Posted on October 20, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
It’s called The Harvest Moon because it is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. It’s a balance point that marks a shift from extroverted summer play into winter introspection. I’ve read that it also symbolizes a time to let go of habits that no longer serve you.
The Harvest Moon,
Werewolf transforms to poet,
Who have I become?
I imagine we are – all of us – a festival of habits. Some that continue to serve us. Some that do not.
Are we aware of the habits that no longer serve us? We are mostly blind to our patterns. Repetition wears a rut in the road that we come to believe is normal. A rut is a curious thing because it absolves one of responsibility. Absolution sounds like this: “I can’t help myself.”
Last night I turned around and came face to face with a habit that no longer serves me. If I let it go I will be forever changed. Who will I become if I release my habit? I might like myself better but I fear I might not recognize myself. Walking a tight rope, understanding that this change is not so much a decision as a growing imperative. A necessity.
It’s easy to write about releasing an old habit. It’s quite another thing to yank the tires from a well-worn rut.
It’s quite another thing to need to let go and fall off the wire. It’s counterintuitive: fall to save yourself.
Two metaphors: to fall is the same thing as driving free of the rut. The Harvest Moon was nearly a month ago. It’s only a matter of time before the imperative to change, to break the old habit, grows larger than the deepest rut can contain. It’s only a matter of time before a more powerful force than repetition requires stepping off the thin wire.
Posted on October 13, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
If I need a reason to never trust driver-less cars, the difficulty I currently experience placing images in this blog gives me the excuse. My WordPress, without warning, flips images to the left. It only glitches with images from Kerri’s camera and only some images, not all. My reptile brain generalizes the instability across all technology: if a simple task, like importing an image, can make a sudden unwanted and unexpected left hand turn, then a driver-less car is capable of doing it, too. It’s a simple matter of survival.
It’s not like people are incapable of sudden unexpected left-hand turns. They are. The difference is that people have, at their stem, reptilian brains. Irrationality is expected. It’s in the fine print. Our cemeteries are filled with people who thought they could split their focus and text while driving. It’s possible to see human error coming, not so much when the steering wheel has nary a hand upon it. Besides, with the recent showing by the tech-bros, I don’t trust them to create anything that doesn’t have nefarious intentions. These are the minds that produced the phrase, “Democracy is inefficient,” as justification to support a despot. I’ll drive my own damn car, thank you very much.
And that brings me to flat bird feeders. It is an old technology used for attracting and feeding birds. One employs a flat feeder in order to sit in a chair and marvel at the birds snacking on the seed. “Don’t you love it!” we exclaim.
We did not have a flat feeder. It’s a simple box with screen at the bottom and filled with safflower seeds. The cardinals and house finches love it. We looked at several versions of flat feeders before deciding that we – even we – could build a simple box and staple screen to the bottom. We had wood in our scrap pile. We had screen rolled up and stored in the ceiling of the basement. We have a chop saw, a drill and a staple gun. We have jute. We have an old shower curtain hook for a hanger. We had all of the necessary ingredients for concocting a flat feeder. All are, in fact, old technologies. And, I know exactly what they are capable of doing or not doing. Sometimes the saw blades need changing or the staples need refilling. I respect them but I do not fear them. If they glitch I can generally comprehend the reason. I can also honestly assess my carpentry skill level which is basic. I am a theatre carpenter which means it needs to look good from a distance and only has to last as long as the production.
If you come to our house and find yourself in the backyard, you are welcome to admire our new flat-feeder from a distance. You won’t be permitted to get close enough to see the truth of the construction. I’ll make up stories that make you leery of stepping on the grass. Actually, I’ll confess my ineptitude but point out that the birds haven’t left a single bad comment in the comment box. It may be that they do not recognize the comment box as a comment box since I built it. No matter. The birds are not leery at all to dine at our flat feeder. Something I cannot say is true about stepping into a driver-less car or trusting the tech-bros to ethically police themselves. They would have us sit in the backseat of an immoral system, frightened, with no ability to take the wheel.
