As If [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

In a festival of irony, the moment we sat down to write about our peony, our harbinger of summer sun and the return of good weather, the sky darkened, the lightning flashed, the thunder clapped, and the rain is now dropping in buckets. The weather alert screeched with a warning for hail and possible tornadoes.

I delight in how readily my superstition-gene leaps out of the murky depths of my subconscious pond and concocts fabulous explanations about current circumstance. That is, as a human-being, a maker of stories – I am quite capable of connecting the rush of the sudden storm with our attempt to write about peonies. As if our attempt to write about peonies somehow invoked the storm!

This is not surprising. It is nothing new. My ancestors – and yours – created all manner of rituals in an attempt to appease the angry thunder-hurling god. To influence the powers of dark and light. To invite good fortune. To bring rain to crops. We have always personified nature and then imagined it is responsive to our behavior. Our behests. All around the globe, in many varied and culturally diverse forms, we do it in houses of worship to this day.

It might seem that I am making fun – and I am – but more than that, I am marveling at our genuine desire to be connected to “something bigger” and yet how rarely we recognize that we already are. We are as the peony, not separate from but a part of the pulse of life. We are of nature – not separate from it. My theory is that we have a hard time recognizing it because we imagine that we can control it. We use it to explain what we experience. We use it to justify our abuses to each other. Chosen people; Manifest Destiny and all of that ugly business. The personality we project upon it is at once beatific and horrific. We wonder why it blows our house away. We thank it for our good fortune.

In truth, we do influence Mother Nature and Father Sky, just not in the magical ways we imagine. Carbon emissions. Tapping mighty rivers dry before they reach the sea. Dumping our trash in the oceans. Fracking. It turns out that our behaviors are powerful and, perhaps, our destiny is in our hands. We need not pray to the gods for intervention and salvation, perhaps we need to be the gods of intervention that we desire to be, recognize and behave as if are not above it all, giver of names, but integral, intrinsic, no more or less essential than the peony.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PEONY

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Beyond Words [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Truth, like time itself, is a product of a conversation man has with himself about and through the techniques of communication he has invented.” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

I’ve felt for months the need to apologize to J. We were having a conversation about truth – and notions of god – and in his current place-on-the-path he’s necessarily seeking absolutes. For him, relative truth smacks of falsehood or some loosey-goosey scary philosophy. He’s looking for a hard rock on which to build his house of wisdom. I was flip rather than helpful. How do you begin to discuss truth as a cultural orientation or a fluid marker that changes with time? When I was J’s age, truth could be established with a photograph. Not so anymore.

Breck, our little quaking aspen tree has come to represent a form of truth for me. Breck almost didn’t make it. We brought her home from the high mountains of Colorado and for a few years she lived and struggled in a big pot. She barely survived the first place we planted her. It was not a good location so we moved her to different soil where she’d enjoy more sun. And now she is flourishing. Last year she grew more than three feet taller.

Breck’s truth/health has very little to do with hard answers to abstract questions. For her – and me – truth is found in relationships; her environment. The right spot. Good soil. Rejuvenating sun. She brings an impulse to life: perseverance. Tenacity. Adaptability. We love her and I believe she “knows” that, too. Love is a truth that knows no absolute. I couldn’t explain that to J because I was playing with him, bringing levity to his seriousness.

And, in truth (what other word can I use?), I have become a doubter that any serious conversation about truth or gods can happen through something so limited as language. That’s what I should have expressed to J. I should have taken him outside to see the stars.

Now, when I want to have those conversations with myself, when I am seeking a better question, I walk on the trail next to the river. I turn my face to the sun. I try to detach myself from the clocks and lists and tv debates. I look at Breck quaking in the wind. I await each spring for the buds to appear on her limbs. There’s truth-beyond-words in her life-cycle, the return of her leaves and her captivating shimmer dance with the breezes.

