The Direction of Intention

Listen To Dan [on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Between the dog-of-destruction reigning supreme in the backyard and the water-line-trench-destruction in the front yard, we’re the award winners in our neighborhood for worst yard. Luckily, we have Dan. He knows everything about grass. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. For years he’s given us great lawn advice that we forget almost immediately after we ask. Patience is a virtue and his name is Dan.

With the complete annihilation of the front yard, first resulting in a weed-covered-burial-mound and then the subsequent scraping away of the mound and all living things with it, we thought it best to finally put Dan’s advice into action. He drives by periodically to check on our progress and give us some hints and encouragement.

Things are looking up! Tender grass is growing in most spots in the front. We’re awaiting the fall day that Dan gives us the go-ahead to “over-seed.” With any luck, he tells us, our once bald lawn will have a full head of hair by this time next year.

The award will have to go someone else.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GRASS

Filed under: smack-dab, Uncategorized | Tagged: aarp, advice, aerating, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, good friends, grass, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lawn, lawn repair, patience, second chances, seeding, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, weeding | 1 Comment »

Sing With Pooh [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Why does a song suddenly pop-up in your mind and beg you to hum along? Yesterday, for no apparent reason, out of the blue, Loggins and Messina’s song, The House At Pooh Corner, washed over me and forced me to maul the lyrics. At the time I was writing a business blogpost about assembly lines (uff-da). House At Pooh Corner was released in 1971, it’s a bubble from the deep-deep archives.

It changed my day. I made such gumbo of the lyrics that I pulled it up on YouTube. I sang along so I might refresh the muddied words in my mind. In addition to word-recall, it lightened my spirits. Writing about spirit-stripping manufacturing processes, command-and-control structures, had my brows knitted and my brain squeezed. Maybe that’s why Pooh decided to visit. I had a honey jar stuck on my nose. I sang along and laughed.

By the end of the sing-along I was dedicated to taking myself less seriously. I suspect that’s the message and gift A.A. Milne released upon the world with Pooh and Piglet. None of it is as serious as we pretend. Will my knitted brow blogpost about new systems illuminate the world? Yawn. Probably not. Did it feel good to write? Absolutely. I love thinking about a better world. Pooh lives in one – and maybe that’s yet another reason he jumped a bubble and rode to the surface of my thinking. He came as a song. A lovely light-hearted wish. A seed pod of silly presence.

“…So I sent him to ask of the owl, if he’s there, how to loosen a jar from the nose of a bear…Help me if you can I’ve got to get back to the house at Pooh corner by one, you’d be surprised there’s so much to be done….” Kenny Loggins & Jim Messina

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about WISHES

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: A.A. Milne, artistry, assembly line, christopher robin, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light heart, Loggins & Messina, memory, owl, Piglet, presence, relax, seeds, sing along, song, spirit, story, studio melange, systems, The House At Pooh Corner, the melange, Winnie the Pooh, wishes | 1 Comment »

Be The Feast [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This time of year, if you want to walk the Des Plaines river trail, do it early in the day. The mosquitoes come out in the afternoon. They are vicious little critters.

The Des Plaines mosquitoes are subject to one of the great mysteries in my life. At home – in fact, everywhere else on the planet – the mosquitoes prefer Kerri. I can be mosquito-free while she’s a mosquito-buffet. Not true at Des Plaines. Those wicked flying needles feast on me and give her a pass. Why?

Last week we started our walk a little later than planned. It’s as if the folks in the Des Plaines control room throw a switch. One moment, there’s not a mosquito to be found. The next moment, the mosquito dinner bell is rung and I am the main course. I run-walk, slap and silly dance my way back to the relative safety of the car. Kerri walks leisurely asking, “Are there any on me?”

It’s been a great equalizer in our relationship. For years, in the early summer evenings, writhing, she asks in desperation, “Are you getting bitten?” My smug response has always been, “No. Are they out?” Now, as I wiggle and swat my way through the forest, she strolls and smiles and asks, “What’s the matter?”

