artistry | The Direction of Intention

As Clear As The Pollen [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although Dogga adamantly denies rooting around in the ragweed next to our neighbor’s fence, the evidence is as clear as the pollen on his face. Some things are just undeniable.

Of course, as we are experiencing, the overabundance of evidence, unassailable facts, do not stop deniers from denying, liars from lying. Crowd size comes to mind. Elections lost.

Against her better judgment Kerri responded to an acquaintance’s post. It was riddled with misinformation. She supplied a fact-check. “I can’t take it!” she sighed. And, as she experienced (again), present a denier with evidence and they will double-down. In this case, a tsunami of conspiracy theory rushed back her way. I counted layers of cultish nonsense.

“How is this possible?” she asked.

Cultish. Number one on the list of cultish characteristics is that the members exist in a bubble, cut off from verifiable reality. The cult serves as the only source of truth and community; an echo chamber of gibberish. Other cult characteristics include an Us-versus-Them mentality, gaslighting, apocalyptic thinking…thought control.

The cult provides a sense of belonging.

Facts and data are threatening to a cult. It threatens the fabricated-story inside the bubble. If the bubble pops then the members face untenable questions: To what do I actually belong? How could I not see it?

And so, as bubble-protection, every response to irrefutable facts must always be a conspiracy. It’s the pat answer for everything, the fortress for gobbledygook. Non-sense. Drivel. Bilge. No evidence required. Apocalyptic thinking is all that is necessary to keep the gaslight glowing and the fear-fury burning. The more outlandish the accusation – the more apocalyptic the hot air – the better. Erasing the boundaries of reason makes room for greater and greater rubbish.

Of course, I am not unique in making the observation that maga is a cult.

“What do we do?” Kerri asked, astounded at the rush of nonsense that came back her way when she contradicted the ridiculous with evidence and reason.

We vote. We get out the vote. We give up speaking sense or fact to hooey-worshippers. And then we prepare for another tsunami of lies and unnecessary violence unleashed when their sore-loser-leader cries “Foul” yet again. He’s already started. Just like the last time. And, just like last time, no amount of evidence will mollify the cult-faithful. No amount of fact or data will open their eyes. Nothing will penetrate their childlike devotion to their big daddy – yet another characteristic of a sad, dangerous cult. Who exactly is “the enemy within”?

The evidence is as clear as the pollen on Dogga’s face.

read Kerri’s blogpost about POLLEN NOSE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, conspiracy theory, cult, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fact, gaslighting, information bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, misinformation, reality, story, studio melange, the melange, thought control | 4 Comments »

Nothing More Beautiful [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I make it a practice to take notes when I have calls with Horatio. He says the most extraordinary things. This morning I search-and-rescued this Horatio comment about aging: he said, “It only felt like an ambush because I hadn’t been paying attention.”

I went looking for Horatio’s quote because Kerri and I had a spontaneous-hysterical-conversation about the abrupt changes in our bodies over the past five years. “Look at this!” she bellowed, “It just happened!” Of course, I was too invested in horror at my own creeping-decrepitude to notice what part of her body she was disparaging. “It never used to be this way!” she muttered, spinning slowly so her disdain was a full 360°.

I made the rookie mistake of asking what age she was comparing herself with. Because her glare signaled that I was about to spend the rest of the day in the doghouse, I quickly added, “I don’t look like I did when I was thirty, either.” Rookie mistake number 2. Dumb. Stupid. Brainless. Dense. Not to mention dangerous. Had she killed me in that moment, no jury in the land would have found her guilty; “Her act…,” the jury foreman would report to the judge, “…was justified”.

We make a practice of paying attention. It’s why we often choose to walk slowly. Rather than walk through the woods, we try to be in them. To notice. The consistent miracle when walking slowly is that there is always something new to discover, something that we’ve never before seen. For instance, the portal in the ancient tree. We’ve walked past and admired this tree a hundred times. We’ve placed painted rocks in its nooks. Kerri’s photographed it dozens of times; age has made it beautiful. Photogenic. And, today, for the very first time, we noticed the portal, a peek through the tree to the other side. “How did we miss that?” we exclaimed.

