Be The Rain [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 20, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Simple elegance. Courteous goodwill. Thoughtfulness. Consideration. Do honor. Ennoble. Look up the word “grace” and these are the phrases and synonyms that you will find.

John Updike wrote that “Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.” California is on fire. So is Greece and Turkey. Siberia. Reservoirs are shrinking. So many are looking to the sky awaiting its descent to the earth. Awaiting simple grace.

When I lived in Seattle I delighted on a hot summer day of running through the International Fountain. I was not alone. Children and adults alike squealed as they played in the dancing jets of water. It was a joy to go to the fountain, sit in the spray and watch people play, rest, and rejuvenate with and in the water.

We are following couples as they through-hike the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. They plan their days according to their water sources. There are water-less stretches that are made do-able only because a trail-angel maintains a cache of water for the hikers.

Trail-angels, people who, for no other reason than having the satisfaction of helping ease the journey of others, give me hope. They bring respite, perhaps because someone in their past did it for them and it mattered. They make difficult passages do-able. Sometimes they provide a ride into town. They look for opportunities to help. They are the rain when rain is nowhere to be found.

Isn’t that grace? Rain meeting earth? Angel meeting a need, providing water so a thirsty traveler might drink and continue walking?

Grace on the album Right Now

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

read Kerri’s blog post about WATER

grace/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, Heroes, KS Friday, Metaphor, Play | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Break [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 13, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Before we went to sleep last night we took Dogga to the car and sat in the air conditioning for half an hour. He needed a break from the heat and humidity. We needed it, too.

I’ve been working in the basement. It’s been so humid that my fingers stick to the track pad on my computer. On a Zoom call I was sharing a screen and Skip said-more-than-asked, “What are you doing!” I can be clumsy and inept without sticky fingers and sweat running into my eyes so it must have been a riot trying to follow my staccato presentation. And, let’s not talk about diminished brain function in heavy air and intense heat. My synapses fire in slow motion, if at all.

Sometime in the night the air cooled. We knew it was coming. Our conversations have been about holding on until Thursday night. “It’s going to break,” we promised each other. “It’s going to break,” we’d tell the dog.

On Monday, in the midst of yet-another-down pour, with water gushing up from the floor drains in the basement, ankle deep in water with shop vacs humming, running buckets of water up the stairs and out into the rain, Kerri stopped and said, “I think we’re handling this pretty well.”

It’s going to break. We are handling it pretty well. “Arranging the furniture in our mind,” as we read this morning, “to create a space of happiness.” Yes. Expect it. Create it. The water is up to our ankles so we might as well splash and have some fun.

Our wet humid world has exploded in tones of green. The grasses grow by the minute. The weeds, too.

That morning someday, full of hope in our expectation. Today, full of hope, because it is our expectation.

Sitting in the car last night, on “errands” to nowhere, the car idling, we were finally cool. DogDog walked slow circles in the back and then poked his head between the seats for a pet. “I’m not sure it gets any better than this,” I thought but did not say.

Sometime in the night, the air cooled. We knew it was coming.

That Morning Someday on Kerri’s album Blueprint For My Soul

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

read Kerri’s blog post on TALL GRASSES

that morning someday/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1997 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Consider The Revelation Necessary [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 23, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

An exercise that is designed for generic failure is also designed for specific success. And, so it is with the bridge. The instruction is simple: get everyone safely across the space. If anyone touches the floor, all must go back. Invariably, the first attempt is an abject failure. The group ignores the word “everyone” and, instead, opts to try and get themselves safely across the space. They believe the game is about them, that “winning” is a singular affair.

After being sent back to the beginning more than once, they come to a spectacular yet inevitable innovation: if they work together, crossing the space will be easy. It is only a matter of moments after their revelation that they, together, construct a secure bridge and are all safely standing on the other side of the room. Specific success wrought from generic failure. And, once they have their realization, they cling to it. They own it. They must, the stakes are raised, the rules are tipped against them during the ensuing phases of the exercise.

I’ve led this exercise hundreds of times. Every single time the group has the necessary revelation. They are not in the game alone. They can only “win” if they join together. If they build it together, everyone will safely cross the space. It gives me hope.

Last night, during the town hall, President Biden said something that ought to slap us from our divisive stupor. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin believe the 21st century belongs to the autocrats. The pace of change is moving too fast and democracies, in their divisiveness, move too slow. So far, we are proving them right.

Once, as an experiment, rather than set the challenge of the bridge, I forced the answer. The group did as I said but collapsed in the ensuing rounds. When I raised the stakes, the people gave up. The harder it got, the less they tried. They coalesced in apathy. They never made it across the bridge again, even though they knew how to build it.

This is what the autocrats do not understand. There is no ownership, no game, in a forced answer [educators could pay attention to this simple rule, too].

We are being divided through titanic campaigns of misinformation. And so, no one will make it safely across this time-space. Generic failure. Wade Davis wrote that we now live in a failed state and, so far, we are proving him right. But I have hope. The necessary revelation, the specific success, bubbles in the frustration. Those stoking the division, feeding fear, will have their day but, in the long run, the lie collapses, people join together and, like a prayer flag, build a bridge to ensure that all make it safely across. They recognize that they are not in this game alone. Winning is hollow if half the team is lost in the process.

