands of lives. He was impeached twice (side note: watch the new documentary From Russia With Lev and ask yourself how it was possible that he was protected by his party from impeachment).

Each day I ask myself, “How is it possible that people do not remember?” Of course, I know the answer – I’ve heard this sound before. We remember though many are choosing to ignore what they know. They feel it necessary to step into the ankle deep water again before admitting that there is a problem.

We are on the eve of an election. The maga-candidate is like a waterfall in the basement, seeping into and destroying everything. We’ve opened this door before. We know without doubt the sound. We’ve heard it before – we’ve heard it all before. The lies. The threats. The fearmongering. The blaming. We need not descend into chaos to know what’s happening – what will happen if he is elected.

That’s the great thing about learning: greater efficiency in understanding the situation, fewer steps to right-action.

Vote to stop the waterfall in the basement. We’ve already learned what will happen if we don’t.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LINE