A Poet’s Revelation [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Some enlightened poet/scientist named this little flower Shooting Star. The flower evoked for the scientist streaks of light arcing across the night sky. The scientist must have had a profound experience one night, gazing into the stars when, suddenly, the stars seemed to go haywire, zipping across the sky.

My first ever meteor shower happened while I was a teenager. I was in the mountains. I lay in a meadow with my friends and watched the heavens dance. It made me understand how so many cultures on this earth believe that shooting stars are either souls returning to the earth to be reborn or the souls of the recently deceased leaping into the other world. Souls in transition leaving a brilliant, momentary trace of light behind them.

Still other cultures believe that shooting stars are messages from the gods. Affirmations.

The message I received from my night in the mountain meadow watching the stars arc across the sky? I am infinitesimally small in this vast universe. And, I am intimately connected to everything. It’s a poet’s revelation.

The scientist who named the flower Shooting Star must have had the exact same realization.

[Bonus hope: A poet’s thought in a world of oppression in which we are connected to everything]

I Look At The World ~ Langston Hughes

I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face—
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face—
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind—
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.

Blueprint For My Soul on the album The Best So Far © 1996/9 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s albums – borne of her poet’s revelation – are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about SHOOTING STARS

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Can You Imagine It? [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I saw the photograph as a snippet of conversation. “You are beautiful,” he said.

“Stop,” she replied, turning away.

I can count on one hand the people that I’ve met in my life who understand that they are, by the good grace of being alive on this earth, beautiful. They need not deflect, deny or turn away. Beauty is embraced not as an attainment or a visual gift granted to the lucky few, not as a standard to be met or an image to be copied. It simply is. Tell them that they are beautiful and they will smile – their smile saying, “Back-at-you.”

When greeting someone in Bali – or in any Hindu culture – hands press together before the heart and “Namaste” is spoken. “Namaste”… is a word that is tied to the ultimate respect for another person that is based not upon who they are, and what they say or do, but their very presence in this life.”

Budi taught me that Namaste means, “The god in me recognizes the god in you.” Beauty. As a given.

Greeting the essence rather than the idea. Seeing beyond the superficial. Being seen beyond the magazine-model-expectation. Can you imagine it?

Stop. You are beautiful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BEAUTY

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Follow The Hummingbird [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 14, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you want to understand the power of story – if you care to discover how every cultural story is both universal and deeply personal, take the time to read and reread and reread Martín Prechtel’s small book, The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun. After telling the story, he peels back the layers of understanding, the story of the daughter’s disobedience is a roadmap to an intentional life. It is connective tissue to generational wisdom:

“…that though we as listeners have the illusion that we have jumped into the story, the story has actually jumped into us and uses our lives to tell out its story.”

Sitting in our backyard, the sun lowering in the sky, the hummingbird arrived. A hummingbird is featured prominently in the The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun and this little visitor brought the story to my mind. Like all deep-story-roots, it is a tale as relevant to us as it is to the Indigenous people who live it – to keep the story alive.

“This is a commentary on the inevitable human problem of tribalism and the tragic results of ethnocentricity. It reminds us that a preoccupation with purity is a sign that a people have lost their real stories, lost their place in history, lost their land and relationship with nature and in an effort to be “someone” they engineer mythologies that are rationalist inventions to corroborate a pure ancestry. This same rationalism probably killed their stories and their Indigenous relationship with the land to begin with.”

Have you ever read anything that so accurately describes our struggle in these un-United States? As we witness the scrubbing of DEI initiatives, the blatant and brutal whitewashing of our nation’s history in order to engineer and perpetuate a mythology of white male purity, a made-up tale planted in the shallow barren soil of nationalist Christianity…we see the undeniable sign that we have lost our real story.

As is true of all great storytellers, Martín guides us toward hope and renewal:

“The story of their cultural loss should be their story, and from that grief they could grow a new culture. If you go back far enough, all people are mixed no matter what they say, and that is no disgrace.”

