Let’s Get To It [David’s blog on KS Friday]

On our short drive to the post office I saw three homes with new blue porch lights. At the grocery store I noted an abundance of blue clothing. Today, blue is the color of change. Today, blue is the color of hope and I am seeing an ocean of blue.

As Heather Cox Richardson reminds us, the authoritarians and oligarchs will not go quietly into this blue wave. They are afraid. Accountability looms. Our vote was just the first step in defending our democracy. Now the real work begins.

Our hope requires our action. We’ve just seen what can happen when we-the-people come together and act. We cannot now return to our cubicles believing that the change is complete. It is not. The war still rages. The corruption has two full years of runway. The economy is sinking. The system as it currently exists will do everything in its power to stay in place; systems fight to the death to reinvent themselves.

Hope is empty without action. On Tuesday we chose a direction and now we must walk it together. Healthcare. Education. Civil Rights, Court reform, Election reform (can we please get rid of the Electoral College and get corporate money out of our politics!). The authoritarian wannabe and his cult have done an excellent job of demolition. The rebuild is up to us and it requires good architects and craftspeople and support teams. That is us.

Action is fueled by hope and today we – together – have plenty of fuel. Let’s take a breath. Celebrate. And then let’s get to it.

to purchase Kerri’s music go here or stream it here

read Kerri’s blogpost on BLUE

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We Take A Breath [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

For a decade decency has been playing defense against cruelty and corruption. Last night decency reclaimed the ball and will soon go on the offensive. The people will now move toward the dream instead of pushing back against the nightmare.

There is plenty of wreckage. There is much work to do. But today, we take a breath.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BREATHING

Make A Statement [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

A week and a day until election day. It is an election that will either save our democracy or end it. The stakes could not be higher.

I have been encouraged by the line of early voters at City Hall. A local told me that he’d never seen lines like this before.

I have been discouraged by the pundits who expect that the political races across this land will be close. I wonder how that is possible given the depravity and disappearing act of the republican congress. The economy is in shambles. Our allies are abandoning us. Our food chain is soiled. We are embroiled in another endless war. The corruption is in plain sight. The republican candidates are as vile as their leader. How is it possible that any of these races will be close?

The common wisdom is that the democrats must win by a mile since we know that the wannabe-autocrat will contest the results. He has done almost everything in his power to undermine our free and fair elections. He has done almost everything in his power to undermine his own party. He knows that a democratic congress means accountability-for-his-corruption-is-coming. The Epstein Files will come out. Putin will no longer have full control of his puppet strings.

And so the people must come out to vote en masse because it cannot be close. We’ve slipped this far. This election cannot merely be won. It must be a statement.

Let’s make a statement. I will vote. I will protect our right to vote. Will you? The stakes could not be higher.

read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE

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There’s Hope [David’s blog on KS Friday]

25 years ago a friend called and told me to turn on my television. Like the rest of the nation, I sat in disbelief for hours, glued to the screen, watching the terror unfold in NYC, at the Pentagon, in a field in Pennsylvania. In many ways I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what I witnessed; people leaping into space, the towers collapsing.

I remember it like it was yesterday. This morning, the moment that haunts me, a moment that haunts me every September 11th, is the moment I turned off the television. The early morning existed in a “before”. I found myself standing in an “after” and I knew that this world, this “after” would be more devastating than I or we imagined. The lid had popped off of Pandora’s box.

There is a direct line from that day to this. Playing on our wound, the nation has now twice elected a xenophobe, a unapologetic racist and misogynist who wants us to see enemies everywhere, exploits the fear of “outsiders” while promoting a fanatical isolationism and stoking our ugliest impulses. He thrives on our division. He’s managed to turn our fear on each other. We need not fear foreign terrorists since we are passionately destroying ourselves. He – and his party – feed our anxiety so they might feed on our angst. They profit mightily from our discord.

They are no different than the men who flew airplanes into our twin towers. That is not hyperbole: they intend to bring down the nation. They work to make the tower of democracy collapse. They corrupt and dismantle our Constitution. They rob the poorest to profit the wealthiest. They spew misinformation and spin propaganda to keep us distracted while they destroy our system of checks and balances. They would have us become a an autocracy or worse, an extremist Christian theocracy.

My other memory from the initial days following 9/11 are of people coming together. A memorial spontaneously appeared at The Seattle Center. People checked in with their neighbors. People checked in with strangers on the street. For a moment we existed in a unified story. We came together. The assault on our nation brought forward our humanity. We cared for the well-being of others.