Posted on October 6, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
This is a story about a walk through the marina on a sunny Saturday evening. Octoberfest was in full swing. Bands were playing outside the big tent. Far down the channel another band was performing on an outdoor stage at the yacht club. Children were drawing with chalk on the open square. People gathered on the seawall to take photographs of the Harvest moon rising. The huge planters lining the road adjacent to the Public and Civil War Museums were exploding with color. It was impossible to pass without stopping and admiring them. A man on a bike cruised by bobbing his head to his tunes. There was so much vibrant life on such a short walk around our neighborhood.
Children drawing. Musicians playing. A Public Museum. A Civil War Museum. Gorgeous flowers in giant pots, a city’s dedication to beauty. History. Music. Art. Social gathering.
This is a story about a walk through everything that makes a society cohesive and whole.
Have you heard the news? The Department of Education will soon cease to offer student aid to young people who want to pursue the arts or social work or history or philosophy or theology or…education. If a degree path does not lead to money making then the dull minds at the Department of Ed will not support it. The message: if it doesn’t make money then is has no value. If it can’t pay for itself then it is worth-less.
Do we now throw away the churches? The performing arts centers? Public schools are not generators of cash. Neither are libraries. Museums? Not a chance. The fire department is not known to be a cash cow, should we pull the plug, cut off funding? Public servants are dependent upon public dollars so, according to this administration, they are a drain on society. Politicians, when not corrupt, are meant to be public servants. Should we no longer fund political science as a valid life path? Roads and bridges are not moneymakers, why not dump engineering from the curriculum?
A penny wise and pound foolish.
A body with no soul.
Others have said this better than I ever will. Here is my personal favorite:
“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education
“Public education does not serve a public. It creates a public… the question is, what kind of public does it create?” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education
“Thomas Jefferson. . . knew what schools were for–to ensure that citizens would know when and how to protect their liberty. . . It would not have come easily to the mind of such a man, as it does to political leaders today, that the young should be taught to read exclusively for the purpose of increasing their economic productivity.” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education
Who will tell the story of this nation once the historians and artists and social workers and philosophers disappear into the vast wasteland of moneymaking? Who would want to walk in such a barren soulless place? Isn’t it way past time we stop reducing ourselves to dollars and nonsense?
Posted on September 29, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
What if I told you that this was a fragment of an ancient map. A river and its tributaries. The color coding of the map, the brown and green, explains the river and its tributaries – or perhaps its distributaries; the streams running away from the main river, deltas reaching into and quenching the thirst of parched brown landscape? No matter. This fragment of map is gorgeous and leaf-like.
We explain the relationship between the brown and green by defining the direction of the water flow. Does it run toward or away from the central river? Do the tributaries flow into the stem and then into the branch that connects to the trunk and runs deep into the root? Or the other way around? Is the green a flourishing of what was once brown or is the brown the retreat of what was once green?
Inhale or exhale?
Perhaps it is not a fragment of map after all but a leaf dropped from a tree, laying as we found it, all alone on the concrete, staring up at what used to be. It’s time has come.
The green of the leaves that line our street are in slow retreat. Cooler temperatures and incessant rain have turned the tides. The flow of life has changed direction and instead of sun now seeks the root. The season of underground rejuvenation is upon us. Rest. Recuperation.
Green turns red en route to brown. Falling leaves feed the soil, returning life to the root. The leaf does not separate from the life of the tree, it falls to rejoin it.
Life feeds life. It’s why, after taking the photograph of this leaf, this fragment of ancient map, she gently lifted it and moved it from the concrete to the grass where it might fulfill its mission-cycle.
Posted on September 22, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
When I am stuck or empty of thought, when I do not know what to write about, I sometimes jump into quotes to get me moving. The quote is like a pebble that starts an avalanche. This quote assures me that there is sense to be made, that there are universal rules that apply to all. We are born. We all die. Gravity keeps our feet on the ground even though the ground is a ball spinning through space. Two and two make four, even if the current occupant of the White House insists that it is six.