Equalizer. Compassion-builder. Though, now I understand why she suggested a later start for our walk in the woods. “What about the mosquitoes?” I asked.

She smiled.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MOSQUITOES

earth interrupted I, 48x53IN, multi media

Filed under: DR Thursday, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, compassion, crazymakers, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, des plaines, des plaines river trail, equalizer, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mosquitoes, musician, painter, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Flap Your Ears [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

If one of the great life lessons is “control what you can control and let the rest go,” then Dogga is a master teacher. He has minimal investments in what most people think or do or feel. He is an equal opportunity barker.

As he ages, he becomes more and more a hedonist. He finds the coolest spot in the house to nap. He thoroughly enjoys his food. Lately, cold watermelon sets his wag-a-wag in fervent motion. Take him for a drive and he cares not-a-whit for the destination but savors the rushing air blowing back his ears. Ask him if he wants to drive and he’ll decline every time. Face the wind; flap the ears.

He is never shy about his desire for petting. He bumps his head against my leg for an ear-ruffle. He flops on his back when a full-belly-belly is his fancy. He is also clear when he wants space and to be left alone. He parks just out of reach. Nothing personal.

I think James Herriot has it right: “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” Dogga’s soul isn’t really invested in what he can’t control. It leaves a lot of space in his universe for love – that which he can control – and for that, I am most grateful. It’s a lesson worth learning.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EARS FLAPPING

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, dogga, Gratitude, hedonist, James Herriot, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, love, loyalty, soul, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Cast Great Shadows [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

There is a small statue on the bathroom sink upstairs. It’s from another era. Inscribed on the base is the phrase, “I love you this much.” The little figure stands wide-eyed with outstretched arms. I use the outstretched arms to hold my hair-pretties. Hair-pretty is a technical term. Kerri tutored me on proper hair terminology when I decided to once again let my hair grow long. I always had long hair until I started facilitating, consulting, and coaching. My clients could handle the clogs but couldn’t see beyond my hair.

I have grown fond of the little statue with outstretched arms. Sometimes I talk to it. “Hand me one of those hair-pretties,” I say, or, “Do you really love me that much?” Occasionally I’ve asked the statue for an opinion or advice but he remains silent since his inscription is a universal answer. Pay attention to what you love. Love without bounds. Love without borders.

One of the qualities that I love in my life is how playful Kerri and I are. Barney the piano is dissolving in the backyard, so, with great excitement, we ordered a chandelier to suspend above Barney. When the chandelier arrived, we decided it wasn’t a good fit for Barney so, for a few nights, it lived under the table umbrella. It cast great shadows so we sat beneath it and cooed and ahh-ed. Kerri took photographs. I loved our moments. Dogga slept through it all and I loved that, too.

It isn’t that complicated. Pay attention to what you love and let the rest go. Of course, like all simplicities, it’s easy to say and hard to do. That’s where the little statue comes in: it reminds me that love isn’t something you do. It’s something you are. It’s something you allow, especially when the borders and rules and boundaries and expectations and self-inflicted limitations aren’t clogging the view.

How much? All in.

[Kerri just told me she bought the little statue for her dad when she was a teenager. And, at some point, it found it’s way back to her. An even better story!]

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CHANDELIER

Filed under: Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, chandelier, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hair pretty, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, moments, pay attention, play, playful, shadow play, shadows, simplicity, statue, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Dowse Your Data [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

My favorite question of the week: What is the science behind divining?

I admit to laughing out loud when I read the question. In a world run amok with science-deniers and rabid propagandists, we might as well answer the question with a qualifier: it depends on what you decide to believe. Or, answer a question with a question: do you really want to know what the science says?

Since belief-divining is all the rage these days, the best available advice for adherents of critical thought is, “Don’t waste your breath.”

