Metaphor | The Direction of Intention

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

Posted on May 30, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FERNS

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Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, curiosity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dictatorship, enthusiasm, fandango, fern, gangbusters, human nature, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, questioner, questions, story, studio melange, the melange | 5 Comments »

The Fog [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ Helen Keller

A mile to the west it is 75 degrees and sunny. Here, by the lake, it is foggy and 10 degrees cooler. The inland heat meets the cool lake water and produces a layer of thick fog. Standing on our front porch we cannot see the end of the street.

It is quiet in our pocket of fog. Today I welcome the protective solitude it inspires. It provides a magical respite from the happenings of the world. Fog brings permission to unplug, some breathing space from the news of the day. Sitting on the back deck I imagine that we are on the shores of Avalon, disappearing into the mist, becoming invisible to the rest of the troubled, enraged world.

In the Arthurian legend, Avalon is a magical, mystical place. It is symbolic as a place of virtue.

Virtue requires vision. Choose any adjective that describes virtue – goodness, morality, integrity, dignity, honor… – all serve a clear ideal. A vision. A vision based on the capacity to discern between right and wrong, truth and lie, service and exploitation. A vision that follows a steadfast moral compass.

By this or any standard, our current leadership has sight but no vision. The milksop Republicans in Congress play cowboy while sacrificing themselves on an alter of greed. How else do we make sense of their dedicated impotence in the face of the worst constitutional crisis in our nation’s history? It’s a crisis that they could stop in a day if they honored their oath to the Constitution. If they did their jobs. The Republican president sells the national soul to the highest bidder, personal profit the glutton-master he and his peers serve. A fall from grace, our isle of vice is not disappearing into a fog of uncertainty, rather it reveals itself in the harsh light of moral indifference, it adorns itself in a festival blanket of foxy-lies producing angry maga-followers awash in a cultish brain fog. Sight without vision.

There is nothing mystical going on here. The unprincipled disavowal of ethics, the blatant bribery and unbridled greed, the hard right turn away from truth and democratic ideals – all happening in plain sight – renders us worse than blind.

Is it any wonder I welcome the fog and imagine myself disappearing into the quiet of the mystical island, a sanctuary symbolic of virtue?

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, avalon, Congress, corruption, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dignity, goodness, greed, Helen Keller, integrity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, story, studio melange, the melange, uncertainty, virtue | 1 Comment »

My Fleeting Moment [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Alone on the trail we heard a loud pop and then a crack – and then the tree fell. We felt the thud through the soles of our feet.

There was no wind. There was no apparent cause for it to fall. We were, somehow, witness to its final moment as “tree”.

If a tree falls in the woods and someone is around to hear it, it definitely makes a sound. If not? For some reason, in that majestic moment, the quotidian philosophical question popped into my mind and it bothered me. Is human observation really the only validation for existence? Philosopher George Berkeley wrote, “To be is to be perceived.” George didn’t mean perceived by squirrels or hawks or any other critter in the woods at that moment who also heard the sound and felt the fall of the old tree. For humans, philosophers, preachers and politicians alike, human perception is the requirement granting something so grand, something so profound, as existence. How many birds nested in this grand old tree during the course of its life span? How many plants will feed on its fibers now that it has joined the earth?

Hubris is our Achilles Heel.

On our drive to the trail we were rerouted. The road was shutdown in both directions. There was a terrible crash. A car was cleaved, barely recognizable. Certainly there were witnesses to this loud final moment of a human-being pass into non-being. I’m grateful I was not one of them. I do not need to have seen or heard the crash to know that it happened.

Perhaps that is why the question bothered me: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In a single day, in the space of an hour, I was witness to a tree falling in the woods and aware of a human life ending. I heard the tree so I have no need to imagine what happened. I saw the car, the evidence of the end of human life. I can only imagine.

Horatio wrote a beautiful poem about the death of a salmon after its struggle to return to its place of origin. It’s a poem about the impossibility of life and the cycle of constant renewal. The poem offers we-the-perceivers some rare perspective on the end of life.

I wondered how I could read the days news about starvation in Gaza, brutal raids and deportations without due process…and simply turn the page. That, too, must be uniquely human. To perceive and then tune out. To look the other way, to pretend not to perceive when human beings enact horror upon other human beings. It requires a dedicated lack of imagination.

We are not above it all.