“A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
I have a theory about maga republicans. They are false friends, keeping close to their dear-leader as long as the sun shines. Sundown is coming, if not already here. They are already fading. Some have stopped attending but they have already rendered themselves as substance-free, nothing more than shadow. The question becomes, “Will we believe them when they claim to be thought-full, 3 dimensional, independent, caring and well-intended representatives of their constituents?” I hope not. I hope we-the-people have more substance than that, a higher expectation of the people who are meant to represent us.
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” ~ Nelson Mandela
There is a dial called “If they gain, we lose,” that the wealthy twist every time this nation actually approaches equality. It’s a very old dial, installed at our nation’s inception. It has been extremely useful for protecting privilege when the greater rabble question the inequities in a nation purportedly based on the ideals of equality and freedom-and-justice-for-all. The current lot have been cranking the dial. Despite their fears and repeated efforts to divide us, to demolish democracy and enrich their holdings, the mountaintop of our desires remains. Perhaps this will be our last pass through the valley? Perhaps we will finally be willing and able to disconnect the dial, erase the concocted divisions and, together, reach the mountaintop?
“Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” ~ Aesop
Growing older, stacking experiences, is a great teacher of shadow versus substance. Our nation has just passed its 250th year though it seems locked in a cycle of shadow-grabbing. Separating substance from shadow is a skill that comes from an honest review of history. The good, the bad, and the ugly – all of it – is necessary for clarifying what matters and what does not. Is a ballroom essential while the people starve? Is a president profiteering from his office an official duty that betters the community and advances our society? It begs two related questions: How long are we will to pretend that shadow is substance? How long can we enable shadow-grasping before we lose our national substance, before we become nothing more than a shadow?
“When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.” ~ Lao Tzu
Posted on September 15, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
A silver lining to the cyclospora, eColi, salmonella…currently running amok in our nation’s-now-unregulated-and-oversight-free food supply, we’re buying our produce from local farms. Not at the local farmer’s market but directly from the farm. It’s something we’ve talked about doing for years and the daily dose of recalls finally gave us the shove we needed to buy-and-eat local.
In addition to the obvious health benefits, I can safely say that I am learning anew how food is supposed to taste. What I thought was a tasty tomato, arriving on the grocery store shelf after a two week journey from the field, cannot compare to the tomato picked this morning, still sporting the sun and dirt from the field just-over-there. We’ve eaten more tomatoes in the past two weeks than in the past several months. And then there are the sweet peppers. And the cucumbers and zucchini. I’ve learned about Brussels sprout toppers and Delicata squash. Later this week I am planning to stuff and bake a Poblano pepper, something I would not have considered had I not been utterly captivated by the basket of gorgeous peppers.
And then there is Cheri and Chloe. The farmer and her niece. We now know the people growing the food we are eating and we like them. They are generous and kind. And funny. They are proud of the food they grow. They protect it and, therefore, they are protecting me. They welcome all of our questions and meet our curiosity with recipes. Holding aloft what I thought was a tiny squash, Cheri pulled a small knife from her pocket and sliced it, proclaiming, “That’s the best cucumber you’ll ever eat.” And it was.
There’s something more. The people shopping to the stand actually talk to each other. Easily. They tell stories. They offer recommendations. They do not pretend that they do not hear or see you. I find that intensely nourishing.
Climbing back into the truck with our sack of fingerling potatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers – our third trip to the farm in less than two weeks – flush with laughter and advice from the farmer and people-no-longer-strangers, we looked at each other and asked, “What took us so long?”
Posted on September 8, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Among the most toxic false divisions currently being foisted upon us is the idea that we are either exclusively conservative or progressive. We love our traditions AND want a better life for our descendants. Both/And. We are all progressive and conservative. We are more alike than we realize.
No bird flies if it only has a single wing; it needs the balance of a right wing AND a left. That is the genius of our system as it was initially conceived. A government that thrives on the honest debate of opposing points of view. Compromise is key. Compromise is balance and balance affords flight.
