Study Flow [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri just reflected that, so far this week, my posts have been cynical. “Now that wasn’t snarky at all!” she said after reading my Tuesday post. The unintentional theme of the week has been the silencing of people. That makes me sarcastic. Irritable. Sad. She suggested that I lean over and read my Post-It-note-life-reminder: Grace. Questions not answers.

It’s true. I need daily to remind myself to move toward rather than push against. Flow rather than resistance. I am more of an idealist than I care to admit so resistance comes easy. Seeing what-is-wrong-with-the-world is embedded in my DNA. It’s the dark-side of the idealist moon.

Because resistance is natural, flow has been my study. It is my life lesson. It is why I am drawn to tai-chi. Yoga, the physical art of opposition. Polarity and the other Hermetic principles. Circles and cycles rather than lines and achievements. These are my masterclass of balance: there is a time for resistance. There is a time for flow. Both/And.

Grace is a word of flow. Nimbleness. Poise. Ease.

The water flowing off the roof of our neighbor’s garage froze the vines on the fence into a crystal ice chandelier. The watercourse way slowed so we might appreciate it. It slowed so I might understand it: flow and resistance are two forms of the same thing. Ice is water. Water is ice.

Grace. Nature is an excellent teacher. Better than my Post-It note. Sans cynicism. Gorgeous in its lessons.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FLOW

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Both/And [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Dwight sent a book to me: From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks. Several months ago at dinner we talked about how to make this next chapter of life the best chapter. As is my practice lately, I am reading it slowly, taking my time. I used to read like a hungry man eats; I gobbled information. Now I savor. I take one bite at a time and taste all of it. Someday soon we will talk about what I am discovering in the book. I’m only a few chapters in and already I’m rethinking my choices, considering different paths moving forward.

Pondering my next steps has also been an exercise of looking at where I’ve been. A lyric from Dan Fogelberg just ran through my mind [The Last Nail, by Dan Fogelberg]:

I left a trail of footprints deep in the snow
I swore one day, I would retrace them
But when I turned around, I found that the wind had erased them
Now I’ll never replace them

With distance it’s easy to see that some of the worst choices I’ve made in my life have also been the best choices I’ve made in my life. I can see that my desperation brought innovation. I can see the prison I made of my judgments and the hard truths necessary to unlock my cell door. I can see I needed a broken heart to arrive at an open heart.

With distance, I’m beginning to understand that no single experience lives in isolation. No day is either “good” or “bad.” No single period of my life defines the worth or wealth of my time on earth. No title, like “artist,” can wrap its fingers around the totality of my time. I am all of those things and none of those things.

On Monday, we interred Beaky’s ashes. She is with Pa in the national cemetery. We sang a song and then an attendant closed the niche. A journey’s end. Later that day I jumped off the back of a couch into a pile of pillows with a two year old, laughing, wiggling our toes. This wild-child is in full discovery mode, everything an adventure. A journey’s inception.

This life is achingly beautiful, each and every moment.

The entire album: Released From The Heart © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART DIVOTS

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Look Both Ways [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 7, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” ~ Ray Bradbury

This is, perhaps, a quote sandwich.

Standing at the edge of the lake at sunset, the breezes calm, the quiet stills the water. Who hasn’t felt the beautiful impermanence, the last rays of sun on their face? The truth of life captured in a single moment. It is passing. Precious. Impossible.

Climbing back up the stairs, joining the group on the deck. Red wine. The conversation turns to the news: the state of the world. Politics.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ~ Albert Einstein.

We are, after all, capable of the impossible. Full spectrum impossibility. We write symphonies that open hearts. We tell stories that touch the soul. We witness sunsets and desire for a better world for our children. We create telescopes to help us see deeper and deeper into space. To reach to alien worlds. All the while we divide. We lie and propagandize to feed false fire. We plant our heads deeply into the sand while we soil our nest. We reduce the impossible miracle to a book of man-made rules. Worshipping money and pretending otherwise.

Both/And. Impossibly capable. Impossibly inept. Impossibly hopeful and impossibly pessimistic.

We stand at the water’s edge.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LAKE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Causal Your Effectual [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 16, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

KDOT Underpainting copy

under-painting of One Chord Ahead

This is my version of under painting. It’s the base layer for what-comes-next. In school, they teach that under-painting is mostly monochromatic. It’s meant to give value definition and basic shape to an-already-determined composition. For me, it serves another purpose altogether.

It is true that I already know what this painting looks like when it is finished. I have the image in my head. It is also true that I have absolutely no idea what this painting will look like when finished. There’s a magic point in the process when the painting takes over and I follow the leader. I’ve learned that the real dance of artistry is to let both of these truths be…true. Know and not know. Lead and follow.

Under painting, for me, is psychological prep work, readiness to enter the paradox. It is my process of thinking-things-through so I can stop-thinking-things-through and enter the dance without focusing on the steps.

