Uncategorized | The Direction of Intention

Listen To Chicken [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 5, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

putyourfingersonthekeys WITH EYES jpeg copy 2

The original conceit behind Chicken Marsala came during a road trip. Kerri and I started talking about what life might have been like had we met when we were younger. Our conversation wandered into the question of mutual children and then became utterly hysterical when we started tossing possible names back and forth. Chicken Marsala, the imaginary child of two people who met late in life, was born.

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Chicken had friends. Chicken went to school. Chicken had a full blown imaginary life. Chicken terrified his parents, making them do and say things that they would not have otherwise done. Chicken became the inner and outer voice of two artists trying to make their way in a world where they do not necessarily fit.

All of my life people who have cut themselves off from their inner artist have asked me, “Where do I begin?” They build studios for themselves, buy supplies, and then sit, frozen. Tom McK used to tell me that there was only one answer to that question: a writer writes and a painter paints. There is no magic. The muse can’t help unless you pick up the clay and throw the pot. Write many, many bad pages and soon you will discover that you are following an impulse rather than grinding “it” out or making “it” up.

One day, someone asked Chicken’s mom a question about composing. “How do you do it? What’s your secret?” It was a question from someone desperate to uncover their long buried inner artist. What’s the secret charm, the divine key? Chicken leaned into his mom and whispered: Sometimes you just have to put your fingers on the keys and follow the music.

It is no mystery, after a few years banished in the drawer, that Chicken is suddenly pulling on my sleeve. I haven’t been active in the studio for months. ‘A dry spell,’ I tell myself. ‘All of my creative energy is going to other things.’ ‘I’m bored with my work!’ ‘I’m blank…’ Yada Yada. Chicken shakes his head. ‘Not again!’ He giggles.

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Put your fingers on the keys. Pick up your brush. Use that great imagination to play rather than plague yourself. Follow the music. It will always lead you home.

read Kerri’s blog post about FINGERS ON THE KEYS

www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

chicken marsala ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

play 2 play illustration ©️ godknowswhenprobablybeforeyouwereborn david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, chicken marsala, Chicken nugget, Chicken strips, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, play, society6.com/chickenmarsala | 2 Comments »

Knit A Better Structure [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 4, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

impact 2 copy

“…the test of a civilization is how it cares for its helpless members.” ~ Pearl Buck

As a nation, we are currently enamored with tests, and it is not a stretch to say that we’d receive a failing grade on this test of civilization. The helpless members do not fare well.

As Horatio pointed out, much is lost between the cracks of the quintessential conundrum built into the DNA of these United States: the dueling philosophies of every-man-for himself versus I-am-my-brother’s-keeper. Republicans versus Democrats. Corporate greed versus social need. Black and white thinking that leaves gaping voids into which the helpless members disappear. There is no both/and to be found. Division has been a useful tool of control since the inception of the American experiment. The ideological cleaver is sharper than ever these days.

Yet, there is hope that reveals another side to our character. Kerri said, “Look at this!” The Appalachian Wildlife Refuge put out a call for used mascara brushes. They are a useful tool in saving small critters and returning them to health. They received so many brushes, the response was so great, that they had to put limits on when they would accept new brush donations. It’s my bet that people of all political stripes and social strata sent their used mascara brushes to the Refuge. It’s my bet that the critters and the caregivers were grateful in every case.

When tragedy strikes, we rush to meet the need. When a photo moves us, we respond. Something pierces the superficial divide and reaches into our communal heart.

Robert Fritz teaches that behavior is like water, it follows the path of least resistance. If you want to change behavior, you must first change the underlying structure of the land. What might it take for us to challenge this superficial concocted divide, to reach deep into our DNA and knit a better structure of the land – something more useful and more profound than perpetually dueling philosophies? What might it take for us to put down our cleaver and pick up our mascara brushes? What might we imagine and create together that would help history give us a better grade on our test?

read Kerri’s blog post about IMPACT

Filed under: Creativity, Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: Appalachian Wildlife Refuge, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divides, division, dueling philosophies, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Pearl Buck, Robert Fritz | Leave a comment »

See The Series [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

life series quote copy

The closing moment of the film Love Actually is a wonderful montage of greetings at the arrival gate at Heathrow airport. The Beach Boys sing God Only Knows to images of children greeting grandparents, husbands rushing to their wives, friends opening their arms to friends. Hugh Grant’s voice over: “Love actually is, all around us.”