We are coming apart at the seams, not because we have divided into liberal or conservative camps but because we’ve lost the capacity for honest debate. It is not opposing points of view that plague us; it is a disbelief in substance, a disqualification of fact. A loss of balance. We do not share common truth. This bird cannot fly.
You’d think our division would be fairly easy to transcend. Shared facts are not so hard to establish. Observed, measurable, testable. Lately, our leaders can’t agree that ice forms when temperatures drop beneath 32 degrees. We are awash in “alternative facts” and purposely irreconcilable narratives. A disqualification of fact is a dedication to lies.
After encouragement from the president, a mob storms the Capitol. Is it an insurrection or peaceful tourists? Both interpretations are out there. Only one is rooted in observable, measurable, testable fact.
There were over 60 court challenges to the 2020 election, each was thrown out for lack of evidence. Yet, to this day we are still forced to swallow the narrative that the election was stolen even though all the evidence, all of the facts, substantiate that the election was free and fair.
A disqualification of fact. A dedication to lies.
A lie thrives on bluster and runs from proof whereas fact is quiet, independent of personal agenda or claim. Our capacity for honest debates is mired in personal agenda and drowning in a bucket of loud lies. We can only hope that someday soon integrity returns to our politics. We can only hope that proof and accountability find their way back in the executive office, the legislative chambers, and the judicial, the court Supremes.
Both Barney and the sweet potato vine he hosts are beautiful in their second chance. Barney was a rescue, a piano on the way to the scrap yard. The sweet potato vine was nearly dead, root-bound, when we intervened and gave it a bigger pot. Now it thrives.
Our nation is on the way to the scrap yard but it is not too late to intervene. It can be beautiful, a dynamic mix, a creative tension of old and new, progressive and conservative, a guardian of tradition that creates a better life for all of our descendants, a rich diverse nation that fulfills the promise upon which it was founded. We need not be lie-bound. We are nation of immigrants capable of creating a container big enough to hold a world of perspectives, strong enough to face the facts, sturdy enough to pursue the truth. We are made strong when we uphold our dedication to honest debate and compromise. Honest debate and the capacity to compromise is not the sole dominion of conservatives or progressives. It requires both.
That is our secret sauce.
A dynamic container capable of holding space for varied cultures and beliefs. A nation that offers a second chance to all newcomers. A energetic crossroads. Balanced weave of conservative and progressive, a nation unified by a deep embrace of a single fundamental truth: that all people are created equal.
Posted on September 1, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
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?”
Posted on August 25, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
Like everywhere in the world, we’ve had a very-strange-weather summer. Extraordinary amounts of rain, day after day of grey, and more tornado warnings than you can shake-a-stick-at. With the single exception of our coleus, most of our plants are smashed and stressed. Given the devastation we see across the globe, the fires and floods and drought…the 1000 year storms happening every year. Even though, like our neighbors, we daily proclaim that we are “sick of it,” I tell myself that we have nothing to complain about.
And then I catch myself. In fact, I do not want to normalize or accept the unacceptable. We should be sick of it. We should be shouting at the top of our lungs. This devastation is, after all, not necessary.
In the early 1980’s I had a professor who accurately foretold what the world would look like in the 2020’s if we did not address the carbons we spew into the atmosphere and other pollutants we pour into our environment. He was not a sage or fortuneteller. He was a scientist who studied data. He considered factors like population growth, the ecological forces driving mass human migration and the stresses that a changing climate would put on our resources. He caught my attention one day when he said, “If you think the oil wars are bad, just wait for the water wars.”
Amazon has plans to build the biggest carbon polluter in the USA by a factor of two. The AI-data centers popping up everywhere are massive consumers of energy and spewers of carbon. In my latest rant (that Kerri had to endure) I wondered why the people who consider themselves the most entrepreneurial, the most innovative, namely the tech-bros, can’t seem to be bothered to REALLY innovate and insist on developing and using renewable energy to fuel their centers.