Angels At Our Side, 24″ x 48″ mixed media on two panels

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Touch The Immensity [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve always felt a kinship with birds of prey, especially hawks and owls. If I fully comprehend the concept of a “blessing” then I feel blessed when one of those great birds cross my path. A sign. A message. An acknowledgement.

A guide.

Last fall we were with a hawk when it died. From my office window I saw it struggling. It was laying in the middle of the street. I grabbed a thick towel so I might pick it up and move it off the road without harming it. Just as I was ready to placed the towel over the bird, like a rocket it shot into the sky landing in the tree above me. We watched it. After several minutes, it suddenly flapped its wings and then fell to the ground. With the towel, we bundled it and put it into a box. We called Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital and the DNR to ask what we should do. By the time we reached someone, it had passed.

It is possible to Google anything so I searched for the meaning of the experience according to the good-god-google: Something new is about to begin. Let go. Move on. Good advice and useful every single sunrise.

Searching for meaning. Making meaning. What could be more human?

I thought about the hawk when we came across an owl feather on the trail. At first we thought it was a hawk feather but the good-god-google instructed otherwise. They are easy to confuse since the feather markings are remarkably similar.

It was important to discern the difference since the meanings according to the good-god-google differ. If an owl feather, then wisdom is the theme. If a hawk feather, then the gift of power and courage to overcome obstacles.

Or, it’s simply a beautiful feather that brings to us the great gift of appreciation, no good-god necessary.

Mostly, the pursuit of meaning from our bird encounters plucks the bass string of human yearning: connectivity to something larger. Something much larger than the good-god-google, a numbers god by definition, sporting 100 zeros. Something much larger than prayers or mantras. The resonating recognition that comes when gazing into the infinity of a midnight sky. The briefest touch of immensity when standing before the rolling endless waves at a beach. The vibrantly alive blue ball of earth as seen from the moon.

Pay attention. This bird carries a message meant for me.

Being – beyond the limitation of words, like the feeling of kinship with a passing hawk. The awe of a midnight hoot from an owl. The driving necessity of making meaning of something as precious and passing as life.

read Kerri’s blogpost about OWL FEATHER

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Look Up. Look Higher. [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.” ~ Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

This will read like a blazing generality and I do not intend it to be so. Some of the best people I have known are readers of the book(s). They learned along the line to read their book(s) as metaphor instead of literally, as a history. There are, after all, many paths up the same mountain.

As for me, I was cured of religion when I was a boy but it’s taken a lifetime to understand what and why – and to find language to express what should (to me) be obvious to all.

It only takes a moment to lift your eyes from the book and look up – all the way up to the sky. The book is a human invention, as are the gods and the stories of the gods told in them. The sky, on the other hand, complete with stars and suns and universes beyond imagining, are not human inventions. The book lives in the human mind. That which the book is meant to illuminate is…wholeness…all around us. We are part of, not separate from. That’s it. It’s that simple. The game of separation and unity.

We are part of, not separate from. This word “Love” is unity, the absence of made-up-separations.

The book will have you believing that your body and its myriad of impulses are, like nature, in need of taming. Separation from yourself. The book will promote the notion of a chosen few, the singular path, a destiny that is manifest. Separation from other. Elevation for team-white. Moral authority for team-straight. It’s probably good to feel above others and certainly feels powerful to believe yourself keeper of the book’s rules. Isn’t it blatantly obvious that the rules were/are made by men to justify, as-the-voice-of-god, all manner of privilege and cruelty? Separation, separation, separation.

Here’s what I understood as a boy: any god that promotes separation in any form is very small, indeed, and probably not worth worshipping. At the very least it is a man-made god meant to make folks feel better about their obvious impermanence in an infinite universe.

There’s so much in this life worthy of our worship.

Whether or not we walk as one or decide to beat the hell out of each other for the color of our skin or the natural orientation of our sexuality has nothing to do with the vast universe outside of the book. We create the separations to justify our fear or to protect our property.