That is my pie-in-the-sky hope for what happens when the horror of this administration crumbles. We see each other again. We stop each other on the street and ask, “Are you okay?” We prosecute and hold accountable all those who assaulted our system, who betrayed their oath to the Constitution, who robbed from the poor and gave to the rich. We return to our humanity and our senses.

As the story goes, after all the ills were released on the world, only Hope remained in Pandora’s box. Hope: wanting something good to happen and – more than wanting – expecting that it will happen.

There will be an “after” to this era. Change is the only constant. Maybe, just maybe, the “after” that follows this “before” will be more restorative, more healing and constructive than we – or I – can imagine. Maybe a return to our senses will bring revival of our humanity, recovery of our moral compass, rejuvenation of our spirit of generosity.

More than want it, I expect that it will be so. There’s Hope.

(do yourself a favor on this 9/11 and give yourself 3 minutes to rest and breathe-in Kerri’s HOPE)

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

read Kerri’s blog post about THE FULL MOON

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Standing At The Intersection [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

It never fails when we pass this point on our walk, I am taken by the meeting of the compass and the call of the horizon. The history of western civilization might be written at the intersection of horizon and compass.

We are the children of explorers. Our ancestors sailed into the unknown, developing a relationship with the stars so they might locate themselves in their travels. So they might someday find their way home. They evolved tools of measurement and directionality. For the western mind, the horizon necessitated the creation of the compass.

It seems to me that we explore so we might know who we are. We map so we might better locate ourselves.

People come to the compass-at-the-lake to stand at the rail and stare at the horizon. They lose themselves in their memories or in their imaginings. They feel safe behind the rail yet pulled to reach beyond it. It’s rife with paradox. It’s a good place to feel the breezes from the lake while sorting personal truth or getting lost in the questions.

They also come to the compass to take a selfie. To locate themselves in a picture-moment and share it with their friends. “Right now, I am here.” Explorers all, in a constant state of asking, “Where am I?”

And the greatest paradox of them all: if we happen to answer the question, if we happen to locate ourselves with any sense of permanence, we will grow restless and immediately look to the horizon and ask, “I wonder what’s over there?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE COMPASS AND THE HORIZON

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What Took You So Long [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Isn’t it the most human of things, to look at a horizon and wonder what’s over there? Who doesn’t look at the calendar and wonder what tomorrow will bring? Isn’t that the point of celebrating the New Year? Casting hope upon the water. Intending to knock items off the bucket list? Make a real commitment to run at the dream?

And…isn’t that also the very thing that keeps people locked in their routine? The fear of what might happen? The fear of what’s over there. The conservative impulse meets the progressive impulse. To walk at the horizon is to welcome change, to take a step toward the unknown.

What is the necessary bridge between wishful thinking and taking the first step toward change? The word, “possibility” is a cousin of the word, “unknown”. It cannot be a possibility if it is already in hand. What is necessary to transform the scary unknown into the optimistic possibility? What moment, what insight is required to stir resistance into aspiration into action?

I’ve written about this before. It is a life lesson so I revisit it from time-to-time. Once I stood on a cliff above a river, my friends in the water 70 feet below calling out, “Just do it! Jump!” I was terrified. Afraid of heights I climbed up the cliff to challenge myself. Once at the top my fear took over. My knees would not hold my weight. My friends became impatient, “Come on, we’re cold!” they shouted. I could not climb down. I could not step off the edge. I was frozen in place. And then, I heard this wisdom whispered into my ear: “If you put as much energy into jumping as you are into telling yourself that you are afraid, you would have jumped by now.” I stepped to the edge and jumped.

I remember nothing of the way down. I remember bobbing to the surface, my friends laughing, “Finally!” the cheered, “What took you so long?”

I am still afraid of heights. I am still afraid of many things. But I now have in my pocket a wisdom that helps when I am frozen: If you put as much energy into jumping…”

Lately I think about that leap everyday. As a nation we are standing on a cliff. We are less than 3 months to the most important vote of our lifetimes. The conservatives would have us filled with fear. They would have us sit on the cliff face and quake while they dismantle our democracy. They fill our streets with ICE in an attempt to purge us of our rich diversity. They paint our neighbors as enemies and rip choice from women. They pull out old boogeymen phrases like “communism” so we might point our bile at each other – a mechanism to keep us on the cliff face.