The current administration is squashing green energy while facilitating open season on the burning of fossil fuels. The fires burning across the globe, the storms dumping feet of rain, the mudslides, the drying rivers…are the result of our actions. Or our inaction. Decades of inaction. What I am writing is not news to anyone. In fact, it is old news, as old as my professor in 1980. It’s why I do not want to accept the weekly violent storms as the new normal. I – we – have everything to complain about. Our nation, our leaders plug their ears, cover their eyes, and stuff oil money in their pockets.
I read a heartening article this morning about the people of Hawaii helping each other the day after their community was devastated by Hurricane Lala. The people are helping their neighbors every way possible. Food, fuel, clothing, medical supplies…They are finding ways to help the extended community. They are taking care of each other.
It has been my experience that the best of humanity arises in people after a tragedy – at least for a few days. People helping people. They reach out. They bring what they have to give so they might lessen the suffering of their neighbors. They drop divisions and join forces. They deal with the immediate reality.
Make no mistake, climate change is a tragedy. It is a rolling storm, a human-fueled cataclysm. We need to recognize it for what it is. And then, in the midst of the devastation, in addition to bringing food and fuel and shelter to our neighbors, we need join forces, to come out, reach out, speak out and vote for representatives who will deal with the immediate reality, leaders who insist on protecting the future rather than enriching themselves.
Posted on August 18, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
Last week we began each day reading a draft of a book written by our pal Rob. It’s about werewolves. At the end of each day we watched an episode of a television series about the search for Bigfoot. In the middle of the day we checked in with the news of the day. It occurred to me that I have an easier time believing in Bigfoot than I do in the daily horror of the current administration. I laughed when I realized that spending time with werewolves was preferable to spending time with cowardly republicans.
What does it say about current events when the werewolf escape fantasy is more plausible than the actual reality of these United States?
Plausible means something is reasonable, believable, or likely to be true.
Philip Roth wrote that “You can’t write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.” When governance becomes episodic reality tv, when leaders post for “likes” and troll for attention rather than lead, when debates are canceled because they have devolved into opportunities for sound bytes and no longer serve as forums to discuss issues…we are no longer dealing with actuality, we’re way beyond farce or satire and are solidly lost in the theatre of the absurd. The hyper-focus on the immediate gain destroys the foundational necessity of the enduring ideal. Beckett could not do justice to grotesque characters like Todd Blanche, Pete Hegseth or the mobster-in-chief himself. Up is down and down is up. There is so much gas leaking from the daily-gaslight that we live in actual fear of someone lighting a match.
A radical breakdown of traditional logic and communication. Doesn’t that aptly describe the current republican congress and authoritarian administration? Nothing is reasonable, believable or likely to be true. And yet, the senate continues to vote to confirm the grotesques while the press core acts as if the crap-thinking is credible. The pedophile pretends to be president for yet another day.
The seals clap, the billionaires cluck, the hardworking people are scooped up by masked men and disappeared as flock cameras track women across state lines while trying to exercise autonomy over their bodies, now a high crime for a woman in a nation that espouses freedom. The purpose gets lost in the fragmented plot. Reality undoes invention.
Yesterday in the space between werewolves and Bigfoot we took a walk. I stood on the bricks while Kerri photographed the enormous Hibiscus growing behind the Art Center (now, doesn’t that sound like a setting in an absurdist story?). I was suddenly overcome with the impulse to toe-kick the bricks just to make certain that they were real. I breathed a sigh of relief when my foot met something solid.
Testing reality with my toe. Fact checking each and every bit that we hear as news. Walking to the marina to clear our minds and hearts from the constant onslaught of fabrication, propaganda and lie. Wide-eyed, watching the world of humans eagerly aim a phone-camera at itself, not recognizing the willing reduction of precious life, reality, to second-rate-performance-art-invention.
We are relieved each night to slip into bed, escape the daily horror story by asking, “Do you want to check in with Bigfoot?”
