hope | The Direction of Intention

Become The Raft [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 29, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was during Covid that we started calling it “The Raft”. Our warm bed. With two broken wrists, all jobs lost and no work to be found, the heat turned down to save a penny, we felt like we were hanging on for dear life, afloat in the turbulent waters of the spinning universe on our tiny refuge. With Dogga asleep at our feet, we searched the horizon for hope, we launched our messages-in-a-bottle.

Our raft. It was one of the few places we felt safe and warm. Comforted. It was, during those scary and chaotic times, with the world in isolation, a haven where we might approach making sense of the senselessness. And, we survived.

I feel as if we are now back on the raft. The adults have left the capitol and the feckless man, the same nincompoop who suggested that we ingest bleach as a cure for Covid is now shoving Project 2025 down our throats – the ultimate aim is a Christian Nationalist Authoritarian State, a fate for our democracy that is far worse than swallowing bleach. He has returned with his clown car of bad clowns. Incompetents all, picked for their dull loyalty rather than their knowledge, experience or expertise. They know nothing of governing, or of creating or of problem-solving; they are solely capable of destroying.

Afloat on the raft we know that this time there is no refuge. There is no bubble thick enough to protect us from the virus that now infects our nation. There is no vaccine capable of minimizing the damage. There is no shot of courage available to legislators who have lost their moral compass and abandoned their spines along with their oath to protect the Constitution.

The isolation that helped saved us from Covid will now harm us. Of course, we necessarily practice social distancing from those contaminated by maga and made stupid by the fox but for the rest of us, the vast majority of the nation, we will eventually need to step outside, find each other, lock arms and become the raft for one another.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE QUILT

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, comfort, community, Constitution, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, expertise, governance, hope, isolation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, refuge, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness | 3 Comments »

Spell-Words [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 27, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Wow. Siri so easily sent to us something that Kerri and I are struggling to send: good vibes. Warm little boosts of joy and confidence.

A few months ago I started writing a picture-book featuring Chicken Marsala, our imaginary child who pops in at inopportune moments. The struggle to send warm-boosts-of-joy in the midst of a national dumpster fire brought this Chicken-snippet to mind:

I confess. I am sometimes hard on myself. On a day that I was feeling particularly hopeless, Chicken appeared behind me, mimicking my gloomy face and sad posture. His arrival startled me. I was about to shout at him not to scare me like that, but then I recognized myself in his sullen rendition. It made me laugh. “I don’t look like that!” I protested. He giggled and I have to say, as a side note, that his giggle always kills me. He giggles like a chipmunk. At least that’s what it sounds like to me. “Adorable!” as K-Dot says.

Later I thanked him for helping me lift the dark cloud on my brain. “Everyone should have a Chicken that arrives just in the nick of time to the break the dark spell!” I said.

“What’s a spell?” he asked, not at all interested in my gratitude.

“Well, it’s a kind of magic,” I said.

“Magic?” he asked, alarmed and confused. “Magic made you feel bad?”

“A spell is magic made of words,” I tried to explain. “And sometimes words make people feel bad.”

“Who made spell-words on you?” he asked, alarmed.

I admitted, “I guess I did.”

There’s a distinction between the spell-words we cast on ourselves and the spell-words cast upon us by others. By media. How else do we explain maga-mind other than as a spell cast on otherwise good people by a pathological liar, magnified by a malicious fox? How else do we make sense of those who voted for the nation’s suicide all the while proclaiming themselves as the saviors of democracy?

I would love to send you warm little boosts of joy and confidence. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I will continue to ask my angry fearful brothers and sisters across this land to consider the question Chicken asked me: “Who made spell-words on you?”

Like Chicken, I am alarmed.

“Everyone should have a Chicken that arrives just in the nick of time to the break the dark spell!”

read Kerri’s blogpost about SIRI

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Filed under: Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Power | Tagged: artistry, chicken marsala, confidence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, good vibes, hope, hopeless, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, magic, Siri, spells, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

A Legacy of Hope [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tom was concerned with what would become of the ranch after he was gone. His concern was not the land so much as the family legacy. He felt as if he was the last, the keeper of the history. Who might carry the story forward? Who will re-member the steps walked by his ancestors?