For reasons I’ve never quite understood, we human beings have an uncanny ability to focus on the negative stuff while completely missing the love all around us. We famously study ourselves and the data is overwhelming: we yammer on and on to all who will listen about the “bad” thing that happened in our day. We share the “good” stuff less and with far fewer listeners. There’s something about a fight that draws our eyes while a kiss will make us look away.

Stand on any street corner and watch the world go by and one thing becomes immediately clear. There are far more acts of generosity than there are acts of violence. The kind hearts outstrip the mean spirits by far so why do believe the opposite?

Krishnamurti famously said that “Life is a relationship. Living is a relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally.”

Violence and division make for better ratings because it’s profitable [and easy] to focus the feed on all things negative. Low hanging fruit. It’s profitable to keep the eye off the thousand tiny miracles. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t happening all around us, every minute of every day.

What might it take to pull down the wall so we might more than periodically peep over it? So that we might see that love actually is all around us? To borrow a phrase from The Beach Boys, “god only knows.”

read Kerri’s blog post about A THOUSAND TINY MIRACLES

Filed under: Language, Love, Seeing, Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: beach boys, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, god only knows, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, krishnamurti, love, love actually, meaning making, seeing | Leave a comment »

Eat The Cold [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

every storm runs out copy

“Eat the cold!” the Buddhist monk said to the shivering novice. “Eat the cold.” It is” monk-speak for embracing rather than resisting the circumstances of your life.

Non-resistance. Detachment. Hold your self lightly. Presence. Make no assumptions. Be here now. Every spiritual tradition has language for the lesson. Eat the cold. Have the experience. Suspend your judgment. See what is there, not what you think is there. Feel it without condemnation or praise.

When I was a teenager I went on a trip with a school group. The bus broke down in the mountains. We sat on the side of the road bemoaning the state of our affair. The teacher laughed at us. “We’re on an adventure and this is part of it!” he exclaimed. “Rather than fool ourselves into thinking we are stuck, maybe we should fool ourselves into thinking this is exactly where we should be! What’s here? What can we do and create here?” I remember nothing about the rest of that trip but I do remember how much fun we had on the side of the road.

Kerri’s wrists are broken. We find ourselves on a metaphoric roadside. Our patterns are completely disrupted so we are experiencing the gift of mindfulness. Putting on a coat requires complete attention. Lifting a fork. Combing out her gorgeous naturally curly hair. Buckling a seat belt. We have abandoned all notion of rushing. It happens when it happens. When she plays the piano, she does it with full attention; nothing is taken for granted.

What’s here in this storm? Maybe this is exactly where we should be. Amazed at our friendships, our first walk since the accident with Jen and Brad, the sun and wind, laughter with 20, cooing at the meal Joan made for us, flowers, brownies and wine, crawling under the healing quilt that Janet sewed.

read Kerri’s blog post about EVERY STORM

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, attention, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, mindfulness, paying attention, presence, story | Leave a comment »

Ripple [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 28, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

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“you make a difference in their life, even though they don’t know who you are, you make a difference.” ~ Kerri Sherwood, You Make A Difference

I catch myself in webs of my own weaving. There are things that I know to be true but willingly ignore when I am feeling blue and indulge in a warm bath of self-pity. For instance, my move to Wisconsin brought me to my great love but also came as a career killer. I have, in the past few years, spent inordinate amounts of time pondering my worth to the world. Beyond “husband,” who am I now that “no one” finds value in my work?

When my eyes and heart clear, I know that I have willingly stepped into the single greatest trap plaguing the Western world: investment in the notion that my experience – my life on this earth – is a product. That I must, as John O’Donohue writes, “…strive to garner a quota of significance from the world.”

How isolated we are, searching for purpose, trying to make a mark, seeking an experience, trying to find our voice,…have value, like so much property or stocks to be traded. Reduction. People as bottom lines. What is my value? What is yours?