“It only felt like an ambush because I hadn’t been paying attention.”

Horatio, of course, is right. There is no ambush. The river keeps flowing and somehow we are surprised to find ourselves in places we’ve never before imagined. New stages of life. All the time I tell Kerri that she is beautiful. She cannot hear me because she expects herself to be in another part of the river entirely. I am guilty of the same false expectation.

Looking backward in life is like looking through the tiny portal in the ancient tree. The view is blurry and limited. Ask me if I would like to go back to the time when my body was thirty and I will howl with laughter, “No way!” This day, this moment, as hard as it can sometimes be, is the best time of my life. I am learning to appreciate my aches and pains, my ever-changing-body, to pay attention to where I am and not where I imagine I should be.

Here and now. There is nothing more beautiful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PORTAL

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Gratitude, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: aging, artistry, awareness, beauty, body, body changes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectations, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pay attention, paying attention, story, studio melange, the melange, time | 1 Comment »

Strive To Be One [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.

Sometimes I pause and reread the previous few weeks of my blogposts. My first thought after my latest read was, “Good God! I’m bipolar!” I’ve learned not to listen to my first thoughts. They are not nearly as considered or considerate as the thoughts that follow. I am lately writing about love.

Love. This is the rest of James Baldwin’s quote: “I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Love takes off the masks. The masks we fear we cannot live without. The masks we can no longer live within. It is a tug-of-war. It is vulnerable to be seen. Yet, to grow, old identities, like suits of armor, must be discarded. To grow up it is necessary to show up, to step-out-there.

Jonathan once told us that a tree must split its bark in order to grow. Snakes shed their skin. And people open their hearts and learn what it is to love.

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~ James Baldwin

I found some measure of comfort about my nation (and my latest writing) in James Baldwin’s guiding words. Perhaps we are in a struggle to remove an old and ugly mask, still in place. Racial division. Misogyny. We fear what we will see if we drop this patriarchal mask. Yet, our love of country is requiring us to grow. To take a hard look at who we are and where we’ve come from. To shed the mask we can no longer live within. We are bigger in heart and spirit than our original colonial notion. The mask of divide-and-conquer is suffocating to the world’s greatest democracy, a nation of immigrants come together under the banner e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

Love makes us dare to grow up. Love makes us strive to be one.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEARTS

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, daring, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, e pluribus unum, grow up, heart, identity, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, masks, mature, misogyny, quest, spirit, story, studio melange, The Fire Next Time, the melange, unity, USA, vulnerability | 5 Comments »

Easy To See [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on September 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We crossed paths with some friends on the bike path and, of course, our conversation turned to politics. Our discussion – like all of our political conversations lately – begin and end with disbelief.

The maga candidate is a horror-story of a human being, a consummate liar, a dedicated victim, found liable for rape, a convicted felon, an authoritarian who openly intends to dismantle our constitution, promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, sowing division for personal gain while feeding the anger of people who deserve to have their issues addressed and not exploited by their candidate.

In every conversation we ask again and again,”What do they not see?”

As Kerri reminded me, “They DO see it.”

That troubles me.

In the very first full paragraph of my book, I wrote, “Not many people see. Most people merely look. Just as most people hear but they do not listen, most people look but they do not see.” Words that haunt.

Angry people do not see. They can’t. Angry people do not think. They can’t. They can only blindly react. This maga candidate and his fox-news-propaganda-machine keep his crowd angry, fear-full, firmly distracted, ensconced in lizard brain. Fight-or-flight. He profits. They lose.

They do not see – they could not see – or they’d gag, turn their backs, and walk away. Or maybe, as Kerri suggests, they DO see. And white nationalism, violence borne of age-old-ignorance is what they want. It is, apparently, what they support.