I was moved to tears when the Balinese explained to me that, according to their belief, every child born was an ancestor returned. After seven generations, the ancestor comes back wearing the funny new face of the infant descendant. The important point is this: A community makes fundamentally different choices when they understand that the earth they leave behind is the earth that they will also inherit. The ancestor attends to the descendant because the descendant is the ancestor.

Through a translator, the Chinese master-acupuncturist explained to the students that the challenge he perceived in them was that they were rootless. The U.S. culture too easily plows under the sacred to erect a mall. We have very little connection to, understanding of, or respect for the past. He explained that eyes blinded by the shiny-new or obsessed with the algorithm will never access the ancient art of healing a human being. The whole being. With so little concern for what came before there is little awareness or care of the tracks made by marching forward. How is it possible to help balance the health of others when the healer is rootless and unaware of the impact of their actions?

“But what do we do?” It is the ubiquitous question asked by those who reject the malice and indecency that recently swept into power in the USA. The question thrust me back into the single challenge I faced as a DEI consultant: my clients were protected against the very thing that might help them. They wanted a solution – a fix – and saw no value in attending to relationships. The gods of efficiency and effectiveness had no time to waste. Eyes would roll when we suggested that they cease trying to fix problems. They’d panic when we proffered that a to-do list would never create the better culture they envisioned. In fact, it would prevent it. Cultivating “the space between,” paying attention to the quality of the relationships, would bring about the transformation they desired: a culture of mutual support grown from a history of ugly division.

This morning I was struggling to articulate my thought and Kerri stopped my mind-wander with this encapsulation: “What you are trying to say is that It’s not solution-based. It’s process-based.” Yes. Exactly.

“Solution-based” focuses exclusively on what-we-do. It is transactional and, after all, isn’t that the epicenter of what ails us as a nation? If the prevailing philosophy is the-ends-are-worth-the-means, then lying, cheating, grifting, demeaning, debasing, bullying are acceptable behaviors. We are currently witness to the amorality of attainment-of-power-by-any-means. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or why. No one in power cares about the legacy, the traces left behind. Rootless. Unethical. Out of balance.

“Process-based” is concerned with who-we-are. Together. The opposite of transactional is transformational. Mutual support. Reinforcing connection. Paying attention to the growth of the whole as a means of attending to the growth of the individual. It’s a radically different philosophy in which the ends-are-the-means. Actions matter. Words matter. Choices matter. Roots matter. The legacy, the tracks we leave behind, matters.

And so we ask the question, “But what do we do?” We speak out. We use our voices for good. We begin by looking to the legacy of hope those who came before us left for us to follow. Perhaps we begin by linking arms, focusing on the space between, and continuing a legacy of hope and courage for future generations to follow.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRACES WE LEAVE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: ancestors, artistry, balance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, legacy, process, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, the space between, transaction, transformation | 5 Comments »

Upside Down and Wide Open [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on January 3, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Years ago I had a dream. It was visceral and has stuck with me. In my dream the world flipped upside-down. What was heavy was now light. What was difficult became easy. And vice-versa. What I once did effortlessly was suddenly impossible. I could move a mountain but I could not lift a paintbrush. I awoke from my dream both frightened and enthralled.

What is possible? What is impossible? These are good questions to ask on the threshold of a new year. Earlier this week I sat down to write some intentions for the new year and the page is still blank. I’ve decided it is best to leave the possibilities wide open. A blank page has become my intention.

This morning a quote by Noam Chomsky rolled across my screen: “If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope.”

I was entering 2025 with a sense of dread and then, in a matter of 24 hours, my picture for what’s possible completely flipped over. An unreachable opportunity sparked a series of heart-conversations. My heavy dread dissipated like fog meeting a warming sun. My eyes refocused on the essential instead of the periphery. I stepped across the dateline filled with hope.

Sometimes, when you least expect it, mountains move. Sometimes the world flips over. Sometimes dreams come true.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about REFLECTIONS

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Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, assumptions, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dream, dreams, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, noam chomsky, opportunity, possibility, possible, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Plenty Of Time [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on December 28, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Time with others. That’s the point, isn’t it?

