The Only Question [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 22, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breck the aspen tree is no longer a sapling. Since May she has grown a few feet taller. Her trunk is now the sturdy stock of a mature tree. Her bark is taking on the whitish hue of mature aspens. We stand at her base, crane our necks looking up, and marvel. In a few short months we have watched her come-of-age.

In a contentious time, an age of the disappearance of justice and the rise of a criminal, Breck is a reminder for us of all that is good. When we need a dose of sanity, when we need a reminder that nature takes little notice of human folly, we sit with Breck. We allow ourselves to be soothed by the comforting shimmer of her quaking leaves.

Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero With A Thousand Faces in 1949. I almost spit my coffee this morning when I read, “The tyrant is proud and therein resides his doom. He is proud because he thinks of his strength as his own; thus, he is in the clown role, as a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked.”

I know it is a mistake to conflate myth with biography, yet, have you ever read a more perfect description of our authoritarian wanna-be?

Myth meets the historical moment. The tyrant is a clown. He is a mistaker of shadow for substance. He thinks his strength is his own. His destiny is to be tricked. Campbell also wrote that, in the mythic cycle, the tyrant, “usurps to themselves the goods of their neighbors, arise, and are the cause of widespread misery. They have to be suppressed.”

Usurping to himself the goods of his neighbors? Check.

The cause of widespread misery? Check.

In mythology, the tyrant is the harbinger of the hero’s rise (note: the hero need not be a male). “The great figure of the moment (the tyrant) exists only to be broken…The ogre-tyrant is champion of the prodigious fact; the hero the champion of creative life.”

The word “prodigious” in this sentence = unnatural, grotesque.

Locked in a shadowy lie-about-the-past with a monstrous clown? Or, progressing forward toward actual possibilities? We are a nation quaking to come-of age.

The tyrant exists only to be broken – and it makes sense in mythology and in the patterns of history. Breck can only grow in one direction. The same is true of us. The only question is how much damage will the tyrant do before we-the-people, the actual hero in our tale, awaken, open our eyes and rise?

WATERSHED on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

watershed,(noun): an event or period marking a turning point in a course of action or state of affairs.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Gaze Inside [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I suppose most people would first notice the beautiful glaze and transfer pattern on the outside of the cups. We were caught by the beautiful color, the glaze on the inside at the very bottom. Gorgeous. Simple.

The cups were a wedding present from Kerri’s good friend and long-time collaborator, Heidi. Together, they toured the country. Heidi telling the story of her breast cancer journey. Kerri performing her compositions written for the cause of cancer research and celebration of life. I was not in the picture when they were doing their good work but I can hear in their stories the potency, the absolute epicenter of the power of art, their art: inspiring, encouraging, healing, up-lifting spirits.

It is the same spirit that Rachel Stevens, the potter of the cups, imbued in her work. It’s why we were immediately captivated. The free flow of her artistry lifted our spirits. A perfect talisman for our union, a reminder of my favorite day of life – our wedding.

We brought out the cups for our wine. I love the delicate weight and textures, the feel when I hold them in my hand. Before pouring, I gazed again at the inside color and had a minor revelation, the kind that will simmer over the next few months:

I’m sitting in a quiet space with my artistry. The imperative to create remains as strong as it has ever been, but it is the time to journey into the root. Early in my life I created for myself, for the pure pleasure of the presence it provided. The gift of solitude. Another kind of union. Later, the root required a reaching out, a branching relationship with others, to light the dark path, ask the unanswered question, explore the uncharted territory. Yet another kind of union. The cycle is coming back around; I am returning to the pure pleasure of creating. The root. Now, there can be – there is – no other reason.

Simple. Gorgeous.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CUPS

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buymeacoffee is a beautiful glaze at the bottom of a delicate pottery cup that, when you hold it, makes you feel good to be alive.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Just Look [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There’s really no reason Breck should be alive. This tiny aspen tree survived a too-packed-car ride from Colorado to Wisconsin, three years root bound in clay pot, a first bad planting among the ferns, a relocation to a better spot, and a serious pruning to clear the already dead branches. Yet, despite all the odds stacked against her, Breck is budding like never before. Breck is thriving.