We are completely capable of love. We are completely capable of reaching across the unknown and living our short time on this earth in full support of the rich myriad of wonder and diversity expressed through us in this infinite possibility called life.

The book is an abstraction. The person standing before you is not.

Love is love. Love is not separation or division or privilege or a skin color or gender or sexual orientation. Love has nothing to do with how much money you have or do not have. Separations are the province of small people inventing small gods for very small reasons – so they can feel good about being separate and small.

Love is love.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE

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Seek The Old Gods [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 14, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m thinking a lot about gods and goddesses these day. No, it’s not a weird fixation. It’s a project, a story that involves the old gods and the new. The elemental and the angry. The unified and the divided. We make ourselves in the images of the god[s] we embrace. It’s a story about reaching back to the old gods, to a time before the worship of the great divide.

We took a walk along a trail just behind our airbnb. We were only in the mountains for a short time, long enough to have dinner and a day with our daughter and her beau. On the trail we turned and gasped. The mountain towered above all things. It reached to the sky. So majestic in its presence, it did not look real. “Now, there’s an old god,” I whispered to no one. It challenges one to know it, to climb it and participate in the beauty and the ascent – with no opinion at all about who might deem themselves chosen or not. It does not discern nor divide. It reminds. You are this. Climb and breathe the fresh air.

Kerri saw hypericum berries [“You say hypernicum, I say hypericum, let’s call the whole thing off…”] in the grocery store. “These would look lovely on our table!” she exclaimed. They came back to the airbnb with us and found themselves placed in a fine Ball jar sitting in a prime spot on the table. She was right. Lovely. We did a bit of research and discovered that 1) no one can agree on the spelling of the berry [or they’re two different things but we could not discern the difference], and 2) it is often used as a winter wedding flower. Winter’s daisy. Red on green giving its color and presence at unions. “Another old god!” I declared to no one. Elemental. Till death do us part where we will once again unite.

She wrote a note of gratitude and placed the corner beneath the Ball jar that held the hypericum. “Our host will love these!” she said. Gratitude adorned with beauty. We hated to leave but had run out of time. We had to hit the road. We stood at the door and breathed deeply of the mountain air. More gratitude. The blue sky ringing against the red rock of the western slope. Old gods everywhere.

“We’ll be back soon,” I said.

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave,” she whispered.

“But oh if we call the whole thing off then we must part,
And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart.”

You say hypernicum. I say hypericum. Winter wedding. Both/And. Gratitude and mountains. Old gods. Old gods everywhere.

read Kerri’s blog post about HYPERICUM

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

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

Believe [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 8, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

believe ornament copy

Kerri just said, “I think I’d believe more if I had another glass of wine.” After I was done laughing (and getting her another glass of wine), I realized that belief is too often like that – contingent on circumstance.

When I was a wee lad (seriously, this stuff ran rampant around my little kid brain), I’d wonder what happened the day after the bloody battle when both sides raged about god being on their side. What do you need to reconcile when your team loses? Why do you need to win to confirm your belief? A side note, another of those rampant ramblings  racing through of my too tiny skull (no wonder my parents were at a loss of what to do with me)  – this one is to really get me in trouble: if your god takes sides, chooses a team or otherwise reinforces a separation from the whole, how can you not see that it must be a very small god indeed? For perspective, an existential reboot, go outside and look at the stars and understand what you are seeing. No sides. Beyond comprehension.

Conditional belief. It is run amok.

If our capacity for belief was not conditional, what might we actually believe? Who might we become if we understood that we are expressions of this great universe and that this great universe was cheering for us and those rowdy huzzahs  had nothing to do with our winning or losing, with borders or righteousness or rules or books or councils or sexual orientation or money or the color of our skin? Or beliefs. Every atom a delight. Every creation a miracle. Would we be hope-full?  Would ‘the enemy’ look the same through the eyes of unconditional belief?

