The Source [David’s blog on KS Friday]

A meme flew by. It used the events of last Saturday to illuminate two different ideas of masculinity. The first as demonstrated by Alex Pretti, a man trying to help a woman who was just shoved to the ground. He stood between the woman and her attacker. The second model of masculinity was demonstrated by the ICE-men who tackled, beat and murdered Alex Pretti.

After the meme flew by I wished that I could amend it. For me it did not illuminate two models of masculinity, rather, it made a clear distinction between a man and a beast, between a healthy human being and a rabid animal. It highlighted the difference between a good intention and a toxic drive.

Most hearts in the nation are heavy. Witnessing yet another execution in the streets by agents of the government – and then defended by the leaders all the way up to and including the authoritarian wannabe in the White House – has left us aghast. John Pavlovitz suggested that our heavy hearts are necessary; they are a sure sign of our humanity. They are fuel for our outrage.

Alex Pretti’s heavy heart required him to step into the streets of his city and video the brutality enacted upon his neighbors. Renee Good’s heavy heart did the same. Service to others is often an action inspired by a heavy heart. It takes a great deal of courage to stand between a masked thug and his victim. It takes great strength to video the abuse as if to say, “We see you and you will not get away with this”.

I opened The Marginalian this morning and read this: “Here is the mathematical logic of the spirit: If love is the quality of attention we pay something other than ourselves and hate is the veil of not understanding ourselves, then loving the world more — the other word for which is kindness — is largely a matter of deepening our awareness and sharpening our attention on both sides of the skin that membranes the self.”

Love is the quality of attention we pay something other than ourselves. Hate is the veil of not understanding ourselves. Hate is self-focused. Love is other-focused.

Democracy is by definition other-focused. Authoritarianism is by definition self-focused.

Our heavy hearts are propelling us into the streets. It just might be that our heavy hearts will be the necessary ingredient that saves our democracy from the rabid authoritarians. It just might be that our heavy hearts will propel us to stand between the self-centered oligarchy currently shoving Lady Liberty to the ground. Our heavy hearts do not make us weak. They are the source of our outrage and fuel for our courage.

WATERSHED on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HEART

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No Need [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

In their struggle for power, the princes, the two sons of the king, meet in battle and both die. It’s an ancient tale. Aesop could have written it. In the blind greed for power everyone loses.

I’ve tried to paint this analogy several times over the past decade. Each time I have been unsuccessful; the painting takes on a life of its own. Twice, instead of painting dead princes on the battlefield, both attempts morphed into Shared Fatherhood.

I tried again just before the turn of the new year. I am disgusted with both parties, democrats and republicans and tried again to paint the brothers dead on the battlefield. The meaningless loss.

Yet, once again, the lifeless bodies morphed. Their weapons and wounds disappeared. Clenched fists relaxed. Full of life, the figures embrace. They sleep together, peacefully.

I will not again try to paint the warring brothers. Clearly, my analogy for power-greed serves a greater invocation of generosity. Unselfishness. A shared cause, like a parent’s love for their child, a kindness for each other.

Invocation. The people protesting on the streets of Minneapolis are summoning peace. They are looking out for each other. They are standing in harm’s way for each other. They serve a cause greater than greed for power. They are teaching me what my paintings are trying to reach. A calling forth of the best in us. A desire for our representatives to serve a common center – democracy – instead of personal gain.

We walked the trail on a bitter cold day. The snow was frozen and crunched beneath or feet. It was quiet. The sun streamed through the trees and offered a touch of warmth. It never fails. When we step into nature and out of the noise, when we listen to the wind through the trees, spot the deer motionless in the tangle, when we stop to feel the sun touch us on a bitter cold day, I know beneath the greed for power there is a greater force, a deeper meaning. Two people sharing the joy of their child. Two people resting in the comfort of an embrace. A community in service to common good. The generosity of peace. The creation of peace.

These power-mongers will slay each other. It’s inevitable.

After so many attempts I’ve learned that I have no need to paint the obvious, I have no need to make a statement as old and evident as the sons of Oedipus.

Untitled, 33.25″x60″, mixed media

Shared Fatherhood II, 25.25 x 40.25IN, mixed media

Shared Fatherhood 1, 39 x 51IN, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN ON TRAIL

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

We spent the morning watching dog adoption videos. There’s nothing like watching the explosion of love from a forlorn and forgotten pooch finding a home to remind us of the good in the world. It was an intentional diversion. We were exhausted from the immorality and incompetence of the current administration, the blatant lies sold whole cloth as truth.

