The Antidote [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This photo is of Apollo’s chariot arcing across the sky. It’s only visible because the clouds buffer the chariot’s brilliance.

Zeus is scheduled to come through later tonight. There is promise of thunderbolts. Dogga is not a fan of the flash-and-boom. Frankly, neither am I. Zeus is too showy for my tastes.

Persephone is back from her stay in the underworld and Demeter couldn’t be more pleased. The blossoming peonies are proof. The wild grasses and ferns are a-poppin’. The tomato plant promises to be as tall as I am!

Ares children have been let loose on the land. Phobos and Deimos – Fear and Terror; they wear masks and ambush immigrants. They bully because it makes them feel superior. They pull people from their homes and cars. They take children from schools. They tackle senators. They answer to a minor deity, Dolos. He is renowned for his orange color, his penchant for lying, his empty promises otherwise known as deception.

I, for one, am waiting for Hestia to fully show up on the scene. Welcoming, unifying, an ancient powerful goddess who exudes peace and quiet. She is the hearth, the warm center of “home”. She is formidable because she deals in simple honesty. You might recognize her: she is the force that pulled people into the streets, uniting them to rebuke Dolos and his nasty servants. It seems she might team up with Athena who brings a healthy dose of wisdom and strategy to the mix, capable of easily corralling Fear and Terror and sending the orange Dolos back to the swamps where he belongs.

No doubt the goddesses will provide the antidote for the toxic masculinity that ails us.

[Juneteenth! It is especially important to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the USA – particularly in the face of an administration that whitewashes our nation’s history]

from the archive: Maenads

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN

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The Interim [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on February 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“You are in this time of the interim/ Where everything seems withheld./The path you took to get here has washed out;/ The way forward is still concealed from you.” John O’Donohue, Benedictus

Persephone has returned to the Underworld. Demeter, her mother, mourns and so the earth is cold. Nothing grows. It is the time of waiting. According to the bargain, after six months, Persephone will return to the upper world, Demeter will rejoice at the homecoming of her daughter, plants will flower, trees will bud, life will be restored.

It is not an accident that Persephone, the goddess who presides over death is also the goddess of fertility and new life. One complete cycle. It’s an archetype found in many cultures across our tiny planet.

This winter we’ve descended into a an especially dark season. With the firing of the military leadership, replaced by nincompoops loyal to a man rather than the constitution, the authoritarian takeover is nearly complete. Yesterday, by executive order, congress lost its power-of-the-purse. The last traces of democracy are being summarily scrubbed. The way forward?

History has taught us that these authoritarians are stuck in their adolescence. They have a bottomless hole where their hearts should be. They attempt to fill the the hole with sex or money or power or fame or alcohol or clothes or cars…It is a void that only maturity can satisfy. Maturity comes with the revelation that service to others rather than self-aggrandizement fills the hole. True to pattern, they will ultimately be consumed by the dark void in their chests, turning their power-lust on each other in a festival of self-destruction, perhaps taking our democracy with them.

And then Persephone will return.

We are in the interim. The path forward is unclear. Yet, it is still not too late to wrangle these child-minds into containment and return mature adults to the hill. Or, we can stay silent and let the children run the show. Lord of the Flies.

Either way, as order follows chaos, courage will reemerge. A new generation of leaders will find their moral center, value decency and join together, connected by service to the nation rather than self-interest. They will set about cleaning up the wreckage, sweeping up the mess. Persephone will return, Demeter will rejoice, life will bud, and perhaps our fragile democracy will be rekindled.

Connected on the album Released From The Heart © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about ICE

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Balance [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It looks like Persephone is back from the underworld. Or at least she is on her way. Demeter, her mother, goddess of all things that grow in nature, is starting to celebrate.

Persephone is early and, although Demeter, like all mothers, is over-the-moon with excitement with the early return of her daughter, the rest of us should be wondering “What’s up?” When those fickle gods change pattern this dramatically there’s good reason to wonder when the storm will arrive. Balance is off; things are about to tilt.

This morning I opened the back door to let the Dogga out and was completely captivated by the bird song. The full chorus was singing and they were glorious. In truth, the full chorus has been singing the sun up every morning for the past several weeks. Spring arrived in February. I am often awake when the first bird, the early soloist, takes the stage. I wonder if they know. Listening to the birds, looking at my untouched snow shovel resting by the back door, I thought about my dear friend in Reno who wrote, “We never get this much snow…”

Balance. Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds, the fruit of the underworld, so a bargain was struck: for each seed consumed she must spend a month in the underworld. Six months in the underworld. And, six months in the light with her mother, the earth celebrating their reunion. Six and six. This year, the bargain must have collapsed since we are three and nine. What about the other three seeds?

What about the balance?