My theory for Breck’s resilience? She knows she is loved. Never before in the annals of tree-dom has more warmth and attention been heaped upon a tiny living thing. Consequently, each bud feels like a full-circle-love-return. Each new bud fills us with hope, infuses us with possibility.

It is simple.

It’s been a few days since Kerri snapped the photo of Breck’s buds. This morning, while I was out with Dogga on my bunny watch, I was literally gobsmacked: the buds have burst into tender leaves! When did that happen? It’s worth noting that the bunny nest is in the tall grasses at the base of Breck’s trunk. I’ve been paying attention, or so I thought. I’m double-in-wonder at the sudden transformation from bud to leaf.

Paying attention. Seeing what is right in front of our noses.

As I sat on the deck and watched Dogga sleuth the bunny pathways through the yard, I wondered about all the buds-a-poppin’ that I have missed in my life, so focused on, “what I didn’t have,” or lost in the weeds of, “should.” I thought again of the closing sequence of the movie Love Actually. [Hugh Grant voice-over]: Love actually…is…all around us. It’s so pervasive that we miss it.

If only people – myself included – would just look.

Embrace Now, 36x48IN, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK’S BUDS

Embrace Now © 2016 david robinson

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Release The Seeds [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 24, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Creative people are driven to periodic symbolic self-annihilation and rebirth, much like the mythic phoenix.” ~ Alex Grey, The Mission of Art

I loaded my truck with my paintings. I drove to the beach where there were large fire-pits. I burned the paintings, bonfire style. I had so many paintings that it took three days, three truckloads, three successive nights. People helped, strangers who held vigil for me. Only one tried to talk me out of it.

Those nights on the beach were over 20 years ago. All along I’ve understood the conflagration. What I only now understand is the necessity of fire to release the seeds. Not just one seed, but hundreds. Thousands. And not all the seeds found rich soil. Only a few. And, once rooted, most of the seedlings were trampled, overshadowed or eaten. They never made it to the sun.

But the one seed, the single seed, released in fire, without will, intention or knowledge; the fortunate seed, flung into the air by heat and flame, caught the wind at just the right moment and fell to the earth haphazardly in an opportune spot. It took root. It drank in the sun. It survived the hungry deer nibbling close-by. And over decades, through harsh winter and sunny drought, it slowly, ever-so-slowly, grew.

A thousand seeds. One strong tree. New cones, loaded with millions of seeds. Ideas ripe for the wind.

A cycle that cannot be rushed. Each loop, lovingly and faith-full, takes time.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEDS

part of the wind/blueprint for my soul © 1997 kerri sherwood

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Rake The Ritual [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 17, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is that time. The ritual of the green bags. They are green because they are biodegradable, an important detail in the ritual cycle.

The rite unfolds over the course of several weeks. Each household in our tree-lined neighborhood, according to their own special timing announced to them by the trees, shuffles into the fallen leaves with implements of collection or whirring blowing machines. They sculpt the leaves into piles. They scoop the leaves into green bags. They pile the green bags at the curb.

Some prefer to place the bags in a perfect curbside line. Some prefer to stack the bags. Later, an orange truck (our ceremony is punctuated with secondary colors!) rumbles slowly down the street, acolytes jump from the truck and collect the bags.

The communal bags are taken by the orange trucks to a community field where they are stacked high into transformational mounds. Over the winter, over time, the mounds slowly reconstitute. They compost. The green bags dissolve. The contents of the bags compact, heat, and join, becoming vibrant rich soil.

Energy changing form.