I’ve decided that my favorite movie is ABOUT TIME. The main character, Tim, is afforded the opportunity to live each day over again. The second time through, instead of grinding out his task list and exhausting rush to achieve, he pays attention to the little things, the relationships he has all throughout the day. He is afforded the opportunity to shift his focus from “life as a product” to “life as relationship.” He makes a difference, not because he makes millions or wins the case, but because he smiles at the clerk of the convenience store. He pays attention to the “space between” and realizes he is nothing more or nothing less than a relationship. Ultimately, he has no need to live each day twice because he ceases throwing the first chance away. He releases the life-dulling-I-am-a-product-mentality and embraces the life-giving-I-am-a-relationship reality.

Sisyphus, in his first trip to the underworld, watches as a thousand souls wander the river bank, so lost in the fog of their own stories that they, each and every one, believe that they are all alone. Finally, their manic little stories play out, the fog surrounding them dissipates, and they see each other. In that moment, they return to their natural state, their most powerful state. They blend together into a single, vibrant mist (relationship). In that moment, Sisyphus is forever changed. He comes alive, returning to the upper regions, knowing that the real vitality, crackling life, is available if he looks beyond his isolating story-fog.

Instead of reducing his life to a measurable value, a few gold coins extracted from the world, Sisyphus expands beyond his little story-prison of worth-seeking to paying attention to what he brings to the moment, focusing on the shared space between. His life ripples and those ripples have no end. In fact, he understands that his life is a ripple.

Instead of trying to be somebody (separation) he simply recognizes and fully inhabits the utter miracle of his being (relationship). In that simple, profound shift, the difference is made.

It’s in Kerri’s song. You make a difference in their lives, even though they don’t know who you are. Your life, and their life, are one and the same thing.

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE is available in iTunes& CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE

you make a difference ©️ 2003 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Energy, Identity, KS Friday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: cancer research, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life giving, life lessons, life worth, meaning making, product-thinking, ripple, sisyphus, story, value, worth, you make a difference | Leave a comment »

Leave It At The Door [on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 27, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

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There is a simple exercise that I am particularly fond of but less than terrific at practicing. It goes like this: don’t drag yesterday’s trash into today. See this day as it is: new. Live this day without the control fantasy of believing that you know what will happen, that you know or can control what other people think. Recognize that the burden you carry is exactly that – something you carry. Put it down for a spell. It will be there when you are ready to pick it up.

It’s not an exercise in denial. It’s actually the opposite. It’s an exercise in dealing with the real moment rather than the imagined monster. You’ll be amazed at the world of light, color, and possibility that opens when yesterday’s trash stays in yesterday, when the weighty story wrapped around the past-moment drops away.

I used to tell my actors, when entering the rehearsal hall, to leave their day at the door. Rehearsal halls, like artist studios, are sacred places. The art of the theatre is the mastery of presence and it’s a necessary skill to tuck the story-of-the-day into a safe keeping box before stepping onto the stage. And, what if, as master Will wrote, all the world is a stage? It seems to me that the art of living is the mastery of presence.

I call it the “garbage layer,” those moments when I am first coming out of sleep. Coming up from the bottom of the slumber-ocean there is a surface layer where all the trash floats. It is coming through the garbage layer that I have the option of leaving behind or picking up yesterday’s flotsam. The nagging to-do list, the contention, the worries, the fears and fights can all be scooped up and hauled into the new day or the story-of-yesterday can be left at the door.

And when I leave yesterday’s garbage in yesterday? An entirely different set of experiences and assumptions become available. Awe at the light in the trees. Awe at the smell of coffee brewing. Awe at the sun and the enormous cat that purrs when I sit close.

[Chicken Marsala was one of our cartoon creations. He tickled the syndicates but never got picked up. We love him still. We designed all manner of cool prints, cards, cups and other stuff that you can find here]

read Kerri’s blog post about ASSUME AWE

chicken marsala ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

face the sun, mixed media, 18 x 24IN

chicken marsala ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

face the sun ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Awakening, Creativity, DR Thursday, Possibility, Story, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: assumptions, awe, chicken marsala, Chicken nugget, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, denial, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reality, society6.com/chickenmarsala, society6.com/davidrobinson | Leave a comment »

Bother to Ask A Question [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

All of us know this tale: A farmer loses his ax. He saw the neighbor boy playing in his field so he suspects the boy took his ax. He tells his wife the neighbor boy is a thief. The wife goes to town shopping and tells everyone she meets the story of the neighbor boy stealing her husband’s ax. People share the story and the story magnifies. An ax is now the least of the boy’s crimes! They tell other people and when things go missing or worse, the boy is their suspect. If he could steal an ax he could also steal a shirt off the line. He’ll take your horse when you’re not looking! He’s a chronic thief! The boy is shunned. His family is ostracized. The farmer feels satisfaction until the day he finds his ax resting on the tree – right where he’d left it.