From all of us at the headquarters of Smack-Dab International, we wish you plenty of time with those you love in 2025.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TIME WITH OTHERS

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, cartoon, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gift, holidays, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age cartoon, New Year, New Years Eve, story, studio melange, the melange, time with others, two artists, wish | 1 Comment »

The Seed Of Hope [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Years ago, after watching a workshop production of Romeo & Juliet performed by actors who were in their teens – the age of Romeo & Juliet – our post-play discussion touched on a truism: when you are young, everything seems eternal. If you are in pain, it is forever. If you are in bliss, it is all-consuming. The young lovers, once in pain, felt that they had no other path but to end their pain.

Long life teaches that nothing is forever. Just wait awhile and hope will come skipping around the bend.

In the cycle of the year, these dark winter days are made celebratory by the ever-so-slight return of the light. For generations, people have gathered to honor the promise of future warmth. Hope will soon have buds appear on barren branches.

Some folks-on-earth believe that their act of gathering, performing their ritual, invokes the return of light. They are participants and not mere observers. They are stewards of life rather than consumers of resource.

It’s an interesting exercise. Try it. Tonight, when you light your candles, imagine for a moment that your action matters. It is not merely beautiful.

Imagine, in the moment of touching match to wick, that you are a bringer of light. Imagine that the earth hears and responds to the songs that you sing or that the sun is listening to your heart. Imagine that you are a keeper-of-the-seed-of-hope and, with the magnifying power of family, friends, and community, together, you have to power to reawaken the spring.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WINTER

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eternal, gather, heart, holiday, hope, imagine, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mattering, ritual, solstice, spring, story, studio melange, the melange, winter | Leave a comment »

Use The Discrepancy [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Every once in a while I flip open one of my well-loved-and-well-worn books to a random page and read a few paragraphs. It’s my way of giving this wise-old universe the opportunity to drop a pertinent message on me. What tidbit of wisdom might I need to hear today?

Yesterday I opened Robert Fritz’s book, The Path Of Least Resistance, and began reading about discrepancy: what is the difference between where you are right now and what you want to create? I read that most people try to remove or deny their discrepancies. They try to eliminate the tension. Artists, on the other hand, understand their discrepancies as fuel. Creative tension. Discrepancy ignites the imagination. The last thing an artist wants to do is blunt their imagination, deny the discrepancy. An artist uses it. It’s a “process focus” rather than an “achievement focus”.

At the stop sign she stopped just shy of the bumper of the car in front of us, pulled out her camera and snapped a photo of the sticker on the window: I hope something good happens to you today. “Now that’s refreshing,” she said. In our travels we see plenty of aggressive bumper messages. Almost daily Kerri asks, “Why would they put THAT on their car? Jeeeeez!”

A wish for something good to happen to you. Today. What is the distance between us-as-a-nation right now, in this very dark moment, and a community that actually hopes for something good to happen to and for everyone? Can you imagine it? Walking in the world with a hope in your heart for good things to happen to everyone you meet, to everyone whose path you cross?

It is an understatement to suggest that there’s quite a discrepancy between what-is and what-could-be. There is a veritable chasm between the incoming angry nightmare and those who voted for hope, decency and kindness. And so it’s a vital time to be an artist. There’s rarely been a time more in need of imagination to counter the backward-looking-conservative-fascist-fantasy.

There’s plenty of fuel for the imagination borne of our massive discrepancy. Hoping for something good to happen to you today – whoever you are – is a great place to start.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SOMETHING GOOD

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, creative tension, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discrepancy, focus, goodness, hope, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, process, Robert Fritz, story, studio melange, the melange, the path of least resistance | 2 Comments »

A Joining With [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on December 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I had a minor revelation (again) while we were working on this cartoon. What’s the question we ask when we go to the dictionary to look up a word? We ask, “What does it mean?” The operative word is “it”.

English speakers are bound by the word “it.” “It” magically, unconsciously, turns everything into an object. A thing. A thing to be pursued, chased, grasped. Found. Possessed. Bought. Sold.

Hope. Happiness. Kindness. Aspiration. Desire. Yearning…Love.

And what if “it” can’t be found or bought? What if “it” can only be tended, nurtured, like a flame? What if “it” can only be shared. Felt. What if “it” wasn’t a “thing” – an object – at all? What if “it” isn’t a transaction?What if “it” is a warmth? What then?