“To be is to be perceived.” Perhaps. It begs an all important follow-up question: In my fleeting moment of human perception, who – or how – do I choose to be?

read Kerri’s blogpost about TINY NAILS

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, existence, George Berkeley, hubris, human, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, Mary Oliver, perception, perspective, renewal, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Follow The Hummingbird [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 14, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you want to understand the power of story – if you care to discover how every cultural story is both universal and deeply personal, take the time to read and reread and reread Martín Prechtel’s small book, The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun. After telling the story, he peels back the layers of understanding, the story of the daughter’s disobedience is a roadmap to an intentional life. It is connective tissue to generational wisdom:

“…that though we as listeners have the illusion that we have jumped into the story, the story has actually jumped into us and uses our lives to tell out its story.”

Sitting in our backyard, the sun lowering in the sky, the hummingbird arrived. A hummingbird is featured prominently in the The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun and this little visitor brought the story to my mind. Like all deep-story-roots, it is a tale as relevant to us as it is to the Indigenous people who live it – to keep the story alive.

“This is a commentary on the inevitable human problem of tribalism and the tragic results of ethnocentricity. It reminds us that a preoccupation with purity is a sign that a people have lost their real stories, lost their place in history, lost their land and relationship with nature and in an effort to be “someone” they engineer mythologies that are rationalist inventions to corroborate a pure ancestry. This same rationalism probably killed their stories and their Indigenous relationship with the land to begin with.”

Have you ever read anything that so accurately describes our struggle in these un-United States? As we witness the scrubbing of DEI initiatives, the blatant and brutal whitewashing of our nation’s history in order to engineer and perpetuate a mythology of white male purity, a made-up tale planted in the shallow barren soil of nationalist Christianity…we see the undeniable sign that we have lost our real story.

As is true of all great storytellers, Martín guides us toward hope and renewal:

“The story of their cultural loss should be their story, and from that grief they could grow a new culture. If you go back far enough, all people are mixed no matter what they say, and that is no disgrace.”

There is a path. It begins with grieving our loss. Together. And then, there is this:

“The story also says that a peoples’ attachment to their homeland and customs is necessary, wonderful, and life-giving, but should never be allowed to fuel a destructive chauvinism that excludes the rest of the world’s love for its own life and land.”

These are just a few of the lessons carried within an ancient Mayan tale. They are relevant to us today. We need only care enough to open our hearts and listen. And listen again. And then simmer in the slow opportunity that avails itself in the land beyond “problem-solving”.

The promise of our crossroads nation: to grow a new culture. Isn’t that the heart of our matter? Out of many, one.

There’s a hummingbird that can show us the way.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HUMMINGBIRD

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: ancestry, artistry, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hummingbird, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life giving, loss, martin prechtel, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, tribalism | 1 Comment »

This Storm [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It seems our weather forecast is regularly filled with dire warnings. Violent thunderstorms. Hail. Tornadoes. We watch the radar as the angry colors move across the map, headed in our direction. So far we’ve been fortunate. In the final approach, the irate clouds veer to the north or break to the south. Sometimes they split and go around us. We catch the margins of the storm, the distant booms, the lesser winds.

After dinner we sat on the deck with 20. Earlier in the evening it was too cold to sit outside, the temperature by the lake was 10 degrees cooler than inland. When I stepped out the back door to cover the grill I was taken aback. It was warm and humid. We relocated outside and marveled at the odd shape and weird color of the clouds. We knew a storm was on the way, the warnings were apocalyptic, but our radar watch confirmed that, once again, it would mostly miss us. Kerri took photographs. 20 and I giggled, lapsing into middle-school-boy humor.

The weather forecast mirrors the augury of our nation. Climate change. Culture change. Waves of anger roll across the land in phallic-shaped storm clouds. We hunker down and monitor the radar. We watch the day’s news for the latest devastation, the senseless chaos, the mean-spirit that blows away our democracy.

Sitting on the deck, we acknowledged that we are collectively holding our breath. We know that there is no avoiding this retribution storm, this oligarchic money-grab. The fight that’s coming will not veer. The fight is already here. The fascist winds have arrived. We stock up as we do for any swelling tempest. We prepare our go-bag as we did during the recent riots. We reassure each other that sense and sensibility will ultimately win the day. Decency will return. And, in the meantime, the warning sirens blare. We do what we can to fight the rising autocracy. We do what artists do.