Causal and effectual. I first encountered these phrases when I waded into the world of entrepreneurs. They are process terms. Causal basically means that you begin with a goal in mind and map your steps to meet the predetermined goal. Effectual is the inverse. Looking at the maps (choices) and available resources, the goal is identified based on what’s available; the goal is fluid and changes as you progress.

Raphael was causal. Jackson Pollock was effectual. Maybe.

I laughed when I first heard the terms. They gave me some good language to use for my creative process. Causal/Effectual. Both/And. For me, one cannot live separate from the other. Start with an image in mind or start with a canvas, some paint, and see what happens. Either way, one process will inevitably cross paths with the other. Jackson Pollock, at some point in his random painting dance, became intentional and compositional with his spatter. Raphael, at some point in his tightly predetermined composition, allowed his brush to flow, to move intuitively, freely.

Under painting = I have to make color messes and utterly stifle a composition before I can stand at the edge, jump, and set myself free.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDER PAINTING

 

their palettes website box copy

 

 

unfettered ©️ 2018 david robinson

 

 

 

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Emergence, entrepreneur, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Pop Your Bubble [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 12, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

every breath copy

There is a sad mantra in the not-for-profit world: people don’t give money, time, or attention to “causes” until the cause impacts them personally. It has to be personal – it has to be MY son-with-cancer or MY daughter-who-was-shot-at-school or MY community-that-has-no-grocery-store in order for us to care beyond the superficial.  In other words, it is someone else’s problem until it knocks on MY door.

The word “cause” provides some cover – it keeps the cancer at arm’s length. It abstracts and sanitizes. The word “poll” does the same thing. Throughout this pandemic we’ve actually reduced the reality of the virus to a number that indicates personal belief, which has nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with whether or not  it has penetrated your personal bubble. To date, there are over 2 million bubbles impacted and, of those, 113,000 deaths. That is 113,000 people who, on New Year’s Day 2020, had every reason to believe they’d see 2021. Their belief number sits solidly at 100%. Their family’s belief number is way up there, too.

Masks have become a split symbol – or perhaps better stated, a symbol of our split. Wearing a mask is meant, as we all know, to protect others. It is not a measure of personal protection which is perhaps why it is so messy an issue here in these United States. We’ve somehow managed to transmogrify a gesture of protecting our neighbors into an assault on individual rights. It is not merely a consistent problem, it is a national pattern. The pattern plays itself with great symphonic insanity every time we have another mass shooting and can do no more than offer condolences to the dead.  It is the river that runs beneath the richest and most innovative nation on earth and its inability to provide affordable (or any) health care to its citizens. We keep ourselves brilliantly schizophrenic by insisting that this abundant creative citizenry is only capable of considering two choices. EITHER individual rights OR what’s best for the community! BOTH/AND is nowhere to be found. “We” is the word we run from.

This morning Kerri read an article about a server going back to work at a restaurant. She does not feel safe. Her customers are solidly in their bubbles caring only for their dining experience and not their server’s health. Our daughter supplements her life by bar tending and serving. Kerri cried. It’s personal.

She chose her song for this week’s melange in that moment. EVERY BREATH. And, ironically, it is found on the album AS IT IS. The present condition. Every breathe; as it is. It reads like the I-Ching: The air you breathe. The air I breathe. No difference.

One bubble. And, like it or not, believe it or not, we all inhabit it.

 

EVERY BREATH is on the album AS IT IS. Find it on iTunes

 

read Kerri’s blog post about EVERY BREATH

 

HH coffee cups website box copy

 

 

every breath/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

 

helping hands ©️ 2011 david robinson

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Language, Pattern, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Stand In Their Shoes [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 6, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

plant lettuce copy

Belief in tomorrow. Appreciation of today. No small thoughts even in the best of times, though, in the best of times they sound like platitudes. In these times, in the span of a few months, platitudes are revealed as precious.

20 has severe asthma so has self quarantined these many weeks. We occasionally see his face electronically. We hear his voice each night when we call. We laugh. We recount and appreciate the day. We miss our weekly Thursday night and Sunday night dinners with 20. They were ritual. Now, we think of them like a garden. They will return. Belief in tomorrow.

There are those who think this virus is an inconvenience. To 20, and others that we love, it is a death sentence. Apparently, to those who will not be inconvenienced, pictures no longer speak a thousand words. Data slides off Fox-coated-minds like so much Teflon. To truly understand the severity of the pandemic requires fully stepping into the shoes of another and, so, the most individualistic nation in the world wrestles mightily with putting the needs of others over self.

For 20 and millions like him with chronic health concerns, for all the people in health care or care-of-others in any capacity (hint: that would be all of us), belief in tomorrow is intimately linked to our capacity to step into his shoes and recognize that we stay home, wear masks, honor social distance not only for our sake, but for his. For theirs. And, if you follow the logic, his sake, “their” sake, is intimately linked to our sake. Your sake.