There is a matching ritual in the spring. The people, according to their own special timing announced to them by their flower beds, leave their houses and bring shovels to the mounds of soil. They collect buckets and truckloads of the former-leaves-now-earth, return home and dig the new soil into their gardens. The planting marks the beginning of the next cycle. As shovels turn earth, the trees bud, new leaves, future soil, pop green and tender on the branches.

A perfect life cycle. A time honored autumnal observance. The ritual of the green bags.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREEN BAGS

Meditation, 48x48IN, mixed media

meditation © 2012 david robinson

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See Beyond [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breck, the small aspen tree in our backyard, is beginning to change its colors for the season. Although we have yet in our neighborhood to smell autumn in the air, Breck is giving us a heads-up.

A decade ago I wrote that, in order to see beyond preconception (thought), artists and entrepreneurs need to master two skills: pattern recognition and metaphor. Look for patterns and you will eventually see beyond them. See beyond the pattern and, as Ash Bhoopathy said, “The familiar will become strange and the strange will become familiar.” What an amazing definition of metaphor.

In this pattern cycle, the green becomes brilliant golden yellow as Breck turns her summer attention from the sun and sends her focus into the root for winter nourishment.

Kerri’s photographs are often extreme close-ups. She has a bit of Georgie O’Keeffe in her artist’s eye. Often, when showing me the latest photo, she pulls the-already-close-up-image into a detail. I am always amazed at the pattern beneath the pattern beneath the pattern. The plumes of the grasses are a festival of pattern. The many feet of the caterpillar, perfect suction cups.

Despite our dedication to our perceived differences, we, too are a festival of pattern. The operative word is “perceived.” Pull the lens close-in and our divisions disappear as rapidly as our skin color. Pull the focus farther out and we move together in a sweet-and-sour ballet. Koyannisqatsi. History repeats, a pattern, like the cycle of the seasons. Order moves to chaos to order to chaos…mainly in our minds. Order is what we crave, so purblind are we to seeing the ubiquity of pattern.

The plumes explode pink and red on the grasses The chipmunks have picked up their foraging pace. The geese have reappeared. The miracles are in the familiar, strange and surprising when seen again for the first time. The feel of the hand of the one you love. The moon on a clear cold night. The yellow rim reaching through the green quaking leaves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK’S LEAVES

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Come Together [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 7, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

My theme of life-as-a-circle is still with me. Today, this Labor Day, 2020, bubbles with portent. Unlike any Labor Day in my lifetime, this day seems to dip its toe into the cold origins of this national holiday celebrating laborers but also serves as an omen. An augury.

This holiday, so benign as we now practice it, was borne of fire and conflict. It seems our nation is only capable of learning through the violence that it inflicts upon itself. Waves of riots, years of bloodshed as laborers as young as 5, worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and barely eked out a living. The income gap in 2020 mirrors that of the 1890’s, America’s Gilded Age. As historian Nell Irvin Painter explains, “‘Gilded’ is not golden. ‘Gilded’ has the sense of a patina covering something else. It’s the shiny exterior and the rot underneath.” The violence in the streets, the frustration and anger, riots and protests by the common working people forced the government to act. Among other things, Labor Day came into existence. A day off.

“We’re in these cycles in which we learn and forget and learn and forget,” Painter says.

We are in the ‘forgetting’ part of the cycle. It’s Keynsian economics: a capitalist economy can only thrive with the existence of a healthy middle class. Consumption requires capable-and-able consumers. Investment crumbles when consumption stalls. We’ve been here before. We don’t need a crystal ball to see where our unsupported gig economy is taking us. On this Labor Day it is fair game to ask, “What exactly are we celebrating?”

We cycle into remembering when we need to pull together. When we start considering the interests of the whole over the few. When, as the sign says, we remember to take care of one another. During this Labor Day there is a true tell of our capacity to consider one another: a pandemic rages. The estimates top 400,000 deaths by the new year. The only force that can reduce that number is our capacity to consider one another.

Life in the forgetting sweep of the cycle: the streets are alive with riot and protest. People by the millions are losing their homes and their jobs. Desperation and division reign; panicked people rarely think straight.