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREEN SHOOTS

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See The Signs [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Religions around the world and across time have personified this moment. The return of the green. From one day to the next buds appear on trees. The signs of life’s vibrant enthusiasm returning (again) from long winter, barren earth, metaphoric death. Persephone’s homecoming from the underworld and Demeter, her mother, goddess of the earth, allows the return of life.

It’s a very, very old story told in many, many different ways. Human beings, storytellers all, making sense of death and life, generalized across the real experience of cycles and seasons, all pressed through the lens of this-causes-that. Reduce us to an essential oil and we are makers of metaphor and seers of pattern.

I told Kerri that I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. An idiom. Imagine the power in brains that utilize idioms! The meaning cannot possibly be carried by a literal interpretation of the individual words. We pull the meaning out of or inject it into the collection of words. We know what it means because the meaning has a long history. The Romans, I’ve read, believed there was a correct side of the bed. Arising on the correct side of the bed would ensure good luck. The right side of the bed was positive, the left side was dubious. Jump out of bed on the left side and the day was ruined!

Superstition: making sense of the happenings of a day or a life, pressed through the lens of this-causes-that.

Mostly, I am restless. It snowed all day yesterday. I yearn for the moment when I can, for the first time of the returning (pattern) spring, lean against the wall and feel the warm sun on my face. I will, like I did last spring, enjoy the moment to the point of non-thinking. I will drink it in with no need to wrap a story around it or make sense of what I am feeling. I will appreciate it to my bones and revel in the return of warmth, new growth, and light.

read Kerri’s blog post on GREEN

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Face The Sun [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

clover copy

Walking the river trail I couldn’t help but whirl in the contradiction: everything has changed and nothing has changed. While the world of people is awash in pattern disruption, the rest of creation is following the script exactly.

Spring. The muddy season. The world pops green just as we knew it would. Just as it did last year and the year before and the year before. I believe our backyard ferns are growing 6 inches a day. Even the daily Dog-Dog assault cannot deter their reach for the sun. Life returns from darkness. Demeter sings at Persephone’s return.

If you seek an affirmation of life come sit in our backyard. The bird song will lift your spirits, these flying shocks of color will make you giggle with delight. Vibrant yellow, a cardinal more salmon than red. My eyebrows cartoon-pop in disbelief. We sit facing the sun in our broken Adirondack chairs and drink in the warmth.  “This doesn’t suck.” I say, eyes closed, basking in appreciation of the sun as it reaches to my bones. I’m certain I said the exact same thing last year and the year before that. Rituals of renewal need not always be solemn.

Sometimes I think this game of life is really an exercise in focus placement. I can choose to see the world as the work of Hieronymous Bosch– and sometimes I do. Beautifully horrific. Or, I can swivel my lens to Georgia O’Keefe and look at the wondrous small things, the miracle of nuance and the close-up. Sometimes, when I am at my best, I turn my eyes to see as Ellsworth Kelly did, when he imagined his chapel of light. “I think people need some kind of spiritual thing,” he said.

And so, with the vibrant greens popping, the screaming yellows flying, the blue-blue of a cloudless sky, tender lettuce leaves breaking through topsoil, I find myself surrounded by a Hieronymous Bosch narrative cycle but with just a little refocus, I am stunned by the grander cycle of marvel and mystery in this Ellsworth Kelly world.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CLOVER

 

lastlittlehousefeet website box copy

 

 

 

 

 

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Slog And Smile [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 2, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

ice castle 1 copy

the melting ice castle

It is the mud season. The time of thaw. When snow and ice like magic return to their elemental form and flow according to the rules of least resistance. Downhill. Always.

It is the season that we wear our black boots, the pair that is good for slogging through the mire. On a recent squish through our beloved Bristol Woods we laughed at the sucking sounds our black boots made when we tried to lift our feet from the bog. The water gurgled around us. The sun warmed our faces even though the day was cold. We were glad that we left DogDog home. He’d have been a mucky mess.

It is the in-between time. Not winter. Not spring. This morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and still it snowed. The winter took a toll and everyone groused, “I thought we were done with that!” These same growlers only a few short months ago celebrated the return of the white stuff. “It’s the first snow!” they laughed and ran out to touch it. How fickle we are.

Or, perhaps, how ritualistic we are. Persephone must return to the underworld for a season. Demeter grieves and so the cold snows come. Months later, when the daughter returns to the light, the mother, over-joyed, allows the plants to grow again. Life returns. Tell the story any way you want. It is the same. A cycle of life. Equinox. Solstice. A time to sow. A time to reap. The root, rejuvenated, now pushes little green tendrils upward the sun. Rituals and celebrations.

Our ritual? Eager to get outside and walk, Kerri asks, “What boots shall we wear?” I respond, “I don’t know. Do you think it will be muddy?”

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THE ICE FALL

 

icefall website box copy

 

 

 

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