Voting is an action. We can vote for fear. We can vote for possibility. Our choice in November boils down to vote for one-party authoritarianism and ignore rampant corruption, or to reaffirm our democracy, a two-party system with accountability and checks on power baked into the design.

Democracy has always been – and always will be – an aspiration. It is not an achievement. It is an ongoing relationship between the people of the nation and possibilities that they pursue. One day, when we once again walk at the horizon of unequivocal equality-for-all – when we have finally-and-at-last purged the authoritarian impulse, the white supremacists and oligarchs who would have us cling to fear, surrender our volition, betray our rights and turn away from progress toward the ideal – one day we will ask ourselves, “What took us so long?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHAT COMES NEXT

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So We Might Endure [David’s blog on KS Friday]

“An aspen root system is a massive, interconnected underground network that links entire groves into a single living organism. Individual trees (called ramets) act as above-ground shoots, sharing identical genetics, water, and nutrients across roots that can endure for thousands of years.” ~ National Forest Foundation

Our aspen tree, Breck, has just revealed a baby Breck, a tiny tender shoot reaching through the soil at the edge of our pond. We couldn’t be more thrilled.

Knowing how aspen trees propagate, we’ve been keeping a careful eye in the backyard. We didn’t want to inadvertently step on or accidentally mow any new additions. This delicate shoot makes an appearance at the time, in the same summer, that Breck has broken all records for growth in a single season. Our little aspen tree easily added three feet to its height and now we know that the underground growth is as healthy as the visible tree above ground.

Literal interconnection. Even though the aspen groves appear as individual trees, they “endure” thanks to their underground network, the reality of many individual expressions growing as a single living organism.

Are we really so different from an aspen grove?

I have read that in indigenous communities banishment is a punishment worse than death. They are closer to the realities of nature and are not so lost in abstraction. Survival is a function of interconnection, of community. To be made separate, to be rendered individual, is a death sentence.

Are we really so different from indigenous communities?

Here is my revelation of the past week. It is actually a simple thought that arose amidst all the religious fundamentalism currently run amok in the sad politics of the USA: Hate is selective. Love is all inclusive. The worship of a god of love is a very different thing than the worship of a god that selects.

Democracy is by definition inclusive. Autocracy is by definition selective.

My hope: the truth of our democratic interconnection overwhelms this sad chapter, this invasive weed – and banishes it; that our literal interconnection chokes out and summarily removes the fascist invader. And then the grove can return to the business of sharing nutrients across our roots so we might endure in health for thousands of years.

CONNECTED on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about LITTLE BRECK

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Look Close In [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Like me, do you sometimes have trouble believing in the wonder of the ripening tomato? Incredible! Look close in and you might see what I mean. Where did that come from? Only a moment ago it was a tiny yellow flower on a vine.

There is a particular squirrel in our neighborhood who’s discovered the wonder of the tomatoes. His attraction to the tiny fruit né vegetable has made him a tomato robber. He cannot help himself – that is the nature of desire. He asks the same question as I do – only his version is more an exclamation: where did this come from! Delicious. On that, the squirrel and I agree.

A burst of tomato; taste the sun.

I wonder if the small tomato asks the same question of itself that the squirrel and I ask? “Where did I come from?” It’s an excellent question.

“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” ~John O’Donohue.

John O’Donohue also wrote that, to the Celtic mind, “…there is no satisfaction in certainty.” Asking the question is more tasty than having an answer. And, some questions, the most important questions, have no single answer.

The path to wonder runs through disbelief and uncertainty. Curiosity, living in the questions, opens the mind and heart to possibility, to wonder, to beckoning imagination. The impossibly rich unknown. Isn’t it infinitely preferable and wildly more rewarding to stand in a question rather than hold tight onto a white-knuckled certainty.

Looking for wonder? Begin by looking close in.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TOMATO

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Give It A Chance [David’s blog on KS Friday]

We generally keep a few sweet potatoes in the basket so we have the necessary ingredients for a spontaneous batch of our fave sweet potato black bean chili. Last summer one of our sweet potatoes sprouted so rather than toss it we planted it. The resulting vine was gorgeous and threatened to wrap the deck. We loved it so much that this summer we purposefully let one of the sweet potatoes send out alien tendrils. “It’s ready!” we exclaimed and then we dashed outside and planted it.