Narratives are very, very powerful.

Yesterday I listened to a speaker from SelahFreedom present on the growing “industry” of sex trafficking. It was horrifying. One of the slides on the speaker’s Powerpoint was from a pimp’s notebook, instructions about how to keep his women under his control. Drugs help but the narrative weave is all. It could have been notes taken from the commandant at a concentration camp or a cult leader’s handbook. Paranoia tactics. Isolationist, us-versus-them strategies. Lies and distortions repeated to the point that it is impossible, once inside the narrative, once hooked in the story, to distinguish between reality and the distortion.

We live in the age of information and misinformation. We now inhabit the era of hyper-magnified distortion. A single post, a tweet, can reach millions in an instant. The boy stole the ax! They are trying to make us all socialists! The judge was biased! Don’t believe what you see! Witch hunt! Hoax! Believe what I say not what I do.

When was the last time you checked the veracity of your news sources? When was the last time you bothered to fact check or research something that alarmed you in your stream?

Fear is a great brain scrambler. Robert Sapolsky, researcher of stress in animals, has shown that zebras are capable of shaking off their stress after the lion gives up the chase. People, on the other hand, whip up and maintain their stress by repeating the story over and over to all who will listen. And, more to the point, there need not be a real lion chasing us, just someone who knows how to manufacture a lion and get us to spread the terror, to share without question.

It’s the pimp’s strategy. Stoke fear. Discourage thinking. Threaten. Sow doubt. Play on insecurity. Keep them hooked. Encourage thoughtless sharing of an empty narrative. It validates the perspective of the pimp and the farmer who couldn’t possibly have lost his ax all by himself.

Despite what they tell you, the pimp is never protecting your interests. The pimp is only concerned with his own interests and needs a deep state of delusion running rampant through his stable, to control the narrative.

Imagine what might have been possible if anyone in the ax chain had thought to ask a question, had stepped back to think about what they were hearing before they hit the easy button to share.

read Kerri’s blog post about THINK BEFORE YOU SHARE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: brain wash, cult, cult leader, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, information, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misinformation, paranoia, pimp, Robert Sapolsky, SelahFreedom, stress, tactics, threat | Leave a comment »

Hear The Whisper [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 25, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

a house copy

A house remembers.

We took my dad back to his home town. It was a pilgrimage. He wanted to see it one last time. We walked through the cemetery. He pointed to headstones and told stories. He looked for people and grew frustrated when he couldn’t find them. He’d breathe a sigh of relief when, after walking row after row, we finally found them.

The pilgrimage was not to the cemetery. It was to a tiny little house that his grandfather built that he needed to return. To touch. Nowadays it is being used as a shed. His dad grew up in that tiny house. It was the center of his universe when he was a child, his cathedral.

Standing before the tiny house, he told the story of how his grandfather split open and pried apart the rafters, making a second story. He built on a small kitchen. He added a small bedroom on one side. There was a porch.

To our eyes, it was now barely standing. To my dad’s eyes, it was the most beautiful home on earth.

As we walked the perimeter I couldn’t help but feel that the house needed to see him as much as he needed to see the house. It remembered, “You came back!” It seemed to sit up straight, remembering the days that it housed a family, that meals were cooked within its walls, that children slept there. As my dad told the stories, I was overwhelmed with the notion that he wasn’t just telling us, he was talking to the house. And the house was nodding, smiling, “Yes, I remember…” The children ran free. Everyone worked hard.