This meme floated across my screen the other day. “I can’t respect people who respect him.” There are no more better angels in my nature. I can no longer twist my brain to try and understand the enablers of this monster. His lies are hurting people. Witness what is now happening in Springfield, Ohio. There is no mystery here. This is thuggery.

This red-hat-rage is mob mentality. His enablers, voiding their judgment, their morality, their values, are bonded by fear and whipped into a fury by a narcissist who fuels their nightmare with fantasy and then feeds on their panic.

Any attempt at finding something to respect in their hate-filled-point-of-view is to pretend that it has validity. It is to become one of the enablers of this train wreck.

They will (I hope) wake up someday, blurry-eyed and confused, and like all people who stormed all night, out of their minds with the mob, they will ask themselves, “What have I done?” Then they might begin the long journey back to self-respect.

In the meantime, there is no reasoning with a mob.

The best we can do is vote. And, this time, more than issues and policies, we choose between our democracy and fascism. We choose between decency and…gross indecency. This is not about the price of eggs. The choice is abundantly clear and, when in one’s right-mind, it’s actually very easy to see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEING

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, democracy, division, fascism, fear, felon, judgment, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liar, lizard brain, mob mentality, morality, panic, respect, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, The Seer, Tim Walz, values, victim, vote | 6 Comments »

Shadow Singular [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on September 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

She began taking pictures of our feet when, early in our lives together, we traveled to The Netherlands, Belgium and France. The point was not to capture our feet, rather it was to record the variety of surfaces we walked upon. Cobblestones and ancient wood. Mosaic tile. The unusual and the seeming ordinary, though, when traveling, no surface is ordinary. For awhile we entertained assembling a collage of the many many surfaces were we found our feet standing. A quirky memory wall.

Adding to her series of traveling feet she began capturing our shadows. It’s now common for her to say, “Wait!” I know exactly what to do. No questions required. My job is to hold still until she snaps the latest edition to her shadow collection. I love them. To me, they are our version of the Balinese shadow puppets. Wayan Kulit. At best we are aware of the shadows we cast, the projections of our minds. Our lives a moving grand illusion.

Like the feet series, the shadow collection serves as markers of our life together. Trails we’ve hiked. Bridges we’ve crossed. Friends who entertain without question our odd request for a shadow portrait.

I just read a story about a man who tried to outrun his shadow. He was, as you might imagine, unsuccessful. It was a particularly poignant story for me since I spent many of my younger years trying to escape my shadow. I was, like the man in the story, unsuccessful. Though, unlike the man in the story, I stopped running. Some small grace whispered in my ear to stand still, to turn and look at it. To really look. To walk with it.

Isn’t it poetic that after all that time running, I now hold hands with a woman who regularly stops me on the trail, not only to look but to capture our shadow – singular – as it stretches out before us, leaning in, two people blending together as one?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SHADOWS

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday, Love | Tagged: artistry, Balinese, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grace, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, markers, memory, running away, shadow, shadow puppet, stand still, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange, Wayan Kulit | 1 Comment »

Witness The Impossible [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We heard, in some locations this summer, people experienced a veritable plague of cicadas. They shoveled them off of their driveways like so much snow. Not here. We finally heard their song late in the season. We found a few empty shells floating in the pond or attached to fence, evidence that they’d emerged and transformed. They were present in vibrational rhythmic sound. They remained invisible to our eyes.

Sitting quietly on the deck one evening in August, enjoying the cicada symphony, Kerri said, “It’s not summer until I hear the cicadas.” Markers of our passage around the sun. Symbols of the cycle. The first color on the leaves. First snow. The first dandelion of spring. The first turtle emerging from the muddy river. Cicada song.

Last week we talked about stew and soups rather than watermelon and burgers on the grill. In this way, in old and new recipes, we chase the coming season. Anticipation and imagination.

We found the cicada on the driveway. It was in its last minutes of life. Crawling like a drunken sailor, it could no longer fly; one wing undamaged but seemingly useless. “It’s so sad,” she said as she knelt to take a photo.