There is a path. It begins with grieving our loss. Together. And then, there is this:

“The story also says that a peoples’ attachment to their homeland and customs is necessary, wonderful, and life-giving, but should never be allowed to fuel a destructive chauvinism that excludes the rest of the world’s love for its own life and land.”

These are just a few of the lessons carried within an ancient Mayan tale. They are relevant to us today. We need only care enough to open our hearts and listen. And listen again. And then simmer in the slow opportunity that avails itself in the land beyond “problem-solving”.

The promise of our crossroads nation: to grow a new culture. Isn’t that the heart of our matter? Out of many, one.

There’s a hummingbird that can show us the way.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HUMMINGBIRD

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Naturally [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Before sleeping we usually watch thru-hikes, video journals of people walking the Pacific Crest Trail, The Continental Divide Trail, or The Appalachian Trail. The Hayduke. Early in their journey the hikers experience the unnatural aggression and excessive pace of regular life drop away and a more natural rhythm emerges.

They become different people as they begin to see other people differently. The steely individuality of their urban identity dissolves. The hikers realize that they need other people. They realize that they are dependent upon the kindness of strangers. In fact, they come to understand that without the support of others their trail-walk would be impossible to complete. They begin to rely on – to count on – kindness.

And they are rarely disappointed. The kindness that they hope for always appears. And, as they enter the reality – the necessity – of their interdependence, they more freely offer their support to strangers. They become the kindness others hope for.

Periodically the hikers come across trail angels; people who come to the trail with the sole intention of making life better for the hikers. The angels prepare food or snacks. They offer shade, a cool drink, a place to sit and rejuvenate. They give rides to town. Other angels make sure there is water available at caches across the desert. Others provide places to stay. Almost all of the trail angels were themselves hikers who were recipients of the extraordinary generosity of angels. So, they became angels for others. Naturally.

The hikers always speak fondly of the culture that exists on the trail. A culture of support. Most hikers, after they finish their months-long adventure, remark that their walk was made memorable, transformative, because of generous people they met along the way.

We watch thru-hikers because they give us hope. In a time of national darkness punctuated by ill-intention, self-serving oligarchs, the celebration of mean-spirits, cowardice…it is heartening to know that there is a community of people out there who’ve stepped into nature and out of the unnatural aggression of our nation, and what they find there – and find in themselves – is a natural reliance on others. A feedback loop of generosity. Kindness. People helping people, not for gain, but because they know the value of helping. It’s called humanity. They know that their walk in this life is made better – made more meaningful – by the dance of giving and receiving support, helping others and accepting a helping hand from others. Naturally.

Bridge on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRAIL

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Right Before Our Eyes [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you are like me, this image took a moment to grok. All the elements are apparent yet, at first, my brain couldn’t pull the pieces together. Kerri, standing outside the front door, took the photo of Dogga on the inside staring out. What is reflection? What is image-through-the glass? It reminds me of those famous drawings that can be seen in completely different ways, the old crone and the young woman. One drawing, two possible images. An optical illusion.

After the image of Dogga-in-the-glass came into focus for me, Kerri exclaimed, “I can’t believe it took you so long to see it!”

MC Escher made a career of creating optical illusions. Stairways to nowhere. Hands drawing hands. The mathematics of art and design. We are rarely aware that our brains assign rather than discover meaning, selecting and assembling pieces in order to sense-make. Like well-worn paths through the woods, our sense-making carves default channels: we see what we expect to see. We see it because we believe it, not the other way around. That is to say, we rarely see beyond what we think. Thinking paths-of-least-resistance render us blind.

The pursuit of truth is to see beyond our well-worn paths. Escher knew that. His images play with our expectations. His images, for a moment, shock us into seeing beyond our expectation.

Factors like age or cultural orientation create biases in the making of meaning, in the assembly of the illusion. For instance, in the drawing of the old/young woman, older people will more often see the old woman while younger people will almost always see the young woman. If you happen to come from a culture that is not inundated with images (there are a few remaining on the planet), it is likely that you would only see scribbles on a page. You would see neither the old or the young woman.