As we walked away he knew he would never see it again. But he’d shared the story. He’d introduced us to this house, his-and-now-my sacred place. “This is where you come from,” the house and my dad whispered together, “Remember.”

read Kerri’s blog post about A HOUSE REMEMBERS

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Identity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: ancestor, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, home, house, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pilgrimage, remembering, sacred places, stories | Leave a comment »

Tickle Open The Closed [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

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It used to be one of my favorite exercises to facilitate. Ask one person in a small group to tell a story of blame. Ask the rest of the group to invest in the story. In no time the small groups would be indignant, talking over each other in disgruntlement. A klatch of agitated victims, howling. They’d laugh in their aggravated frenzy. They’d devise clever revenge or ways to torment the object of their blame story. They’d grow a monster.

Blame stories are like sugar. They are easy to eat and highly addictive. There’s rarely any real substance, so much gossip-cotton-candy, but there is an odd pleasure in playing the role of “the injured party.” The groups would always reflect that the exercise was fun. So much so that they’d often forget it was an exercise. Commiseration and validation, after all, are the point of a blame story. That, and making someone else responsible for how we feel.

Ask the same groups to tell a story of choice or opportunity and most times, after only a minute or two, they’d sit in silence. Their, “Great. That’s really great,” support would dwindle. Feeding an idea is not nearly as easy as feeding a story of blame.

Quinn used to tell me that creativity is not for the faint of heart.

The groups were always shocked to discover how much of their lives were spent chewing the gristle of discontent, of feeding the notion that someone else was to blame for their choices or their circumstance. They’d generally comment on how easy it was to commiserate and how difficult it is to question, challenge or stop the blame-game. Mostly, they were shocked to discover how little of their time they dedicated to feeding ideas, theirs or another persons.

Blame stories are easy because they are reductive. They engender tight little balls of closed minds and closed circles. They close hearts. They take almost no energy at all to spark but, once burning, like a wildfire, they are capable of consuming entire forests.

Idea exploration is expansive. Seeing possibilities requires eyes that look up and out. It takes much more energy to imagine, to question, to ponder. To try. To experiment. To ask. To challenge what you think you know. Opening minds, opening circles and hearts requires a deep sense of self-responsibility. It requires an even deeper sense of responsibility to others.

One of the purposes of the artist is to open closed circles, to tickle open closed minds. To help their community see anew and entertain never-before-imagined possibilities.

It takes more effort and courage to sail to the edges of the known world than it does to hang out around the water cooler and complain about others. Great minds do not have more capacity than any other mind, but they do require a very different focus.

read Kerri’s blog post about GREAT MINDS & IDEAS

feel the rain, mixed media, 2019

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, The Direction of Intention, Uncategorized | Tagged: blame, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, open heart, open mind, opportunity, questioning, seeing | Leave a comment »

Rest Full [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 21, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

quarter rest

“The primeval beauty of silence becomes audible in the elemental music of the earth and in our music of instrument and voice. At the core of the world and at the core of the soul is silence that ripples with the music of beauty and the whisperings of the eternal.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

I have said more than once these past few weeks, that the silver lining of two broken wrists is that all the presses have stopped. The endless list of things-to-do fell into dust on the floor and the true priorities jumped into immediate clarity. The superficial things gave way to the essential.

Little things, like showering or getting dressed in the morning, are no longer mindless rote activities. The are now intentional. Attention is paid to every movement, every moment. They are care-full. I am learning once again that there are riches all around me when I am not racing to get to the next thing but, instead, occupying the moment that I am living. The other night at rehearsal I nearly burst into tears so beautiful were the people and the laughter surrounding us. A month ago, pre-wristgate, I might have missed it.

Caring for an other. Caring for one and another. Other caring.

We rest. We do not push through. So many in our amazing community have asked me, as I care for Kerri, am I also taking care of myself? I love this question. It is generous. The answer is ‘yes’ and the question it raises is ‘why isn’t this level of self-generosity the norm?’ Are you caring for yourself? In the midst of all that life flings your way, first and foremost, as you care for others, are you also attending to yourself?

I’m learning that the two things are inseparable: caring for another is also caring for yourself. Or, flip it over: it is impossible to fully care for yourself without caring for others. We know ourselves through relationship. We can only thrive when loved and while loving. People in isolation go mad. Banishment from the group was once considered a punishment worse than death.

As silence is to sound. Caring as making beautiful life-music. We take our quarter rest.

read Kerri’s blog post about QUARTER REST