Coming Up For Air (sketch), mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about the STORM CLOUDS

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Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, augury, autocracy, chaos, climate change, culture change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fascism, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, storms, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

The Constant [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant—the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter

One of Kerri’s nicknames is math-girl. She has a freakish capacity to do math in her head. No mad pencil scribbling on paper is necessary. No calculator required. She pretends to dislike adding the grocery bill faster than the store scanner or scrutinizing the taxes for minute errors but I know, deep inside, she gets a charge out of it. 20 and I regularly raise our eyebrows and ask, “How does she do that?” I’ve learned to never disagree with her when numbers are involved. I am wrong 100% of the time.

When she saw the Pi cloud in the sky she was ecstatic. It was like a visit from an old friend. An affirmation from this grand old universe.

She told me that she likes Pi because it represents a constant. A constant is something that stays the same, something that you can count on. It also refers to a quality of movement: ceaseless repetition, something that happens without pause. Or, my favorite definition of a constant: loyal or steadfast, as in a good friend.

Her comment about constants brought to my mind Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

It is a poem for our times. The cycles of history, the widening gyre, and the chaos that ensues when one epoch is ending and another is about to begin. Aren’t we now witness to a center that cannot hold? Things fall apart. Anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Here we are. Chaos is the constant. The world is flipped upside-down. A birthing pang? The caterpillar goes to mush before it reconstitutes into a new form; a butterfly.

Of course, this is me, searching for some sense to be made in the march of the oligarchs, the rape of the nation. The worship of the cruel, the elevation of the vapid. We can only hope that this is the natural progression to mush and that someday, somewhere out there, a butterfly will break from its cocoon, dry its wings, and step off the branch to restore decency, sense, and beauty to the world.

Pie-in-the-sky? Or the constant?

read Kerri’s blogpost about Pi

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: affirmation, artistry, beauty, butterfly, chaos, constant, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Pi, story, studio melange, the melange, The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats | 3 Comments »

Ancient Oak Wisdom [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Oak may live for 1,000 years, although 600 may be more typical on many sites.”

It’s very possible that this oak tree is older than our nation. It stands in a field plowed and prepared for planting, visible from a trail that we recently explored. The trail passes through a stand of ancient oaks, gnarled and twisted with time.

There is wisdom in the oaks, something not found in our leaders who view the world exclusively through the lens of dollars and cents. Power people who play let’s-make-a-deal with the lives of others.

Even though we knew it was coming, even though it was a trumpeted intention in the fascist blueprint, Project 2025, the sale and privatization of our public lands for short-term profit has arrived like a surprise unwelcome visitor on our doorstep:

“Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands,” says Jennifer Rokala, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum just issued an order ceding oversight of the Department of the Interior to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which is not a government department at all)…”

The ruse is – of course – that our protected public lands, our national parks, are nothing more than waste, abuse and fraud. To the fundamentally greedy and terminally myopic, they are resources ripe and ready for exploitation. Destroying them, so the marketing spin goes, will not only save the nation money, it will make lots of money for the privileged few. And then there will be trickle down! (insert eye roll here).

Dollars. No sense.

“Project 2025 is a ‘wish list’ for the oil and gas and mining industries and private developers. It promotes opening up more of our federal land to energy development, rolling back protections on federal lands, and selling off more land to private developers.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American, April 22, 2025

It is shortsighted hubris akin to the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Two monumental statues carved in the 6th century in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan, a holy site for Buddhists, a cultural treasure for the people of Afghanistan, a UNESCO World Heritage site, destroyed [by the Taliban] in 2001, “..so that no one can worship or respect them in the future” Fundamentalists. Nationalists. Ideologues.

Islamic or Christian, nationalist fundamentalism, rigid ideology, leads to the same end. Purblind action, senseless destruction for short-term gain. Violence enacted on people and culture. Suppression of the many so the few might profit.

Purblind (adjective): having impaired or defective vision. Slow or unable to understand. Dimwitted.

Like the Buddhas of Bamiyan, once destroyed, our public lands, our Grand Canyon and Arches and Bears Ears, our old growth forests, our Yosemite and Yellowstone and Glacier National Park and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, our protected ocean shelf ecosystem…once mined and drilled and developed, will never come back. Our national inheritance, sacred sites, reduced to rubble for profit so that no one can worship or respect them in the future.