Reverence overcame the sadness. “Look at the color! How beautiful!” she whispered, showing me the photo. We knelt again to witness the dying cicada.

Appreciation. Sometimes I think our only purpose on this earth is to cherish its treasures, to recognize something so small and impossibly grand as the movement of life.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CICADA

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Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Identity, Seeing | Tagged: anticipation, appreciation, artistry, beauty, cherish, cicada, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life cycle, movement, reverence, seasons, story, studio melange, the melange, witness | Leave a comment »

A Tale of Whoa! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We take so much for granted. Flip a switch and the lights come on. Twist a knob and water pours from the faucet. Turn the key or touch the button and the car starts. Flip open the computer and access the entire info-world. And then, one day, with little or no warning, the flip, the turn, the twist, the touch doesn’t produce the expected result. Easy-life evaporates.

For us, these easy-life-evaporations usually arrive in hard-clusters of three. For instance, a few weeks ago, Kerri’s computer ceased to compute. A few days later our trusty LittleBabyScion went down for the count. And then, to complete the trio, in a surprise move, our kitchen sink, in coordination with our bathroom sink, refused to drain. No amount of plunging, baking-soda-and-vinegar-elixirs, pipe-removal, coaxing or cursing…made any difference. To taunt us, black stinky muck arose from the depths. There was nothing to be done but call the plumber who listened to our tale-of-whoa! and recommended that we skip his services and call the drain guy.

There’s a nice metaphor at play in our tragic tale. First, after the drain guy successfully cleared our pipes (the blockage was deep in the system), we decided that, just like our pipes, we also had a deep blockage that required clearing. The pipe-clog not only stopped the drains from working, it also stopped us from working – something we desperately needed to do. Take a break. Think about something else for awhile. Clear our minds.

Yesterday on our hike I asked Kerri what she was thinking about and she replied, “Nothing really. My mind is just wandering.” There could be no better answer. An un-fixated mind. Thought-flow with no blockage. Spaciousness.

The computer. The car. The drains. Three modes of movement, together locking up and inhibiting our movement. They made us slow down. They made us stop. They made us hyper-aware and appreciative of our easy-life and how quickly it can evaporate.

Each morning since the drain guy came, we run to the bathroom sink and turn on the water. Full blast. “It’s draining!” we cheer. Then, we race to the kitchen. “Look!” we high-five in celebration of successful drainage. Something so simple. Something so completely taken for granted. But, for a few glorious days, before the gratitude disappears into the easy-life-expectation, we will celebrate the flow of water, the light at the flick of switch, the turn of a key that easily sparks the heart of LittleBabyScion into life. Each time, we will look at each other and sing with gratitude, ‘It works!”

read Kerri’s blogpost about SINKS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, blockage, clear mind, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drains, ease, easy, easy life, expectation, flow, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, movement, spaciousness, story, studio melange, take a break, the melange, thought flow | 2 Comments »

“I Am!” I Said. [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 10, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Un-momentous Breaking News! I’ve just decided – just now, right this moment – that my personal symbol, my identifying-critter-crest, should from now and for all time forward be…The Bumble Bee!!!

“Wait!” you yawn. “What?” you ask-to-be-polite. “You can’t possible make so un-dramatic a dramatic claim without a comprehensive explanation!”

True. Yes. An explanation. Fortunately, I came prepared for this moment. The word “bumble” – relative to the bee – has two definitions that, lately, fit me like a glove. First, to move ineptly through the world. To blunder, lurch, or wobble. The second (as is proven by this very blog post), to buzz or drone on and on. To babble, ramble, gibber, and burble.

But wait! In case you are suddenly concerned that I am hosting a festival of self-deprecation, let me assure you that you are misguided. Wrong. Filled with wild assumptions. Your concerns could not be further from the truth of my new personal-symbol-bumblebee-rumination. I’m actually quite pleased.