This game, the bridge. The necessary revelation is in our nature; nature’s prayer flag. It gives me hope.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about NATURE’S PRAYER FLAG

hope/this season ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Creativity, Edges, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Take The Time [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

To see takes time.

Desi has been teaching us to see. She sits on the table in a clay pot. We join her at the table every evening to sip a glass of wine, watch the light wane, the robins and cardinals dart across the yard, debrief the day. We’ve been watching Desi all winter, spending time with her. Watching.

Truth be told, I did not expect Desi to live long in her pot. She’s seemingly so fragile, her “trunk” no wider than a sewing needle. And yet, throughout the winter, her robust green needles never yellowed. She thrived, verdant in her unlikely home.

Kerri talks to Desi more than I do. I’m the silent male but I regularly send her my good thoughts. She regularly reciprocates. Kerri and Desi can carry on for quite awhile about nothing in particular. Soil. Water. Warm days. Pine-tree-talk. Hope.

Hope. A few weeks ago, Desi stood taller. New tender sprouts pressed from nowhere , tiny arms reaching for the sun. We celebrated Desi’s new heights. We encourage her to keep going – and she does! Now, each evening, first thing when we sit at the table, we spend time ‘seeing’ Desi.

In a hard pandemic time she lightens our spirits. She cares nothing for the news cycle or the ridiculous foibles of bipeds and we find that refreshing. Most of all, if, for a moment, we forget that we are surrounded by hope – it’s everywhere – we take a moment or two and have a sit-down-visit with Desi. We take the time to see what is always right in front of our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog post about DESI

Filed under: Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Wiggle And Be Warm [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!” ~ Thomas Nashe, Spring, Sweet Spring

“It’s not possible,” we said in unison. For weeks, the temperatures were bitter cold. The mound of snow at the end of our driveway was as tall as I am. The sun finally emerged. We pulled on our snow pants, our heavy boots, and walked into the snow-shocked world. Rounding the corner by the dentist’s office, at the base of the south facing wall, through a patch of cold wet earth surrounded by mounds of ice and snow, tender shoots of green were breaking through, reaching for the warmth. Daffodils. Spring.

We stood staring as if slapped. It was as if we had rounded the corner and come face-to-face with alien hope, something we thought existed only in some distant future, a Hallmark promise of light in the darkest of winters. Yet, there it was, tenacious and tender, a harbinger of Persephone’s return to the sweet surface of the earth. “I have to take a picture,” Kerri whispered, as I broke into a spontaneous sun dance. Passing motorists stared at the lady climbing into the bushes and the wiggling crazy man.

I felt as if I suddenly held a precious secret. I did a slow 360 degree turn and saw only winter, winter, winter. Cold, frozen, frigid, freezing, ice damming, black ice, snow plow, sand and salt world with people puffed out and covered in too many layers to please-god-stay-warm. And, in the middle of it all, a tiny patch of promise. A force greater than despair or depression or pandemic fatigue. Life.

We stayed just long enough to make sure it wasn’t a mirage, linked arms and set course for home. Cold fingers but warm in our core.

As we trudged home, breaking trail in snow, I thought of a small piece by Ellsworth Kelly. He pasted a chunk of warm yellow on a postcard image, a Japanese print. He called it “Spring (Yellow curve).” A shock of yellow completely out of place yet transforming the entire world. I imagine, one day, he took a walk in the bitter cold and saw a shock of yellow blowing through the soil. So out of character yet so welcome. Spring. Yellow curve. “Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!”

read Kerri’s blog post about SPRING?

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

Welcome A New Day [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 20, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

An old dream. A new day. Enough said.

Filed under: Possibility, Power | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Pursue The Quiet [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

If I were going to write an autobiography I’d call it IN PURSUIT OF QUIET. Drawing has always quieted my mind. The simple act of descending the stairs into my studio has the same effect. I’ve learned that it is not the picture on the page or the image on the canvas that I’m chasing, it is the quiet mind I enjoy.

When I was a teenager, Mahlon and I drove into the mountains, hiked through the snow and set up camp. It was so quiet, the cold wind whispering through the treetops, the only meaningful voice in the conversation.

During the first winter that Kerri and I spent together, the snow was a siren call. We had to go into it. More than once, late at night, we’d bundle up and walk and walk and walk. The sound of our feet crunching newly fallen snow, the wind off the lake – no words necessary.

I reread what I wrote on this day last year, the first day of the new year. I vilified the previous year. I spouted hope for a better year to come. I know better now. It’s best to be quiet. It’s best to reserve judgment, to stay far away from “should-be” or “might-have-been.” It’s best to stand on the back deck, face to the sky, feel the flakes hit my face, and appreciate…all of it. Every last bit of it.

read Kerri’s blog post about SNOW WHISPERS

find Kerri’s albums on iTunes

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Chase Out The Spirit [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 31, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Let’s just call it intentional superstition. With apologies to DogDog and BabyCat, at midnight tonight, we will fling open the back door and bang big pots and chase all of those bad 2020 spirits away. And then, we will rush to front door and open it to let in the new good spirits of 2021. It makes no difference whether the good spirits or bad spirits actually exist, whether the ritual is ridiculous or not. It makes no difference. We want 2020 out of the house. We want to invite some positive change into our lives. We’ll do whatever it takes.