Life in the remembering sweep of the cycle: people pull their energy and resources together remembering that no one can thrive in a vacuum. A united workforce is capable of reminding “the system” that it was meant to serve them and support them in a shared prosperity. Not to use their labor to benefit the few. Coming together for the betterment of all: it is the original impulse and meaning of Labor Day.

read Kerri’s blog post about LABOR DAY

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

Take It In [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 4, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

The morning air was cool and crisp. When I let Dogga out I stood by the back door and breathed in the hint of fall.

I laughed as I lingered by the back door because I had the revelation. It’s the revelation I have every year, the revelation that signals not only the change in season but a truth I wish I could hold onto throughout the year. It’s simple: life is a circle, not a line.

It’s useful, when so much of our unease is about “getting there,” about being some place other than where we are, to realize that it is not a line we walk, but a loop. Hurrying to “get there” when looping is nonsensical. Life as a cycle is much more amenable to presence-in-the-moment. It cracks the hard bark of desire and allows space for insight, gratitude, and appreciation.

Yesterday I read that this year, 2020, has been a decade long. I reminded myself, standing at the back door awash in my yearly revelation, not to wish a moment of my life away. To stand in it – all of it. This is certainly a time of disruption and the fatigue that comes with loss of balance and the comforts of the known. This IS the experience. This is life. This is what change feels like. Pattern disruption is meant to be a slap into awareness.

And, as it turns out, for me, that hint of fall in the air comes as a gentle seasonal slap. Slow down. Do not rush to get through it. This is precious life – all of it – no matter the circumstance. As Chris wrote months ago, “So, this is what it feels like to be in a pandemic.” Yes. This is what if feels like. We are in it.

It is the call of Kerri’s Millneck Fall. Stand still. Take it in.

Dogga races with great zest around the yard, protecting us from marauding squirrels. The frogs in the pond sound out, morning roll call. The smell of coffee pulls me to the kitchen. There will be plenty of time as we cycle around to make meaning of these days.

Millneck Fall on the album Blueprint For My Soul is available in iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about MILLNECK FALLS

millneck fall/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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

Feel The Possibility

Posted on December 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

650. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I am in the backseat of Lisa’s car. It is night and we are driving one of those amazing highways that knows no large city. This road is a ribbon connecting the occasional community, none with more than 10 stoplights. It’s been several miles since we passed through the last town and it will be many more miles until we see another light. My face is resting on the window because I cannot believe how many stars are visible when not obscured by the glow of a city. And I am counting my great good fortune because on this night there is a meteor shower. It looks as if stars get so excited that they have to flame and run. “There’s one!” Megan calls. “Where?” Lisa says, peering over the steering wheel. “You missed it.” I rest my face on the glass so in love with this moment and my two companions that I can barely breathe.

We pull off the road so we can gaze at the stars without worrying about driving. We stand on the edge of a fallow field, shivering in the cold winter air, necks craned to the sky. It is not lost on me that we are returning from Kansas where we attended a Launch for presenters; a workshop that, when we are old and rocking on the porch, we will look back and say, “That two days with Kevin Honeycutt changed the trajectory of my life.” And on the way home from a life changing experience called a Launch, the universe decided with great humor to coordinate with Kevin and gift us with a meteor shower. “This is what love is supposed to feel like,” I think to myself, linking arms with Megan who gasps, exclaims, “Oh My God!” and points to the latest sky streaker.

Shivering, I remember Holly from my coaching class having an epiphany, saying, “I feel possibilities. I make lists of them, all of the endless possibilities! They are visceral, like stars! It’s like, constantly discovering a new star, feeling the possibility – the gratitude extends to the possibility and the possibility extends to helping someone and the helping circles back to me! It’s a cycle. It’s an adventure and I feel it!”

“OH!” Lisa, Megan and I gasp and point at the same moment. “Did you see that one?” we chime in unison.

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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