Recognizing that, through the lens of a pandemic, there is no Us or Them. Putting the needs of others over self is the best way to protect yourself. Both/And.

This is how we prepare the soil. This is the way to appreciate the day. It is the only way to invite belief in tomorrow.

[note: here’s my argument for those too ugly voices claiming we must accept certain loss of life to reboot the economy. Please put the face of your brother, your child, your mother or father in the place of “acceptable loss.” The loss of life is much less acceptable when it is personal, when it is one of your loved ones. This is, by-the-way, the same argument for social distancing, staying home, etc. When the life that is lost is one of “yours” it will seem much more necessary to stand in the shoes of another and help them stay alive] 

 

read Kerri’s blog post on BELIEF IN TOMORROW

 

springfall website box copy

 

 

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Love The Journey [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

tpotj song box copy

This morning, sitting on the steps off the back deck, sipping coffee, DogDog sniffing around the yard, I watched the eagles fly across the bay, dodging seagulls protecting their brood. I fell into one of those moments, those precious few moments, of profound appreciation for my life. This part of my journey is surprising and as orienting as it is disorienting. Both/and.

I like to travel precisely because it throws me off center. Even the simplest things require attention. Which side of the road am I supposed to drive on? Oh my god, where is the corkscrew? What did I just order (I couldn’t even pronounce it)? Once, in a barter culture, I failed miserably because I bartered myself to a higher price. The merchant and I laughed until we cried and then he patted me on the back and only accepted half of my money. Laughter was my coin. That part of my journey changed the trajectory of my life entirely.

Read the order of the tracks on Kerri’s album, THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY, and you notice that the final two titles on the album are This Part Of The Journey followed by The Way Home. She is hyper-intentional so I believe she did that on purpose. Sitting on the deck this morning, I knew without doubt that this part of the journey, no matter how complicated or lost-feeling or unnerving or uncomfortable…or peaceful, is a great gift. It is a step on the way home. And, it will someday make for the best stories, perhaps the best part of my story.

THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY sparkles like the sun on the lake. It is as abundant as DogDog’s curiosity on his discovery trip around the yard. It is as full of laughter as a merchant in Bali who, to this day, tells the story of the tourist who had no idea what he was doing.

THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY is available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY

 

not our best morning minturn website box copy

 

this part of the journey ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Think “And”

Posted on December 28, 2017 by davidrobinsoncreative

a second version, a second point of view of my painting Shared Fatherhood

I suppose it is the great trap in human nature to define life through oppositions. Was your experience good or bad? Are you liberal or conservative? Are you your brother’s keeper or is it every man for himself? Oppositions provide the illusion that there is a right way or a wrong way, that any issue can be reduced to a simplicity, a singular path. One way. Oppositions are great language devices for dictators and the righteous. They remove the grey tones and blunt the grey matter. With an opposition, us or them, “god” can be exclusively on your side (a small god, indeed) which self-grants permission for all manner of abuses enacted by “us” on “them.” The problematic word when employing oppositions is “or.”

“And” is a much more useful (and honest) term to employ when dancing with oppositions. Can you be your brother’s keeper AND take care of yourself? Certainly. Can you survive entirely by yourself without the participation of your brothers and sisters? Certainly not. No one lives in a vacuum; “or” is the great creator of illusory vacuums. “And” guarantees a conversation and perhaps a host of useful, challenging and robust perspectives. Both/And is always more functional than Either/Or.

AND the first version of Shared Fatherhood

The snag in “Or” is that there is very little truth in any reduction that ultimately lands on just One. This or that. All life is movement and all movement stops in One. Creative tension requires at least two points and a desire for someplace place to go. There is no single arrival station in real life. There is no achievement that stops all the presses. Every answer inspires new questions. Each question opens doors to multiple possibilities. Agreement is a fluid target at best and must be nurtured. Compromise is never an end state; it is a relationship imperative. Life is never found in the static “or.”

Do an experiment: go to the grocery store, choose any item and ask yourself how many people it took to bring your chosen item to the shelf at that moment. If you are not astounded by the complexity of participation, how dependent we are on actions of others, your imagination has most certainly failed you. Skip, entrepreneur extraordinaire and mentor to entrepreneurs taught me that a business cannot succeed until it serves its customer’s customer. Note the word “serves.” Businesses serve. Not simply a customer but the complexity of a customer’s customer. Entrepreneurism is a service to the creative genius of a community and multitudes of communities beyond.

Entrepreneurism, like artistry, ….even, yes, like governance…like all things vital, moving, complex and growing, live in service according to the good graces of AND. Anything else is a mirage.

 

 

 

Filed under: Art, entrepreneur, Language, Perspective, Seeing, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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