Wisdom is the province of the ancient oak, borne of an acorn of understanding that grows beyond knowledge, beyond information, and far beyond the accumulation of data. It cannot be attained through fundamentalism nor through righteous nationalism wrapped in greasy paper-thin religiosity. It cannot be bought or sold or legislated. Wisdom transcends passing ideology since it takes time and perspective. Wisdom is an open hand, not a tight fist.

It takes no time and requires little in the way of perspective to recognize that the destruction of the sacred in the name of private gain is nothing more or less than the avarice of the purblind, the action of the profoundly dimwitted.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora (among others)

read Kerri’s blogpost about the OAK TREE

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Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, Buddhas of Bamiyan, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fascism, fundamentalism, Heather Cox Richardson, ideology, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, National Parks, Project 2025, Public lands, Purblind, story, studio melange, Taliban, the melange, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Just Look Around [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you seek levity, if you are in want of a giggle, may I suggest that you follow Kerri and me through the grocery store and politely eavesdrop on our commentary.

I’m aware that for most people grocery shopping is a chore, a routine obligation. For us it evokes our inner stand-up-comic. Grocery stores tickle our whimsy and unleash tsunamis of sarcasm or impromptu songs. There’s so much material to work with!

“Baby Bok Choy is fun to say,” I mention as Kerri scrutinizes the baby bok choy options. Never one to let an alliteration pass her by, she launches into a lyric, a pseudo-rap personifying the virtues and exploits of the leafy green cabbage. The aisle clears as other shoppers find spontaneous public art dangerous.

Later, using her big, outdoor voice, she reads aloud the list of ingredients on a jar, proclaiming, “Trans-fats! Uh-OH! Get ready! Those MAGA Republicans are going to pop-a-gasket over this one!” Reading on she asks the entire world, “Does anybody really know what butylated hydroxyanisole is, anyway! Who would eat this stuff?”

“What does it meant to be butylated?” I ask, using my quiet indoor voice to model appropriate volume control.

“Don’t be a hydroxy-ANISOL,” she says and smiles. And then: “Someone butylated the baby bok choy…” she declares in mock alarm, unaware that the aisle has once again emptied of shoppers.

I push the cart so I regularly discover that I am holding conversations with myself. When she doesn’t respond to my commentary I realize that some odd grocery item two aisles back caught her fancy. I navigate a u-turn and find her standing incredulous before a multi-layered pastel cake. “Did you seeeee this?!” she exclaims.

“No.” I say.

“Oh. My. God!”

“What is it?”

“Have you ever seen anything so hideous?” she looks at me, wide-eyed.

“What is it?”

“The thought of eating this makes my teeth hurt! Doesn’t it make your teeth hurt?”

“What is it?”

“Who would ever think this was a good idea?”

“What is it?”

“And they made it Easter colors so people would buy it? Do you think people actually buy this?”

“What is it?”

“No wonder this nation is in trouble. People will eat anything!”

“Oh, it’s fox news!” I blurt, “In a cake!” A revelation.

She looks at me as if I haven’t been listening, “It’s a cotton-candy-cake!” she says, a new alliteration rising.

“Yeah. That’s what I just said. Fox news.”

“Who eats this stuff,” she asks, wrinkling her face.

“Just look around.” I say. “Sad.”

It makes my teeth hurt.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COTTON CANDY CAKE

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Filed under: Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: alliteration, artistry, baby bock choy, commentary, cotton candy cake, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grocery shopping, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lyrics, poetry, story, studio melange, the melange, whimsy | Leave a comment »

Hit The Button [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

For an unrelated project research, I was reading an article about the tactics used by psychological abusers in a relationship; I found myself reading about the tactics employed by the current resident of the White House. Gaslighting, negging, emotional manipulation. Isolationism. And DARVO, a new acronym to me: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender…a very common tactic, in which the aggressor uses different elements of reality to cast the victim in the role of abuser and position themselves as the victim. Of course, this is not a new revelation. Plenty of people are writing about it. Plenty of people have been writing about it since 2016.

I suppose the penny just dropped for me.

“The penny dropped”. It’s an adage that comes from a coin getting stuck in a slot machine and the user having to wait for – or jiggle the machine – to get the penny to drop.

The most chilling thing about the article – the jiggle that made my penny drop – was not something in the article. It was the two choices at the very bottom of the site: “Emergency Exit” and “Clear Browser History”. A quick escape just in case the reader is afraid to get caught by the abuser. They are on the site because they are scared and trying to find help. They are looking for a way out of the abuse.

