An Affirmation[David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

We crossed paths with a praying mantis. Otherwise perfectly still, it glanced in our direction. Its glance brought us to perfect stillness.

It’s hard to beat a praying mantis encounter if you are looking for good omens. They are associated with good luck and divine guidance. In these dark times we’ll take all the good omens we can get. We are open to positive guidance, divine or otherwise.

We played look-at-me-look-at-you for several moments. I wondered if it felt the same awe for us as we felt for it. I imagined it felt awe for everything; we were one of many awesome moments in its day. It was a rare moment of awe in ours.

It was graceful enough to hold its pose for the duration of the photo shoot. Spiritual contemplation is another of the traits we assign to praying mantis so I wondered while posing for its picture if it contemplated our obsession of capturing a moment in time, our need for memory aids to help us remember awe.

After the photos it returned its gaze to some distant place or meditation. We continued our walk filled with the notion – or the hope – that this giant universe had just placed a small yet potent affirmation on our path.

read Kerri’s blog about the PRAYING MANTIS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Pluck The Symbol [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tonight, as we near the day of clover, the celebration of St. Patrick’s snake dance, we will make corned beef and cabbage for our weekly dinner with 20. There will be Guinness, too. The snakes in the story, by-the-way, are symbolic. There were no actual snakes in the region. Remember, as I will when tipping my Guinness, it’s a religious holiday though, through the advent of Guinness, pagans like me can play, too.

One of my favorite things about human beings is how blind they are to their natural curiosity. For instance, read the wikipedia entry for four-leaf clover! There’s layers and layers of data on the odds of finding a four-leaf clover. Sometimes curiosity looks like study. Sometimes it looks like science. Or engineering. It’s one of my least favorite things about human beings: we can kill the spark, snuff the magic of the curious story-telling-mind, by how we tell the story.

Believe the snakes are literal and you miss the point of the story and misunderstand the reason for the holiday. The same is true with arks filled with animals and the Red Sea parting. Metaphors made literal: the apple remains uneaten. Knowledge dies on the vine.

Symbols open stories. Symbols make the story universal which is impressive if you stop and think about it. How can two people, living in two different cultures, who don’t share a common language, understand in-a-flash the same idea? Symbol. Metaphor. Heart openers. Mind expanders. Experience joiners.

In the epic of Saint Patrick, as a pagan I’d be one of the metaphoric snakes driven into the sea.

And remember, the data suggests that for every ten thousand three-leaf clover that you spy, you’ll find one stem with four. A symbol of good luck, no matter what the data suggests.

Train Through Trees, 51″x46″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about CLOVER

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

Make [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 16, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The origami crane has become a symbol of peace.”

Fold 1,000 cranes and your heart’s desire will come true. Legend will have it so. In Japan, the crane is a symbol of good luck and long life.

Making something into something else. Folding paper into cranes. It is, perhaps, the quality that defines us, makes us human. We turn the flow of water into the force driving the mill. We study patterns in stars and translate it into navigation. We smelt ore and hammer the elements again at the forge to make iron. We use the iron to make trains.

We make.

We look at flowers and see cranes. We look at clouds and see wild horses. We look at blank canvas and see possibility.

We make stories.

Our storymaking cuts both ways. We look at others and see friends; we look at others and see enemies. Either way, our looking is not passive. We make stories. We make connections. We make divisions.

We make wishes. Fold 1,000 cranes and your heart’s desire will come true.

Reach your hand to help. Slap a hand away. Either way, it depends on what story you see. What you want to make.

The story we create.

Folded paper. A symbol of peace.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CRANES

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Metaphor, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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