I know. Pie-in-the-sky thinking. Only a child could believe so completely, so unconditionally in…goodness.

Anything is possible if you just believe.

[note: this beautiful ornament was a gift that came atop a container of ‘slushy’ – a life giving concoction brewed in Dan’s secret laboratory and delivered each year to my squeals of delight. If my belief is conditional it is Dan’s fault and I blame Gay for not reining him in. She found this beautiful ornament so I also blame this post on her generosity and good taste. These two people make me believe wholeheartedly, without condition, in goodness].

 

read Kerri’s more coherent blog post on BELIEVE

 

dogga in snow website box copy

 

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Navel Gazing, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listen For The Splash [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 28, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve shown this painting more than a few times and it always generates interest. More people have considered buying this painting than any other in my catalogue. Yet, it remains the bridesmaid. Angels At The Well.

What a crazy title! I can’t remember why I painted it or why I thought angels at a well was such a compelling subject. In fact, I chose it for this week’s Studio Melange because I pulled it out of the stacks and thought, “Really, what a bizarre subject! What was I thinking?”

In mythology, wells are sources of rejuvenation, places of fate, the future can be read in the waters, omens uttered, they are holy, cursed, or a place where wishes are cast. Spirits get caught in them. Stories begin or end at the well. They reach into the earth, the element of  water disappearing deep into the element of earth.

Angels are messengers (remember that the next time the postal person delivers the mail). They are liaisons between gods and people, between the vertical and the horizontal realms. They meet you at the crossroads. They stand watch. They announce. They fall.

Perhaps symbol collision is why Angels At The Well piques so much curiosity but is consistently left behind? What kind of well? What kind of angel? And, maybe that is why I found it compelling enough to paint. Or, it occurs to me that it might be this: drop a pebble into the well. Listen how long it falls. With the splash will come new knowledge, an answer to a wish, a question, or there may be no splash at all. Then what?

 

read Kerri’s blog post about ANGELS AT THE WELL

 

drc website header copy

Happy Thanksgiving (for all of you USA-based angels)

 

pumpkinfarm website box copy

angels at the well ©️ 2004 david robinson

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

Chase Your Tail [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 25, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

phooey copy

Sometimes I think I am living in an Antonin Artaud play. Surreal. Surreal. Surreal. And very funny.

I came into the bedroom last night and Kerri said, “Dog drove doughnuts in a car for half an hour.” I fell on the floor laughing. She was reading a news headline but that did not make it less absurd.

Speaking of headlines, if this was kindergarten, the entire Republican Party would be sent to the principal’s office for advanced liar-liar-pants-on-fire. An entire cadre of seeming adults claiming that the dog ate their homework. I’ll bet that dog conspired to eat their homework, too!

Suddenly, this surrealist post has a dog theme.

“God struggles.” P-Tom said in all seriousness. I looked at Kerri and said, “I have a real problem with the idea that a god, any god, struggles.” She rolled her eyes.

An eye roll inspires an explanation. “Gods are not supposed to be separate,” I said, leaning in. “Things that struggle are separate.” She scooched away from me, a signal to stop my pontificating. “I struggle with the notion that god struggles,” I said proudly in an attempt at thought-condensation. Kerri narrowed her eyes, saying, “You ARE a struggle.”

Theme’s must be honored, especially dog themes so please note that ‘god’ spelled backward is ‘dog.’ In my philosophy, dogs struggle. Gods do not. As Anton Chekhov wrote in his play, The Cherry Orchard, “My dog eats nuts, too.” Try and write that about a god!

Jen and her “little” made pretzel-monster-cookies for Halloween [Jen is one of my heroes. She and Brad are ‘bigs’ in the organization Big Brothers, Big Sisters]. Kerri chose a cookie to eat but couldn’t do it because it was too adorable. She thrust it at me, saying, “You do it.” Suddenly, I was cast in the role of cookie executioner. I made cookie screaming noises. The cookie pleaded for a pardon but I was heartless. It was over quickly. It was a very, very good cookie.