Creative processes never follow a straight line. Bumblebees get the job done but their path is nearly impossible to follow. They appear like a flying-happy-accident, a reeling wanderer that is surprisingly efficient. It’s the real trouble with my resume (or any creative person’s resume): HR people, family and friends expect to see straight lines and are highly suspicious of anything expansive, eclectic, or exploratory. I will be quite pleased with myself, when the next stranger I meet at a party asks me what I do for a living, to answer, “I’m a bumblebee.”

As for droning on an on. Well. Look at the archive of this blog. Good god. Or the drafts of plays, the ideas for books, the organizational ruminating, the stories…, the opinions I have not-yet-learned to keep to myself (this is your cue to send condolences to Kerri. For some reason she married me so now I have a captive audience…). “Gear-down!” she says, when my esoterica runs amok and she needs my mind to express a simpler path and be less bumble-bee-like.

And, to prove that I am actually capable of controlling my drone, I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Bonus track. This popped into my mind as I wrote the title of this post]

read Kerri’s more coherent blogpost about BUMBLEBEES

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Filed under: Creativity, Random, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, babble, blunder, bumble, bumblebee, burble, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drone, efficient, esoteric, gibber, happy accident, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lurch, ramble, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, wanderer, wobble | 3 Comments »

Look Around [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Strolling on the path through the park, we followed the shoreline. Just at the spot where the path meets the marina, we found an appeal chalked on the walkway: be good people. As Kerri snapped a photo, I wondered who wrote it. Who felt compelled to bring their chalk to the park and petition goodness from passers-by? I wondered if they’d had their fill of bad examples of humanity, snapped-up their chalk, and headed to the original location of social media, the public square.

Or, perhaps it was not a plea but was their wish for us. “My wish for you is to be good people.” Why, on this day, did they feel compelled to make their wish visible?

There are many ideas, definitions and word associations of goodness yet they are bound together by a single notion-thread: consider first the needs of others. Brothers/Sisters keeper. “Good people” reach their hand to assist others.

I gathered a few words used to characterize “good people”: Empathy. Consideration. Accountability. Compassion. Kindness. Each word, each characteristic, is other-people-focused. “How can I help?” Share, because there is plenty-enough for all.

As Kerri took a picture of the message I jumped into a memory, a time of desperation. Some thought-angel dinged my noggin and sent me out into the city to witness acts of kindness. As I have previously written, I saw generosity everywhere I looked. People being good in small ways and large. Opening doors. Paying for a stranger’s cup of coffee. Holding up traffic so a senior could safely cross the street. Asking the bus driver to “Wait a second!” – someone was racing to catch the bus. A second made all the difference for someone.

Those good people, everyday people doing everyday things, buoyed me, filled me with hope and light. If I’d had chalk in my pocket on that day I might have scribbled on the sidewalk, “Good people are everywhere! Look around!” I saw them because I decided to look for them.

If I’d had chalk in my pocket, after Kerri was finished with her photograph, I’d have written a message for the “Be good people” writer: “Thanks for the reminder. See good people”.

They are everywhere.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE GOOD PEOPLE

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Filed under: Gratitude, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Seeing | Tagged: accountability, artistry, be good people, compassion, consideration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, empathy, generosity, goodness, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, share, story, studio melange, support, the melange | 1 Comment »

Predictable [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on September 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Humans 300 years from now will look on our times as the nadir of human expression. They will marvel at our creation of something so ingenious as social media and then wrinkle their noses at how we used it.

“Predictable,” they will sigh. “If anyone can say anything in a medium driven and magnified solely by popularity – then it should have come as no surprise that some people will-in-fact say anything to hoard popularity.” Likes. “They must not have known that people will do anything for attention,” they will roll their eyes.

“Our ancestors enjoyed free speech,” they will scribble in their notes, “but were a people with no sense of decorum.” Their discovery will spur a new field of research: when in human development did people evolve enough to place decency above their need for approval? When did people evolve enough to consider the impact of their words, to understand that that their actions affect the greater good?

read Kerri’s blogpost about SAYING AND DOING