2020 made me feel like Lieutenant Dan strapped to the mast of the shrimping boat shouting at the storm. Bring it on. It’s you and me! 2020 was a violent storm. It was a reckoning. It is a reckoning.

We know there will be a new day. Calm waters. Peace. This storm will pass. Perhaps with banging our pots and flinging open our doors we can speed it up a bit.

Years ago I had a student who was about to boil over. I bought a box of ceramic plates for him at the thrift store. We took them out back and he hurled them at the brick wall. At first he was timid. And then the storm took him and he smashed plates and screamed at the universe and wept. And then he laughed and laughed and laughed.

We are at the laughing stage of things. Thus, intentional superstition. Imagined causation. 2020 has been utterly irrational so why can’t we meet it on its own ground? Play by its rules? Fear the big pot, 2020!

We just changed our menu. Kerri read a list of Irish folk wisdom for the new year. It recommends pork. Pork it is. Black-eyed peas. Great! Also, if you have red hair, we will not let you over the threshold until someone with dark hair enters. Sorry about that. Our Celtic magic must be honored. There’s a good-and-ancient-story in there somewhere but we don’t really care what it is.

Goodbye 2020. See ya’. So long.

read Kerri’s blog post about 2020-BE-GONE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor, Random | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Ponder Before Turning [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today is Thanksgiving Day in these sometimes-united-states. As a master of understatement and friend of Captain Obvious, I would like to suggest that this Thanksgiving is like no other.

Many of us are in quarantine so we cannot gather. In fact, with COVID-19 raging, the most loving and responsible thing we can do is NOT gather. Family relationships are strained as we peer at each other across the red/blue reality divide. Many of us have lost our jobs – all of them – so the traditional horn-of-plenty is a slightly frightening empty bucket. Thousands of us are queuing at the food banks. Homes are lost, evictions abound. Many are grieving the over quarter-million lives (so far) lost to the pandemic.

And yet…

If I understand my history, this 2020 Thanksgiving is more like the original 1621 version than our usual remembrance. Theirs was a celebration of survival. More than half of the people who arrived the previous year to establish a colony had perished. A hard winter and a raging epidemic took a heavy toll. That very first day of thanks encompassed the grief of loss as well as the gratitude for living to see another day. A successful harvest meant they had a slightly better chance of making it through the coming winter. Can you imagine their exhaustion?

Hope, no matter how dim, provides the necessary fuel of dogged perseverance.

Hope. Belief in the promise of a better day. Imagination sets sail on the seas of the unknown, following the guide star of renewal. Making it through, surviving to see a time of abundant harvest.

So, today, we take a moment, a day. Colonists awash in apprehension. We take a breath. We look back, we know that there is no going back. We grieve what is lost. We ponder how we got here. We take another breath, a day of rest and gratitude before turning to face the realities of rampant uncertainty. We wonder how we can do better. We fill our tanks with hope, knowing that tomorrow we will arise, look forward, and take a single-first-next step.

Sometimes a single-first-next step is as far as we can see.

read Kerri’s blog post on PONDERING LIFE

chicken marsala ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Walk In Circles [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

The breeze like a puppeteer had the trees waving their limbs so the leaves whirled down all around us. It was a moment of trail magic, the kind that stops all inner-thought-rambling and pulls you to the surface, into full presence and delight.

Life lived in circle-time is much more gentle than the hard-time line we are accustomed to embracing. That is why we walk. We leave the line and step into the circle. Precisely because the circle goes nowhere and can only arrive at here. It pops like a soap bubble the illusion that life might be found elsewhere. The leaves rain down. Life is here. It is autumn again. It is familiar and mysterious, both.

It is very possible to think that life passes, a mile marker on a road. It is equally as possible to experience life as a single moment, the center of a cycle. Both/And. I will pass but the cycle will remain.

When I am on the line I cease seeing the full spectrum of color because my mind is blending the miracle into an elsewhere. When I am in the circle, the spectrum of color explodes, greens in yellow, warm purples and cool blue.

The line pulls life out of me. The circle fills me up. It is why we walk the trails, to refill.

The Ditch Trail in Colorado. The aspens radiant in orange and yellow. Snow was clinging to the shadows. Vibrant green grasses. “Concurrent seasons,” Kerri said, as she stooped to snap the photograph. There was water rushing in the distance, wind quaking the tree tops. The sun warmed my bones. “This is what hope feels like,” I whispered to no one, eyes closed, face to the sun.

“I don’t want to leave this place,” Kerri said, completely captured by the sense of her senses. Refreshed.

“Me, either.” Color popping and hopping all around me.

read Kerri’s blog post about CONCURRENT SEASONS

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Gratitude, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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