I took a peek at ‘dowsing’ in wikipedia. Divining is generally attributed to “ideomotor phenomena.” A psychological response. An accidental movement. Science reports dowsing is projection.

What is the science behind love? What is the love behind science? A moment ago Kerri frowned when I told her she was the sole-object of my ideometric phenomena. She’s learned not to ask and has developed a keen ability to move on from my thoughts to thoughts with more substance.

Science doesn’t prove. Science hypothesizes, gathers data, and then reports findings. Science is objective. It is both rooted in data and is open-minded. New data always come in. It takes an open mind to successfully roll with the theory of relativity. It takes an open mind to open to the data. Excessive carbon in the air is heating the planet. We are simultaneously cutting down the earth’s lungs to make room for more cattle production.

What’s your hypothesis of our recent spate of 1000 year storms year after year? Science is offering a fairly clear picture.

What’s the science behind divination? The science of seeing into the future? Projection?

I was delighted when I stumbled on an NPR story about U.K. Water Companies Sometimes Use Dowsing Rods. The companies admitted to the use of divination but were quick to add, that it’s not a company-wide policy. And then reinforced their disclaimer with the only disclaimer that we universally and wholeheartedly accept: it doesn’t cost money. If it cost money, we’d take it seriously. Like pet rocks. Or reality tv.

Deloitte (using scientific methods) reports the cost of climate change to the U.S.A. economy will be 14.5 trillion dollars over the next 50 years. We can expect to lose 900,000 jobs each year. Ideometric phenomena? Scientific divination? Data-dowsing?

For adherents of critical thought, it occurs to me to update the best available advice with another question: How much time do we have to waste?

read Kerri’s blog post on Y

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Pattern, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, climate change, critical thinking, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Deloitte, denial climate change, divination, dowsing, ideomotor phnomena, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, NPR, projection, science, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Hold Vigil [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on August 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

BabyCat waited until I was traveling. He was with Kerri long before I arrived in her life. I believe, to leave, he needed to have her all to himself. He passed suddenly, with little warning that something was wrong. She raced him to the vet. He was gone. In the blink of an eye.

When you wake up in the morning you never really know how your life will change that day.

We have a photograph that kills me every time look at it. Dog-Dog standing at the door, looking out. Not understanding. Holding vigil for BabyCat’s return. Sometimes I feel like I am Dogga standing at the door. I hear a sound in the house and think, “What’s that BabyCat doing now?”

And then I catch myself. Dog-at-the-door. Holding vigil.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MISSING BABYCAT

Filed under: smack-dab, Uncategorized | Tagged: aarp, artistry, BabyCat, cartoon, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, grief, holding vigil, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, memory, middle age cartoon, pets, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, vigil | 1 Comment »

Extend The Peace [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 19, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Most of my life I’ve been an apartment dweller. A studio liver. Since moving to Wisconsin, into a house, I’ve had a yard to tend. I’m not very good at it but I confess to enjoying the work. I like being outside. Pulling weeds has, I’m slightly worried to admit, become a meditation.

Since Dog-Dog is a gifted destroyer of backyards – digging holes, wearing multiple velodrome paths in the grass – tending the yard has mostly been reactive. My actions are determined by his actions. Let’s just say I don’t worry too much about winning the lawn Olympics. I doubt that I’d qualify.

In the past year, in addition to the inside of the house being wrecked by interior waterfalls and other surprises, outside our yard, front and back, has also been blown to smithereens. We are slowly digging out. We are slowly putting the pieces back together again. And, we’re doing it at a time that Dog-Dog is slowing down. These days he’d rather sit in the shade than cut a new velodrome.

So, we’re designing our space. We’re extending the peace we created in our sunroom into the yard. Last year, our peace spilled out onto the deck. Now, with the addition of the back fence, our peace is pressing the lot line.