I wondered what happened – what had to happen – for them to finally admit to themselves that the violence is not normal. Were they abused one too many times and the penny dropped? What made them finally admit that their abuser is not the victim? They are. What finally popped the illusion that their relationship is not normal? It is dangerous. The buttons at the bottom of the site served as a testament to the truth of the relationship.

We generally write a few days ahead and lately it’s been almost impossible to stay in front of the abuse of our system. Each day there is another act of aggression. Violence enacted on the democratic system and the citizenry. By the time we publish, our thoughts are old news. Yet another blow has already been delivered and left a deep bruise on the face of the nation.

And, now, the abuser is spilling his aggression onto the world.

The Republican party is married to the abuser. Their silence during this daily beating is deafening. The Congress’ participation in the abuser’s aggression is disheartening since they were the original target of his violence. They are classic: filled with fear and whipped into compliance, they defend and enable their abuser. For them, the penny has dropped. Instead of seeking an exit to the abusive relationship they wear the smarmy sad mask of see-no-evil.

I wonder when they will acknowledge the choice at the bottom of the page: Emergency exit. They alone have the power to end the abuse. The Constitution is hanging on by its fingernails but it grants them the power to stop the bludgeoning of democracy. There’s still time.

There is a third button at the bottom of the site page: Contact Us. It takes courage to ask for help. It is possibly dangerous but certainly self-loving to exit an abusive relationship. It requires support. It necessitates protection. All the Republican congress need do is hit that button. They could stop the abuse today. Their relationship with the bully is toxic and they know it. It is not normal. And when it destroys our democracy it will take them – and us – with it.

It takes courage to hit the emergency exit button. Congress – all of them – need to remember that they are the button for We-The-People. It is the reason we have in our constitutional design three co-equal branches of government: protection against an authoritarian takeover. They are now the button for the rest of the civilized world, too. We are en masse pressing the button. We are wondering why they are not responding.

They should know that, were they to find the courage to hit the emergency exit button, to do what they know they need to do, we would be there to help. As citizens of the United States. As servants to democracy. We share a common abuser and it is not each other. It is the current resident of the White House, everyday casting himself as a victim while he does violence to others – to all of us.

It’s way past time to stop the abuse. This is not normal.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NOT NORMAL

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: abuse, abuser, abusive relationship, aggression, artistry, Congress, DARVO, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, escape, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, psychological abuse, Republican party, story, studio melange, the melange | 5 Comments »

Naturally [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Before sleeping we usually watch thru-hikes, video journals of people walking the Pacific Crest Trail, The Continental Divide Trail, or The Appalachian Trail. The Hayduke. Early in their journey the hikers experience the unnatural aggression and excessive pace of regular life drop away and a more natural rhythm emerges.

They become different people as they begin to see other people differently. The steely individuality of their urban identity dissolves. The hikers realize that they need other people. They realize that they are dependent upon the kindness of strangers. In fact, they come to understand that without the support of others their trail-walk would be impossible to complete. They begin to rely on – to count on – kindness.

And they are rarely disappointed. The kindness that they hope for always appears. And, as they enter the reality – the necessity – of their interdependence, they more freely offer their support to strangers. They become the kindness others hope for.

Periodically the hikers come across trail angels; people who come to the trail with the sole intention of making life better for the hikers. The angels prepare food or snacks. They offer shade, a cool drink, a place to sit and rejuvenate. They give rides to town. Other angels make sure there is water available at caches across the desert. Others provide places to stay. Almost all of the trail angels were themselves hikers who were recipients of the extraordinary generosity of angels. So, they became angels for others. Naturally.

The hikers always speak fondly of the culture that exists on the trail. A culture of support. Most hikers, after they finish their months-long adventure, remark that their walk was made memorable, transformative, because of generous people they met along the way.

We watch thru-hikers because they give us hope. In a time of national darkness punctuated by ill-intention, self-serving oligarchs, the celebration of mean-spirits, cowardice…it is heartening to know that there is a community of people out there who’ve stepped into nature and out of the unnatural aggression of our nation, and what they find there – and find in themselves – is a natural reliance on others. A feedback loop of generosity. Kindness. People helping people, not for gain, but because they know the value of helping. It’s called humanity. They know that their walk in this life is made better – made more meaningful – by the dance of giving and receiving support, helping others and accepting a helping hand from others. Naturally.