Your normal is not my normal. Your well-worn thought-paths are different than mine.

Given identical experiences, your sense-making will differ from mine. It is the genius behind our system of governance. That two opposing points of view might come together, discuss what they think-they-see and compromise on a best path forward, is the foundation-stone of our democratic system. The genius begins when allowing that one party sees an old woman while the other sees a woman who is young. Both can be valid. Both can exist on the same page.

Allowing for and valuing differences of perspective leads to common ground, shared action.

On the other hand, the same system collapses when what is immediately apparent to both parties is summarily denied by one side of the aisle. It’s another type of illusion altogether: the negation of the obvious. For instance, our last presidential election endured 65 challenges in court and all were summarily thrown out for lack of evidence. Both sides knew – and know – without doubt that the election was valid, free and fair yet the red-hat team continues to fearmonger, pounding the drum of corruption, wearing another kind of thought-path in the minds of their constituents, rendering them blind.

There is a clear distinction between sorting out differences and creating them to exploit fear.

Coming together, in an attempt to see beyond expectations, respecting differing perspectives, valuing the multiple perceptions of a diverse nation in order to stand on common ground is democracy at its best. Creating division, whipping up disunity, negating and devaluing the perspectives and values of others spells the end of democracy. It intentionally pulls the nation apart.

Democracies pursue truth. Autocracies thrive on falsehoods. The choice we face is abundantly clear and right before our eyes. As a nation, all we need do is step off our well-worn thought-paths and open our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog about ILLUSIONS

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Out Of The Many [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Among other things, Wade Davis is an ethnobotanist, studying how people – cultures – use plants for food, medicines, dyes…in hunting and in ceremonies. The study of plants as living symbols. In a different life, in another path, I would have followed him around attempting to know-what-he-knows. Mythology beyond the abstraction.

For us, this week has become about the coneflower. Earlier in the week I wrote about its symbolism: strength, vitality, healing energy… The color of the coneflower accents different attributes. Orange evokes vitality and enthusiasm. Purple accents strength. Yellow, acceptance and perseverance.

I thought of Wade Davis because his study has taken him to indigenous cultures who live their symbology, their mythology is visceral, a deep-seated guide for how to conduct their lives. For them, the attributes of the plant are not curious abstractions, something to be found in a Wiki or a book or a religious tome. It is ancestral. Lived everyday. He writes beautifully about what he has experienced.

I wanted to know what a coneflower represents so I looked it up. It is not integrated into my being, pervasive to my clan and has not been passed to me by my elders. I want to identify with it so I write myself into the story. I write us into its meaning. It is, for us, new. We will give it roots, make it conscious by planting it in our symbolic garden.

As a society, many of our symbols are unconscious. It is a happy and fortuitous accident that the Olympic Games are happening in the midst of the ugly divisive rhetoric coming from the right in our political campaign. Each day I look at the athletes from the United States and I see a beautiful living symbol of our nation as it really is: diversity, a celebration of ethnicity – united under a single flag. It is, I believe, what our flag – our symbol – represents. Out of many, one.

This flag is one of our few conscious symbols. E pluribus unum is our tradition. It is our intention, written into our founding. It is our ancestry and inheritance. We are the many, united as one. It is what we strive to achieve. Our athletes represent us; they represent who we are beyond the abstraction.

The red hats and their authoritarian leader would have us understand our symbol differently. You can hear it in their language, placing the accent on racial division. Their obsession with degradation, their glee at name-calling, their unwavering commitment to a victim narrative…exposes a dedication to subverting the humanity of those that do not look or think like them. They would have the flag symbolize white nationalism, a radical uprooting of its meaning. Their notion of “one” rejects the many. It is, quite literally, flipping the symbol upside-down (as was proudly flown over the house of Justice Samual Alito).

They are not hiding their intention. They are counting on us to misconstrue or willingly discard the meaning of our sacred symbol.