Is it possible for me to give you hope? Or is it more likely that hope is how we experience the sunrise after a cold dark night? A dawning both inside and out. A joining with…

Regardless of what our language might lead us to believe, hope, like love, is a how, not a what.

I know this: if we could find “it” and wrap “it” and give “it”, we would. Our hope for this season? That “it” finds you.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUYING HOPE

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Filed under: Language, smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, aspiration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, feeling, gift, gift giving, happiness, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, language, story, studio melange, the melange, yearning | 4 Comments »

Sit Down And Be Lost [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It always happens this time of year. We jump on a trail in the early afternoon thinking we have plenty of time and are caught completely off guard when the sun sets. “What time is it?” we ask in our annual ritual of amazement. It is always earlier – much earlier – than we think. “It’s not even happy hour!” we declare, walking in the dark, as if the great-gods-of-daylight might not have fully considered the impact on happy hour before they magically turned the dial and made 4:30pm feel like midnight.

This fall we feel particularly out of sync with time. We lost the month of October to Covid. We feel as if Covid was a portal into the Twilight Zone: we entered the month with hope and health and by the time we emerged from our sickness, it was the middle of November and the world was completely changed. Darker. It feels a bit Rip-Van-Winkle-ish.

Rob once told me when I felt lost in the woods, that the best thing to do was sit down and be still. Not to panic or walk in circles. To surrender trying-to-be-found. “Sit down and be lost. Relax and pay attention,” he wrote, “then maybe a direction will reveal itself to you.”

It was sage advice and even more so in the current darkness descending on our nation. On one level, we are preparing for the storm of chaos and indecency coming down the pike. On another level, feeling lost and confused with the national inversion of dignity and civility, we are choosing to sit down. We are choosing to be lost. It is more useful, now that the initial disgust and disbelief is past, to relax and pay attention.

For all of us who value the promise of the ideal beating at the heart of our Constitution, now threatened by thuggery and incompetence, it is our belief that a direction will reveal itself.

In the meantime, we surrender trying to be found. In the meantime, we hold firmly to each other and our hope…

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOST IN THE WOODS

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, confusion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, direction, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lost, pay attention, story, studio melange, surrender, the melange | 1 Comment »

Something To Hold Onto [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like this wisp, I thought, when she said, “We are all looking for something to hold onto.” We were walking the trail, still trying to process the results of the election. Reeling. The wisp was an apt image. We are at the mercy of the wind. She added, “Maybe that is what we need to offer in what we write. Something to hold onto.”

Something to hold onto. Yes. But not just anything. I suspect the people who latched onto maga were looking for something to hold onto. Their anger made them grasp the grifter. They coalesced around a petty swindler who preys on their frailty, spins their blind rage into misplaced hatred. Even though he makes them promises, they will find that there is no salvation on this path. There is no magic potion. He will empty their pockets – ours, too – and vanish from sight, blaming everything under the sun except for himself for the wreckage he leaves behind.

Something to hold onto. I’ve been heartened by those in our circle, like us, unplugging from media, detaching from family and friends who voted for the felon and fascism. Detaching from what can no longer be trusted. Stepping away from what has become toxic, unsafe. There’s clarity in this sweeping discernment. An unambiguous line. A re-dedication to honoring and protecting simple verifiable truth and guarding decency as our common ground.

This week I’ve had multiple conversations about the difference between purpose and filling time. We’re comparing strategies for staying healthy amidst the national dis-ease. From “Reading every book I’ve ever wanted to read,” to “Completing every home improvement project I’ve been putting off,” it’s more than simply staying occupied to avoid the pull of the doom-scroll, the call of the train wreck; it’s strategies for staying mentally and spiritually healthy through the coming wasteland. In each conversation there is this: a renewed focus on relationships. Reaching out with hope and support to the others who refuse to relinquish the unambiguous line.

Something to hold onto. We’ve spent the past few weeks, like King Lear, raging at the sky, shaking our heads in utter disbelief. A necessary phase I will call grief. So, as our nation wrestles with its ugly shadow, we hold onto the slim hope that this is how, like a snake, we shed our ugly-too-small-skin. We hope that, after the coming storm, we survive and step back into the sun, survey the wreckage, and ask, “How can we rebuild so that this never-ever happens again?”

It is something to hold onto.