Last night Mark Elias cautioned his viewers to stop pretending that we are on the road to authoritarianism. “We are already there,” he said.

During the summer months we walk the bridge spanning the Des Plaines River so we can watch the turtles. They crawl onto the banks and fallen trees to soak up the sun. At first glance they are not easy to spot. We know where they congregate so we take the time necessary to locate them. In the winter we visit the bridge to marvel at the changing contours of the frozen river. Stand on the bridge long enough and what seems barren soon reveals abundant life. Actually, the signs of abundant life don’t magically appear, rather, our eyes adjust, moving beyond our barren expectation so we can see what was actually there all along.

In her latest installment Heather Cox Richardson recounts how Abraham Lincoln met the near authoritarian takeover of the nation by the Southern Democrats. “We’ve been here before,” Kerri said, adding, “We seem incapable of dealing with the problem,” I thought but did not say, “It seems we just kicked the can down the road.”

I am lately haunted by a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti:It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

I wonder what it would take for us, for this generation, to deal once-and-for-all with the ugly white supremacy, a remnant of colonialism, so tightly woven into our nation’s history? It is our disease and we are currently testing whether or not our disease is fatal or can be treated. Can we be cured in mind, body and spirit? Can we grow beyond our dedicated and persistent division? What if we refuse to kick the can down the road?

What is required to close the gap in our rhetoric so that when we utter the word “equality”or speak the phrase, “Freedom and justice for all” – we actually mean ALL THE PEOPLE. Unconditionally. Is it so hard to imagine that the words, “We The People,” so sacred in our story, might apply equally to ALL of the people?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE RIVER

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The Full Realization [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Recently, as she signs-off her video updates, Heather Cox Richardson reminds her audience to “take care of yourselves.” To eat well. To get plenty of rest. The times are extraordinary. “It will get worse before it gets better.”

We live in interesting times and they are getting worse.

We watched much of Jack Smith’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. As I watched I had a sad realization or perhaps I finally admitted to myself what I already knew: the republicans will never stand up. There is no line in the sand for them; there is no lie too big to spew, no violation to the Constitution too egregious or corruption too appalling to embrace. There is no honor in their intention. There is no oath that they intend to honor.

In fairness, I am not totally correct. Cicero wrote that there is “Honor among thieves”. Criminals have codes; they are loyal to their fellow criminals. Watching the republican loyalty to their criminal-in-chief, I suppose that is a form of honor, no matter how sordid. I want to tell Cicero that some things never change.

Kate told us that she is having trouble sleeping. I’m hearing the same sentiment from many in my circle. She lives in Minneapolis. She is not viewing ICE through a screen. It’s more than a report on the news. It’s visceral. It’s hard to sleep when your neighbors are being executed or “disappeared”. In fact, I’d suggest that sleeplessness in the face of brutality enacted upon your community is a sign of an intact-morality. It’s an indication of a moral conscience.

Taking care of yourself – resting – is only possible when there is no doubt that others in the community are capable of resting, too. When masked thugs are busting down your neighbor’s doors – without a warrant – when 5 year olds are being arrested as the-worst-of-the-worst, when citizens are being murdered on the street, it is damn hard to sleep.

It’s been too cold for us to walk the trails. Walking is one of our main strategies for taking care of ourselves. And, truth be told, even when we manage to bundle up and hit the trail, we’re finding it harder and harder to escape the cold realities of ICE and full realization that the thieves in the republican congress reserve their loyalty – only – for themselves. It’s an exclusive club.

“It will get worse before it gets better.” Eat well. Get plenty of rest if you can. It seems that we are going to need it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about The Trail

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Our Moment [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Last night we heard a pundit say, “As Minnesota goes, so goes the rest of the nation.” It’s true. If the ICE gestapo brutalizes Minnesota into authoritarian submission without consequence, it will only be a matter of time before this ruthless regime wages war on the rest of the nation. Minnesota is our Ukraine.

As Minnesota goes, so goes the rest of the nation. In the face of this masked brutality, the best impulse of humanity is rising. The community is coalescing. People are showing up to serve and to protect their neighbors. The leaders of the state are encouraging peaceful protest. The leaders of the state are calling out the blatant lies of a sadistic administration run amok. The people are meeting the ICE gestapo in the streets demanding the return to the rule of law in the face of the government’s institutionalized lawlessness.

Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis said, “This is our moment…to meet a whole lot of hate with a whole lot of love.”

Love need not be soft. Love sometimes looks like a person unwilling to sit quietly as injustice invades their neighborhood. Love stands before a masked and armed thug and blows a whistle. Love bears witness, holding high their camera, to record a government-paid-rabble piling onto an unarmed person, pulling frightened people from their cars, gassing families in their minivans, hauling undressed elders from their home into the frigid morning. Love conceals and drives people to work. Love delivers food to people afraid to leave their houses. Love refuses to surrender personal and communal sovereignty to the assault on freedom. Love rejects the manufactured divisions of the hatemongers and race-baiters currently leading the nation and justifying cruelty.

This is our moment. Either love or hate will rule the day. As Minnesota goes, so goes the rest of the nation and Minnesota gives me hope. A whole lot of love is rising to meet the masked purveyors of hate.

*****

I wrote this post days before the masked thugs of the United States executed Alex Pretti on a street in Minneapolis for exercising his first amendment right – and then attempted to brand him as the terrorist in the story because he was exercising his second amendment right. Their message to us is clear: fear your government. Be quiet. Their message is hate-full. For Alex Pretti, for Renee Good, and all of those who, in the face of this fear, continue exercising their rights, know that there is now no greater act of love than standing up for our neighbors, for our rights. The people in Minneapolis are our neighbors. The rights under assault are our rights. There can be no greater act of love than standing up for them and with them. The time for meeting hate with love is urgent. We are out of time.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOVE

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Who Is Watching Whom? [Kerri’s blog on KS Friday]

To begin, let’s start with the term “Ant Farm”. It’s otherwise known as a formicarium, a container habitat that “approximates” a natural environment. It’s made of clear plastic or glass allowing us to watch the behavior of the ants, the social hierarchies, physical structures (like tunneling and chamber making), dynamics with the queen, the life cycles of the ant colony.

I wonder if the ants know that their farm is the approximation of a natural environment or if they carry on as they would in any old environment without witnesses and walls? Are we watching the ant adaptation to a thin-world-construct? Are we watching an ant performance?

I imagine we place ourselves much higher on the critter hierarchy pyramid than the ants. It brings to mind a quote from E.O. Wilson, a brilliant man who studied ants: “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

We are unique in our hubris. We are startling in our blindness.

These days it makes me wonder what larger consciousness plays witness to our behavior in our approximation of a natural environment. Doesn’t it sometimes feel like we are in a the subjects of an experiment? How many freedoms will we surrender, how many horrors will we tolerate before we challenge the unnatural delusion of supremacy? Would we rather erase ourselves than to recognize our natural interdependence? In the past 75 years in our ant farm, in an evolutionary step in consciousness, we’ve acknowledged our need for each other and created societal structures like NATO.

250 years ago an evolutionary idea took one giant step forward. It is called democracy in diversity, a society – an ideal – where the many participate together as one.

Will we step backwards into the fallacy of supremacy and collapse our farm? Will we thump our chests and erase ourselves? Or will we root out the diseased minds and delusional leaders, dismantle the false hierarchy and recognize our utter need for each other and our interdependence with our environment?

Who is watching whom?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ANT FARM


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These Bright Lights [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~ Plato

And aren’t we now witness to a real tragedy. A president and his party desperately afraid of the light of truth. They pretend bravado, they posture as leaders, all the while terrified of shining a light on the Epstein files. Their dance is a dance of distraction. Their abject fear of light shining on their darkness makes them monstrous. They throw shadows on the wall in an attempt to divert attention from the files.

We have “happy lights” strategically placed all over our house. During the dark days of winter these lights lift our spirits much as a campfire might if we were lost in the deep woods. Firelight repels shadow monsters. Happy lights repel sadness monsters. In the dark of early morning, after plugging in the coffee pot, I plug in the happy lights.

Plato wrote an allegory about prisoners’ chained in a cave. They mistake shadow for reality. One of the prisoners escapes and learns that the shadows are not the truth. He returns to the cave excited to share his discovery with the other prisoners and is met with hostile rejection. The others have grown accustomed to their chains and comfortable in their ignorance. It’s an allegory appropriate for MAGA and perfectly describes the propaganda-Fox casting shadow-monsters on the wall.