Look at the athletes representing the USA. Take a walk in the park on the 4th of July and look at the people sharing the celebration in the commons. They are US. Rich in diversity. United.

Acceptance. Perseverance. Strength. Borne of the many, striving to be one.

Instrument of Peace, 48″x 91″, mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blog about CONEFLOWERS

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Look It Up [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I find that I have a different definition than most people of the word ignorant. In the book of words it is an adjective describing the lack of education or sophistication. I’ve come to understand it as a noun, someone who ignores in order to shore-up their belief. So, in my book of words, someone who ignores information, facts, data, someone who refuses to question, is an ignor-ant.

I’m writing this post a few days ahead. It’s the day of the Iowa caucuses and, if the polls are accurate, most of the caucus-goers are dedicated ignorants. Thought-foundations built upon quicksand. It brings to mind two quotes. The first is from Isaac Asimov:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” 

And, isn’t that a proper summation of our times? A democracy can only survive over the long haul with an informed populace. Ignorance, ignorants, will be the death of our democracy. It begs a question that’s ever present and hard to ignore: what are we (they) afraid to learn? That brings me to the second quote that popped into my noggin. This one is from Robert Pirsig:

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They KNOW it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas and goals are in doubt.”

The ostrich buries its head in the sand, the monkey plugs its ears. The fate of the MAGA lemming is the trap of the dedicated ignorant. It makes possible the untenable: angry insistence of being the great defender of democracy while championing a fascist yet being completely incapable of discerning between the two. It requires a wee-bit of knowledge and study to understand the difference between fascism and democracy. Fanatical embrace is the only available path to those who fear facts, information and ideas that might call into question what they already surmise: what they believe, what they think, what they are told might not be true.

Ignorance is never the equal of knowledge. I’d never take my car to be fixed by a someone who calls him/herself a mechanic yet has no knowledge of how an automobile works. It seems basic. I wonder about the Iowans going to the polls (or any republican for that matter), exercising the great power of the vote, yet refusing to exercise the freedom of thought, the expansion of mind, that their democratic privilege affords them.

In my book, that is the definition of an ignorant.

read Kerri’s blogpost about KNOWLEDGE

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Share The Symbols [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on December 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was a wee-turnip I found a textbook on the shelf from a course my dad took in college. Comparative religions. It’s a big-big book full of many-many comparisons. It now resides on my shelf. This book sparked a life-long fascination for me. The universal nature of myth and story across individual cultures and how these stories and symbols are, over time, pulled and twisted like taffy, co-opted, integrated and sometimes claimed as the private property of religion x or y.

Today, as I write this, we sit squarely on the solstice. I thought a few tidbits of story-symbol might be fun to visit so, together, we might taste the taffy.

In Italian tradition, La Befana is the goddess of the solstice. She rides a broom through the skies leaving candy and presents to the good little boys and girls. As a broom-riding pagan goddess, she predates Saint Nick by more than a few centuries. The Christian tradition snagged her and after a bit of twisting, she became a character in the Magi story. On a cold, cold night she gave shelter to those three wise-men but declined to join them on their quest because she had unfinished chores. After they left she had a change of heart but couldn’t find the manger on her own so she gave the gifts she had in tow to the nice children she met during her manger-search.

On the solstice, the goddess Isis gave birth to her son Horus, the sun god. Leta gave birth to Apollo on the solstice. The Persian god of light, Mithra, was born on the solstice. These births were technically virgin births since the conception in every case was immaculate. Egyptian. Greek. Persian. These stories predate the Christian story by centuries. It’s a ripple across time and culture of the same human impulse: after a long dark season to celebrate the return of the light.

We lose more than we know when we – to borrow a great term from Joseph Campbell – concretize a symbol. The stories and myths are meant to open us to greater unity with each other and the world we share. They are not meant to be taken or understood literally. Holding them literally slams the door on their greater meaning and unifying power. It renders them a possession, a plot point on a map.

