ceremony | The Direction of Intention

Swim Upstream [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today we travel. Family, like salmon swimming upstream to a place of origin. We’ll meet at the farmhouse. We’ll eat dinner. We’ll discuss what to do tomorrow at the inurnment. I think he mostly would have enjoyed our gathering together. Food and laughter. That is the ritual he would have appreciated.

The Great White Trillium produces “a single showy white flower atop a whorl of three leaves.” The flower opens late spring to early summer. Right now. They are abundant on our trail.

Whorl: a pattern of spirals or concentric circles.

Five years ago we strolled with him through the cemetery. He told stories of his friends. We will, I am certain, tell stories about him.

Kerri and I walked our trail on the ten-year-anniversary of our first meeting. We talked about how we’ve changed in the decade since I stepped off the plane. “I’m more connected to the impermanence,” she said. I nodded my head. Me, too.

Impermanence. A short season. Generations, a whorl. Patterns. Concentric circles. We tell stories and then we join the story.

Today we travel, like salmon swimming upstream.

rest now, 24×24″, mixed media (sold)

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREAT WHITE TRILLIUM

like it. share it. buy us a coffee (qr or link). tell us what you think. all are greatly appreciated

rest now © circa 2016 david robinson

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Gratitude, Love, Story | Tagged: artistry, ceremony, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, generations, impermanence, inurnment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pattern, ritual, seasons, spiral, story, studio melange, the melange, trillium | Leave a comment »

Light A Candle [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 7, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Double Haiku

Candle on a rock,

His favorite fishing hole.

Observance, our own.

Electric aspen,

Trout slide through glassy water.

Quiet, like his voice.

read Kerri’s blog post about OBSERVANCE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: aspen, ceremony, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, father, fishing hole, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, observance, passing, peace, ritual, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Look. Really Look. [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart).” ~ e.e. cummings

The ritual became real when Kerri asked the bride and groom to turn and look at the community of people assembled as witnesses to their wedding, “No, really look,” she said. Eyes met eyes. Family. Friends. The unspoken but oh-so-apparent moment: We’re here for you.

Rituals, like a good story, are about single moments. Everything builds to the moment. In the ceremony, Kerri told the couple that they would have days that they could not take their eyes off of each other and that they would have days that were…not so much, but in all of their days, through all of their challenges and celebrations, they would have this moment, and this single-moment, when all else dropped away, would carry them through everything: standing before their community of support, they looked into each other’s eyes and said, “I do.” I carry your heart.

Initially, when they asked her to perform their wedding, she was stunned. “Why me?” she asked. After their ceremony, unique in all the world, simple and profound, I wanted to ask but did not, “Now do you know why they asked you?” My wife understands the power of a moment, the deep river of a ritual, and the long ripples that simple words and intentional actions can send through the long-body of a lifetime.

“Are you ready?” she whispered to the couple when the music faded. “Yes. Oh, yes,” they replied.

read Kerri’s blog post about I CARRY YOUR HEART

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

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Love | Tagged: celebration, ceremony, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eyes, Ivy House, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, long body, marriage, Milwaukee, moments, officiante, outdoor wedding, presence, ritual, story, studio melange, togetherness, wedding | Leave a comment »

Add A Stone [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 15, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am fond of a labyrinth tucked into the woods at The Whidbey Institute. I’ve spent many a sunrise and sunset walking the meditation path to its center and back again. After each trip into the labyrinth, I’d add a small stone to the cairn that stood adjacent to the entry point. A ritual to mark my passage. A location stone.

I hadn’t thought of the labyrinth for years.

Last week, on a stormy day, we took a long walk through our neighborhood and emerged on to the beach at Southport. We were stopped in our tracks by what we found there. A field of cairns. Someone – or many someones – had created dozens of stacked stones. Each unique. Some playful. Some sorrowful giants. Markers of the way home? Funeral stones? Sculpture merely? The intention didn’t really matter. They brought us peace.

We approached silently just as I used to approach the labyrinth at Whidbey. We entered the field with a reverence that surprised me. We wandered through them, spent time with them. Some were massive, towering over us. Some very small, a few stones stacked at our feet.

Pebble and red brick trails ran like crazy lines connecting the cairns, a mixed up maze that begged us to follow, to make sense of the impossible. This labyrinth had no center. This meditation maze led nowhere specific, looping back, a dead end here, a path to the water, and over there, a line that stopped at a heart made of rock, a spiral. A wish. A message. An inspiration.

I could imagine no better monument to this pandemic. A shattered labyrinth. Burial monuments. A field of markers standing ready for the day when we might find our way out. A quiet reverent place where we are called to add a stone, a simple gesture to remember our passage through.

read Kerri’s blog post about CAIRNS