Someday we will start earlier in the season, planting a sweet potato or two so that we might grow sweet potatoes. There isn’t enough time between now and snowfall for a harvest. This year, like last year, the effort is purely aesthetic. It gives us yet another reason to rush outside in the morning and exclaim, “Lookit!” It is an intentional spirit-lift.

More so than any other time in my life I am aware of how responsible I am for the care and tending of my own spirit uplift. We planted the sweet potato with the express purpose of giving ourselves a reason to marvel. The more I claim my capacity to cultivate joy, the more opportunities I see. The opportunities are never grand. They are, in fact, the formerly mundane, the easily missed. We grow rosemary so we can crush the leaves between our fingers, for the pure delight of the scent. I tend the birdbath for the giggle it gives me when I spy a robin or sparrow splashing around, a kiddie in a kiddie pool. We literally take time to smell the coffee; every day.

For us, the road to fulfillment does not run through a palace or a yacht – a thing. It is the taste of mint-from-the-garden and lemon slices in the sun tea, a warm baguette and sip of wine, the orange line of day lilies, a long slow walk at sunset. Paying attention. Understanding that no day is ever the same, no moment is ever unremarkable. A sprouted sweet potato can be a source of happiness, if only we give it a chance.

THAT MORNING SOMEDAY on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL ©️ 1997 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s music (think of the riches in that phrase for a moment) is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about SWEET POTATO

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Say, “Enough.” [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Few symbols are as positive as a dragonfly. So we were heartened when two decided to visit, resting in the branch that we’ve wrapped in lights and affixed to our deck. New beginnings, spiritual alignment, harmony in relationship. They stayed with us for quite awhile. They were willing subjects with the spontaneous photo shoot.

Each morning we read the two Heathers: Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese (It’s A Lovely Life). The news is bleak but their message is hopeful: we will get through this authoritarian nightmare if together we show-up and speak-up. This full frontal assault on our rights by the executive, republican legislative, and judicial branch (the extreme supremes) is unprecedented. The Heathers have faith in the will of the people. They are calling the people, all of us, to assert our will in this extreme moment in our nation’s history. Government of, by, and for the people requires the people to stand up to their government – the people that they elected – when their government goes rogue.

I couldn’t help but project the positive meaning of our dragonfly visit onto the entire nation. Somewhere out there is a new beginning, a nation of people, diverse and complex, that values harmony over division. From this hot fire a Phoenix will rise. But first, the fire. What is becoming more and more clear is that we cannot wait to stand up. The election in November is not certain. The window is closing. The authoritarian attacks are ramping up. We are the hope of the nation – if we stand up and say, “Enough”.

Enough. This week ICE killed two more innocent men. Their crime? They were driving to work. Enough. Due process and habeas corpus are guaranteed to all people in our constitution, citizens and non-citizens alike. Where did they go? Concentration camps and deportation without due process are blatantly unconstitutional. They are also un-american, not to mention amoral. Enough. Our government should not be providing cover for a rapist and a global pedophile network. Enough. And why-oh-why are we at war? Enough. Enough. Enough.

The basic right that they would now corrupt is the right to vote. Our vote is the final line, the only thing separating us from an ugly fall into fascism. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. There is no evidence – none – that our elections are or have ever been corrupt, why-oh-why are we inundated and permitting the incessant lies of a man so clearly afraid of a free and fair election. Enough.

Republican silence. Dedicated cowardice. A majority of ideologues populating the Supreme Court, wrecking our system of checks-and-balances in order to give an out-of-control executive unchecked power…it is anti-democratic. Enough.

Both Heathers caution that the days ahead will be darker because this administration is desperate. They – he – will do anything to hold onto power. Their – his -corruption is so egregious that they – he – will do anything to avoid accountability. Anything. And so we must meet their – his – “anything” with an equal and opposite force. A unified voice saying, “Enough.”

There is no more time for complacency. Wait-and-see will guarantee the end of our democracy. No one is or will be untouched by what this administration is attempting (I am suddenly awash in a memory: responding to a woman in a workshop who expressed a desire to find her voice, my business partner asked, “If you had your voice, what would you say?”). There is no more time to search for voice.

For me, the Heathers serve as dragonflies sitting on the branch above us. Hope. A new beginning. They remind us each day that our nation, living the promise of democracy, is possible. This is a cusp. What happens next is ours to decide, not the spineless republicans, not the corrupt supremes, not the wannabe dictator. Ours. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. Together – together – we must grow louder, stronger, every single day speaking with a unified voice. Enough.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DRAGONFLIES

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