On this winter solstice I can imagine no greater gift to this divided world than to recognize we are, through our unique symbols and characters, telling the same story, yearning for the same possibilities, sharing the same ideals whether they soar through the air on a broomstick or in a sleigh, both rides brimming with toys for good girls and boys. We borrow each others best ideas and ideals, rewriting them to fit our unique audience. From Isis and Horus to Mary and Jesus, it’s time once again to celebrate the rich warm return of the light through our myriad forms and cultural traditions, to feel the push and pull of something ancient and deeply human. Together.

this season/this season © 1998 kerri sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HOME IN THE TREE

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buymeacoffee is a surgically implanted intention, a medicinal tradition stretching back eons to a time when beauty and analytics held hands and shared meals. together.

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Answer The Call [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

As is always true, the color calls me and I stop. You’d think I’d get used to the pop of red vine against the winter grass. You’d think that I’d expect it and, therefore, no longer see it. But that hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe I’m refusing to let it happen. The color calls. I answer.

Sometimes I feel as if it is a requirement to move slow enough in the world to actually absorb it. Move too fast and the extraordinary bounces off. Moving too fast makes us Teflon. Non-stick living. I want to soak it up. I want to feel it, the whole spectrum.

It’s a consumer mind that thinks, “I’ve seen it,” and races fast “to get there,” forever on the freeway gobbling miles and eschewing the backroads. Gobbling achievement while missing the experience. Checking life off the list. I am not the same as I was yesterday. When the red vine calls I might be open to a wholly new conversation. The red vine certainly is not the same as yesterday. I can see it because I “took the time” to see.

Like the red vine, the phrase “take time” called so I answered. I Googled it and, no surprise, most of the synonyms were negative. Culture betrays itself. Dawdle. Dally. Waste time. Fritter away. Goof off. Lolly gag. And, the cherry on the top of the Puritan heap: lose time.

It’s a regular deathbed revelation for people to wish they had not raced through their lives to hang yet another plaque on their wall of respect. If there is a strategy for losing-the-time-of-your-life it is to race-through-to get-to-the-end. Goal achieved. There’s another way. Walk slow enough to hear when the red vine calls. Then, take the time to stop and answer.

Instrument of Peace, 48x91IN, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about RED VINE

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Mark The Way [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are avid late-night-watchers of people hiking trails or climbing mountains. Some time ago it occurred to me that, even in the remote wilderness, there are known paths and helpful trail markers. The markers may be official park service trail signs or they might be cairns or sticks placed on the ground in the shape of an arrow. “Don’t be fooled,” the arrow signals, “The trail is this way.” People who came before helping the people who will come behind.

Most of the hikers and climbers also have help from satellites. They carry gps to illuminate the trail, provide elevation data, locate water sources, and weather information. It’s nothing less than remarkable the plethora of information available to someone strapping a pack on their back and stepping into an adventure. They are beholden to the people who came before who thought long and hard about ways to make the journey easier.

And, these same plugged in hikers pass it forward, mostly, through acts of courtesy toward people they will possibly never meet. They do their part to help the people who will come next. They cut brush from a trail. They re-stack the cairn stones. They pick up trash as they go. They reconstruct the arrow after the wind moved the pieces. They invent better markers, some from outer space.

I think we watch them because of the culture that has evolved on the trail or on the quest to scale the mountain. They give us a dose of hope for humankind. They know without doubt that they are stewards of the path and of those who walk the path. They live from a dedicated personal responsibility that is not in opposition to a group responsibility. They are their own and their brothers/sisters keeper.

There are trail angels that show up in unlikely locations with hot food. There are angels that leave water caches in the desert without which the traveler would not be able to reach their next destination. Their purpose is to make the passage easier for others because others have made the passage easier for them. It is not a difficult concept to grasp.

A culture of support. It’s why, at the end of each day, we check in with the people on the trail.

you hold me/this part of the journey © 1997/2000 kerri sherwood

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blog about TRAIL LEAVES

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