Aesop’s Fables | The Direction of Intention

Happy Harbinger [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 8, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The space between our garage and the neighbors fence is a narrow passageway. It is out-of-sight-out-of-mind. As the original debris field of the house, there are mounds of earth that I long ago learned I’d never be able to dig out. A shovel cannot penetrate the bits of brick and wood, old cement and wire, that have long since petrified and are covered by a thin layer of dirt. Gnarly weeds grow in abundance, some taller than I am.

The passage is a neighborhood animal trail for the fox and opossum so we occasionally toss old broccoli or carrots gone rubbery for the critters to eat. Tossing critter snacks is the only time I ever visit the passageway. On a recent snack-toss-expedition I was astounded to see a mighty sunflower rising high above the weeds! A sunflower towering above the debris field. It felt auspicious. An affirmation. A positive sign of good things to come.

I looked at the sunflower in utter disbelief. It looked at me with amusement. I ran into the house to grab Kerri so she could marvel at our happy harbinger.

There are few things on this earth that human beings have so thoroughly endowed with positive symbolic meanings as the sunflower. Happiness. Health and longevity. Good luck. Abundance. Loyalty. There is no dark undertone, no shadow symbology with sunflowers. It is the Shirley Temple of symbols.

From the outside, our life together this past decade probably appears to most like a debris field. Our career implosion left bits and pieces of us scattered all over the tarmac. And yet, you would be hard pressed to find two happier people, two more intentionally grateful human beings.

Yesterday we discovered chunks of tar on the back patio. Looking up we saw that part of the roof over our sunroom had peeled back, probably from the recent wind storms. As I prepared myself to panic, Kerri smiled and said, “I am going to choose to be grateful that we found this before it really became a problem.” My panic hissed out of me like air from a balloon. No panic necessary. No need to get lost in the problem. Just gratitude with an eye toward solutions. I clamped the layers down until the roofing guy could come.

From the top of the ladder I could see the sunflower. It looked like it was watching over us. I remembered the lesson of one of Aesop’s Fables: what looks like a tragedy is often a gift. What looks like a boon sometimes brings a curse. And, in time, the curse will eventually open the way to a blessing.

“Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” I quipped with the sunflower. It simply smiled in reply.

Kerri’s music is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUNFLOWER

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Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: Aesop's Fables, affirmation, artistry, blessing, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gift, Gratitude, harbinger, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, solutions, story, studio melange, sunflower, symbolic meaning, symbols, the melange | 4 Comments »

Love Your Vintage [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The woman on the Apple support line told Kerri that her computer was vintage. “As if I didn’t know!” Kerri groused after the call.

In the middle of the night, after the firemen had determined that the burning electric smell wasn’t coming from inside our walls (a story for tomorrow), their chief took one last look around and said, “You have some really nice antiques here.”

“Thanks,” Kerri said, avoiding my smirk.

We are not collectors of antiques. Not on purpose. Our house is populated with stories and random pieces of furniture that we like and could afford. For instance, the two chairs in the sunroom are made of course-weld steel with raw wood seats. $5 for both. They are quirky, like us. An old door, set on two sawhorses, serves as a table for our plants. Budget and taste. Or, taste defined by budget. As Gus says in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “There you go.”

Big Red and Little Baby Scion are long-in-the-tooth, too. And, isn’t that a great idiom! Showing their age. Horses gums recede with age (I just read this!) so older horses seem to have longer teeth. I am suppressing the urge to run into the bathroom and look at my gums in the mirror. “I am not a horse,” I whisper to my urge. Vintage, vintage, vintage. Last month Big Red wouldn’t start. He needed a new battery. Yesterday, we pushed Little Baby Scion down the driveway so we could get the newly-batteried-Big Red out. We drove him across the front yard. Classy people. LBS decided not to start and, after refusing her jump from Big Red, she’s destined to have a tow truck adventure to visit Steve [Thanks to John and Michele, our awesome neighbors, for helping us push Little Baby Scion back up into the driveway for safekeeping until the tow].

“We’ve had one hell of a week,” I said, after being rear-ended. It was lucky that we were in Big Red. Normally, we’d have been in Little Baby Scion and it would not have been pretty. It occurs to me that we are living an Aesop’s fable: you can never see your good fortune since it sometimes comes dressed as a problem. Stepping out of the truck to see the damage – and being amazed that, after being hit so hard, that there was not a single scratch on Big Red. The other car lost its grill to Big Red’s trailer hitch. Pieces of plastic and glass were everywhere. “I’m glad Little Baby Scion broke down,” I thought. Our unintentional vintage collection could have just saved our lives.

“We’re really lucky,” Kerri said. Yes. Yes we are.

read Kerri’s blog post about JUMP STARTS

Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: Aesop's Fables, Apple, artistry, blessing, budget, count your blessings, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fortune, good angels, good fortune, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, long in the tooth, lucky, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, old, story, studio melange, the melange, vintage | Leave a comment »

Lose Your Right Mind [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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I have made some incredibly bad decisions in my life that set off a chain of events that led to some extraordinary, life-illuminating experiences. Conversely, I have made some incredibly good, well-considered decisions that led me to total devastation. My life reads like one of Aesop’s Fables.

The “bad” decisions were “irrational” and “spontaneous” and some of my pals questioned whether or not I was in my “right” mind.

The “good” decisions were “rational” and I was lauded for using common sense, for my clear-eyed, right-minded logic.

Intuition, following your gut, listening to your heart has very little to do with the rightness of mind.

Back in the previous century (20 years ago), educators were awash in the term “the mainstream.” Getting divergent students back into the mainstream was the stated goal of most alternative education programs. Doug, my hero of the alternative path, champion of finding the stream that worked for the student (as opposed to channeling all students back into a single stream), used to snarl, “I’d love to see this mainstream if someone would be kind enough to point it out to me.” (note: this is not a direct quote as I’ve cleaned up Doug’s language for my less sturdy readers).

In mythology it is called the left-hand path, this route that makes no sense to adherents of the mainstream. The left-hand path is intuitive and counter-intuitive, all at the same time. It seems nonsensical to sail toward the edge of the known world. Explorers, artists, innovators, mystics, must take this road less traveled. They must wander off the main and cut a new path. They must. Their fellows will wonder if they’ve taken leave of their senses. Left their right mind. The answer: no. They are following a deeper call, something speaking to their senses. They’ve left a mainstream that appears to them like total madness.

If logic is your compass it is, of course, best to stay on the road well-traveled. If safety and security is your goal, then a known path holds what you seek.

If knowing where you’re going sounds a lot like a death sentence, then leaving your right mind for a left-hand path is the only choice that makes sense.

Truth? I think the right-mind is bit of rhetoric that has little to do with the realities of being human. We find the rational side of things comfortable so it gets good marks. No one gets a cake-walk in this life. Everyone has a mountain to climb, a valley to get lost in, a spontaneous jump to make, a gut feeling, a heart to be listened to – and some of the worst impulsive decisions inevitably lead to the most profound growth experiences. It is only after the fact, when we need to make sense of our nonsensical leap, our follow-the-heart choice, that we call on the “right” mind to make the story coherent. Just ask Aesop.

read Kerri’s blog post about RIGHT MIND