I was surprised to learn that Kerri has hosta preferences. She’s not a fan of the variegated variety that lined our yard. Bert and Sue gave us those plants from their yard. We were trying to get something – anything – to grow. Sally gave us ferns and day lilies. We rolled those down third avenue in a wheelbarrow. Now, with everything in disarray, we have a blank canvas.

With tall grasses as the center of her design, she pulled me across the nursery to see “the right hosta.” There’s a certain shape of leaf. A certain color of green. “Look,” she said, pointing out the differences. “Don’t you love that?”

What I love is the specificity of her compositional eye. She tells me that the grasses will dance and pop against the white fence. The green – not any green – but the specific green of the hosta will sing next to the swaying grasses.

Hosta singing. Grasses dancing. Out of the ashes…design, and peace that reaches all the way to the fence.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE RIGHT GREEN

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

Filed under: Edges, Gratitude, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, blank canvas, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, day lilies, design, Dog-Dog, dogga, ferns, grasses, hosta, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, phoenix, plants, story, studio melange, the melange, yard design | 1 Comment »

Protect The Heartwood [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Conk!

No, that is not cartoon-speak for being hit on the noggin. It’s a formal name, the body-shape of the shelf-fungi that grows on local trees. Not having grown up here, the first time I saw them, I thought they were aliens. Trees with tongues. A Little Shop of Horrors; Audrey II. Get too close and tree-Audrey would feed on me. Conk! Chomp! (burp).

Polypores. Now, there’s a word that rolls trippingly off the tongue – and is made more fun because polypores actually look like a tongue. Shelf-fungi (a polypore) is not a good thing if you are a tree. In fact, it has no interest in feeding on me but consumes the heartwood of its host.

Heartwood.

I’m not kidding when I admit that, in passing this shelf-fungi, I imagined the conks to be visible stories. Each conk represented a story of insecurity or fear. The stories that feed on our heartwood. What would we look like if our conk-stories where visible on our trunks?

If the rot-story was visible, what might we do to tell a self-tale intended to protect our heartwood and eliminate the conks? How might we help our children tell life stories of self-love, knowing they’d wear their conk-stories? How might we address our neighbors? What would we do to protect the heartwood of the forest from wearing rot-stories?

I think I’ll stop there. Conk!

read Kerri’s blogpost about SHELF FUNGI

Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, conk, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hamlet, heart, heartwood, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, polypore, shelf fungi, story, storymaking, storytelling, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Discern [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 17, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s a little over two miles to Steve’s garage. When we drop the car for a repair, especially in the early morning, we like to walk home. The route takes us by the lake. We take our time, more stroll than stride, and breathe in the early morning quiet.

We are dedicated walkers. We’ve become dedicated seekers and creators of quiet. It’s as if we are counterbalancing the crazy-noise-of-the-news with a stalwart sanctuary that we take with us wherever we go. We walk slow enough to notice. We walk slow enough to appreciate.

There is, of course, a direct correlation between pace-of-movement and paying attention. It’s hard to smell the roses when racing through the day. Lately, much of my work-in-the-world involves addressing information overload. The pace-of-movement need not be physical, it also applies to the river of information rushing across our screens. It’s no wonder we’re angry and anxious and aggressive. I’ve adopted a phrase from my colleague, Greg; he calls the info-torrent More/Faster. We live in the age of info-gluttony and have difficulty discerning between what has nutritional value and what is dross.

Until we slow down. There is a correlation between the pace of movement and peace-of-mind. There is a correlation between pace and the capacity to determine relevance.

It’s why we walk to or from Steve’s Garage. It’s why we end the work day holding hands and walking the neighborhood. It’s why we begin each day sitting side-by-side writing. To slow it down. To discern relevance in a fast moving info-river of dedicated draff. To see what matters in a More/Faster world racing too fast to see anything at all.

We smell flowers. Feel the dew on leaves. Turn our faces to the sun as it reaches through the morning clouds. Real stuff. Stuff of the moment. The small discoveries available when racing to the next thing is the last thing you want to do.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MORNING SKY