archetypes | The Direction of Intention

The Interim [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on February 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“You are in this time of the interim/ Where everything seems withheld./The path you took to get here has washed out;/ The way forward is still concealed from you.” John O’Donohue, Benedictus

Persephone has returned to the Underworld. Demeter, her mother, mourns and so the earth is cold. Nothing grows. It is the time of waiting. According to the bargain, after six months, Persephone will return to the upper world, Demeter will rejoice at the homecoming of her daughter, plants will flower, trees will bud, life will be restored.

It is not an accident that Persephone, the goddess who presides over death is also the goddess of fertility and new life. One complete cycle. It’s an archetype found in many cultures across our tiny planet.

This winter we’ve descended into a an especially dark season. With the firing of the military leadership, replaced by nincompoops loyal to a man rather than the constitution, the authoritarian takeover is nearly complete. Yesterday, by executive order, congress lost its power-of-the-purse. The last traces of democracy are being summarily scrubbed. The way forward?

History has taught us that these authoritarians are stuck in their adolescence. They have a bottomless hole where their hearts should be. They attempt to fill the the hole with sex or money or power or fame or alcohol or clothes or cars…It is a void that only maturity can satisfy. Maturity comes with the revelation that service to others rather than self-aggrandizement fills the hole. True to pattern, they will ultimately be consumed by the dark void in their chests, turning their power-lust on each other in a festival of self-destruction, perhaps taking our democracy with them.

And then Persephone will return.

We are in the interim. The path forward is unclear. Yet, it is still not too late to wrangle these child-minds into containment and return mature adults to the hill. Or, we can stay silent and let the children run the show. Lord of the Flies.

Either way, as order follows chaos, courage will reemerge. A new generation of leaders will find their moral center, value decency and join together, connected by service to the nation rather than self-interest. They will set about cleaning up the wreckage, sweeping up the mess. Persephone will return, Demeter will rejoice, life will bud, and perhaps our fragile democracy will be rekindled.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about ICE

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Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: archetypes, artistry, authoritarian, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Demeter, democracy, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lord of the Flies, maturity, mythology, order, Persephone, service, story, studio melange, the melange, void | 1 Comment »

How We Fit [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday it rained all day. We tossed out our plan-for-the-day and decided to hunker down at home. After cleaning everything that was possible to clean in the house, we turned our attention to the Enneagram. Kerri already knew her number. During his visit, she and Dwight compared notes and learnings. He not only knows his number but studies the Enneagram. I listened to their enthusiastic conversation but could not participate because I was ignorant of my number. They each had notions of where I would fall in the 9 types but refused to offer their suspicions; they did not want to unduly sway my discovery. Now, after a rainy day inquiry that included a test and some text queries with our chief-Enneagram-informant, I am certain of my number. The core character traits described in my number fit me like a too tight glove. “No wonder!” I sighed more than once while reading the narrative on my type.

We had fun during our rainy day pursuit. We read about ourselves and the compatibility of our respective numbers, the potential trouble-spots and issues. We laughed when reading general descriptions that might have been written specifically about us.

The exercise sent me down a rabbit hole. I wondered at the real-desire to type ourselves into a connected system. What makes the Enneagram or astrology any more or less valid and valuable than the minute marketing data that tracks my movements, my interests, my purchasing patterns and types me into a neat predicable category? Boomer. GenX. Progressive. Liberal. Conservative. Extrovert/Introvert…Judging/Perceiving. Survey upon survey. Sacred numbers. Archetypes. Where do I fit? Where do you fit? It’s a layer-cake of association. The rabbit hole? In a nation that is so hell-bent on defining itself as divided, irreconcilable in our differences, we are – on a much deeper level than the political – intensely interested in how we fit together in the web.

Scrape a layer off the noise. On the next rainy day, sit on your raft (bed) and take note of how much energy you and your world-o-technology are investing in weaving a greater web of interconnectivity. Pay attention beyond the toxic rhetoric of the stream and you just might see that we are, as a species and as a nation, much more interested in how we fit than how we are irrevocably broken.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SHADOWS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: archetypes, artistry, associations, compatibility, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, differences, Enneagram, interconnectivity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pattern, story, studio melange, the melange, types, web | 3 Comments »

Make ’em Laugh [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I know what I want!” she exclaimed. “I just saw it.” Little-Baby-Scion whipped a sudden u-turn and we drove back into the park. We’d just finished a hike around our favorite loop and were discussing the choices for this week’s Melange. We had a problem day, a prompt that could only go one way: a rant. It would evoke a topic we’ve already beaten to death.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the stop sign. “It’s not possible!” she said. “You can’t stop and go one way all at the same time!” She jumped out to take a photo of the sign. I smiled at the irony. We were about to replace a problematic blog-prompt, an image/topic that could only go one direction, with a stop-one-way combo sign. Our new replacement prompt would be the universe’s message to us.

I’ve received – we’ve received – this message more than once and at times far more weighty than an upcoming blog prompt. Stop. This can only go one way. Or, the more hopeful variety: Stop. There is only one way to go.

As Kerri likes to say, “We have good angels.” Our good angels employ a special hammer on our heads when we need to stop. It is a full abrupt stop. Those whacky angels have great senses of humor. They giggle to see us mistake the wall for a door. I’ve quietly suggested to our angels that they consider using airbags with us but so far they are sticking to the hard-stop-no-cushion strategy.

And, the door that opens is never subtle. We sit in the hallway for a long time. No doors to be found. We lose all hope of doors, resigning ourselves to life in the hallway. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a door pops open. It’s a definitive, “Take this door or continue to sit where you are.”

Those whacky angels. All of those Renaissance painters led us astray, portraying gentle, harp playing, soft robe wearing winged guides. I suppose some people might have that variety. Not us. Our good angels are pranksters. Billiard-playing-Harley-riding-pastrami-eating-blue-jeans-wearing-tricksters who let us run blind toward the cliff and hit us with a stop sign at the last possible minute. “Hold on there, artists-types,” they snicker. “Stop. This can only go one way.”

An angel in the back row whispers, “That looked like it hurt.” The entire chorus of angels guffaws.

read Kerri’s less random blogpost about STOP!