If I were a dog watching me eat the cookie [my apologies to Chester and Henry], I’d go to the garage, jump in the car, start it up, and chase my tail, doing doughnuts until either the car ran out of gas or the police showed up to take me to the principal’s office. Either way, making sense of people must be hell for a dog. It’s hard for us, too.

 

when sled dogs dream jpeg copy

 

read Kerri’s blog post about PHOOEY

 

snapchat website box copy

note: did I mention that BabyCat snores like a champion – especially when I am writing. This post was dangerously close to being cat-themed. ‘Cat’ spelled backwards is “Tac.’ Go figure!

 

 

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Random, Rants, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Share Fatherhood [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 14, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

MASTERshared fatherhood II close up copy

a morsel of Shared Fatherhood II

This is what I believe:

People write words and books.

People make distinctions, create borders, build walls.

People make rules and laws.

People make judgments and justifications.

People make agendas. People make politics.

People exploit other people.

‘God,’ like ‘love,’ is a word we use to point to something boundless. Love, like all the Gods, is beyond comprehension. That is why the two words, God and Love, are often synonymous. They point to that which cannot be defined, contained or limited.

sharedfatherhoodII close product BOX copyIf you hear that ‘God has written’ or that God has ‘placed boundaries’, like gender distinctions, on ‘love’ then you can be certain of one thing: someone has either confused the writings of people for the unfathomable expression of love or there is an agenda in play. Either way, the limit has nothing to do with Love or God.

 

read Kerri’s blog post on SHARED FATHERHOOD

www.kerrianddavid.com

 

shared fatherhood II: close ©️ 2018 david robinson and kerri sherwood

shared fatherhood II ©️ 2017 david robinson

Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Feel The Thunder

Posted on June 10, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

An untitled watercolor I did years ago

an untitled watercolor from the archives

I am sitting alone in the back room of a coffeehouse. The room is dark because the day is dark with rain. It is hot and very humid. The building shakes with thunder and the voices in the front room drop to a whisper. I imagine the voice of the thunder inspires awe or at least a library-esque respect. After the rumble subsides, the volume is restored. People laugh again and talk in a tumble over each other until the next rumble quiets them.

I came to work. Good coffeehouses have always been productive places for me though today I’m distracted by the thunder. Like the other patrons, the angry sky has me on alert. It is nearly impossible to focus on my thoughts when the sky has so much to say. The truth is, I want to listen to it. I want it to stop all motion, to interrupt all the little things I deem important. I want to pay attention to what it has to say.

I remember listening to a recorded lecture of Joseph Campbell. He said that the voice of the thunder was probably humanity’s first experience of the godhead. In other words, when the sky talked, people listened. Long before the weather channel replaced the oracle, connectivity between human action and the elements was assumed. Our actions mattered. The gods communicated their pleasure or displeasure with us via sunshine or tsunami. Calm seas and good sailing were signs of approval. It is a marvel in the age of humanity blowing a hole in the ozone, pouring tons of carbon into the atmosphere, having created a Texas size floating trash site in the ocean, exhausting aquifers, etc., that we can in all seriousness debate whether or not we are having an impact. I wonder if in the age of the weather channel as oracle we have so disconnected from “our nature” (our connectivity) that the debate is less about impact and really about whether or not we matter at all. If we do not recognize that our actions have impact, that the smallest action ripples through the lives of others, how can we possibly expect our existence to matter? Mattering requires the understanding and experience of connectivity.

When was the last time that you felt connected to the bigger whole? In the end of the day, mattering (spirituality by another name) is a very practical thing. It is to feel connected. When was the last time you stopped and listened to the thunder? When was the last time you felt its rumble in your chest, or noticed how quiet you became when it spoke?

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Identity, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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