In Minneapolis and other cities, people of color are afraid to leave their houses. There are real monsters, masked and armed, roaming the streets. Although these monsters are not themselves shadows their minds are awash in them. Comfortable ignorance is a cancer that metastasizes as darkness in the heart. There are other people who do not fear the light, in fact they are bringers of the light, delivering groceries to the people in hiding, blowing whistles to alert the neighborhood of the presence of the monsters. They film the monsters. Their whistles and their cameras are forms of light. The sound is an alarm calling attention to the monsters, calling in the communal light. The cameras serve to lay bare the dark shadowy lies the monsters claim as truth.

I have hope that these bright lights will one day repel the masked monsters roaming the streets, monsters grown comfortable in their chains and ugly in their ignorance. Orks.

These bright lights, gathering together all across Minneapolis, the nation and the world, stoking the bright light of freedom and truth, will one day overwhelm the republican/authoritarian darkness and expose the ugliness that their leaders so desperately fear and work so hard to hide.

Helping Hands, 53.5 x 15.25IN, acrylic on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about HAPPY LIGHTS

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Just As It Is [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Thirteen years into our relationship, ten years after we said, “I do,” I learned something new and startling about Kerri: she used to be a woman who wore hats.

The woman I know refuses to put on a hat. She makes a wrinkly face when I suggest she try on a hat. Even in the bitter cold she resists the warmth of a stocking cap until frostbite is imminent. She is not a woman who wears hats. She is a woman who openly disparages herself-in-hats.

Imagine my surprise, then, when in the process of cleaning out her studio closet, she pulled out multiple hat boxes. In each box, was – wait for it – a delightful hat!

It must have been the look of shock on my face that propelled her to take a step back in time and model the hats. Donning the first hat she was instantly sassy. The next made her buoyant. She turned up the brim. She pushed a hat to the back of her head. She cocked one to the side. Each hat evoked an attitude. Each hat summoned a story. A performance. An event. A meeting. A fundraiser. A photo shoot…a playful spirit.

The hats liberated her like a mask liberates an actor. Each had a unique personality and the power to infuse her with its magic persona. I saw a bit of Diane Keaton, a shade of Audrey Hepburn. I laughed and clapped at each performance. I admired the power of the hats.

In time, the hats were restored to their boxes. The woman who does not wear hats returned. She told me that it was time to move them on, to sell or donate the hats. To make space.

When we first met, in a conversation about change, she told me that she believed people do not change, rather, they become more of who they are. The masks fall away. Time and experience erodes the fortress. The armor falls off. The hats return to their boxes. What remains is beautiful just as it is, just as it always has been.

*****

(Snark Alert) And then there’s this: if you are, like me, trying to make sense of the AWOL Republican party, there can only be one of these three options for their unwillingness to do their jobs and uphold their oath to the Constitution: 1) They all appear prominently in the Epstein Files. 2) They are like their leader: puppets for Putin. Or 3) They are stealth fascists who never really believed in Democracy in the first place and had no intention of serving the Constitution. To continue supporting this authoritarian madman is political suicide yet they remain silent and, therefore, complicit. They either already know that there will never again be free and fair elections so there’s no need to worry about their precious seat – or see numbers 1 through 3 above. What else? If you see any other explanation I’d love to hear it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HATS

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The Real World [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

It’s only been in the past year that I’ve regularly doubted what I write. More than once over these several months I have questioned the worth of my words – and then pulled my post. The scrubbed posts are political rants about injustice or hypocrisy or my disdain for the enablers of rising authoritarianism. It feels good to spew bile when being force fed so much toxic waste from the rancid remnants of the grand old party. But do I need to share it? After a bit of time and reflection I realize that my need was to rant, to get it out of my mind – but that does not mean you-out-there need to swallow yet another dose of toxin from me.

We started writing ahead because it gave us time to refine and edit. It gave us time to develop our ideas. We’ve found that there is a danger of writing a week in advance: the assault on our nation by our government is happening so fast that our reflections are yesterday’s news by the time that they are published.

Kerri listened to my latest struggle. I had written yet another rant and felt that this particular thought-vomit had merit. I wrestled with my desire to post it. She quietly brought me back to the ground. She acknowledged the darkness, both within me and in the world, and reminded me that my walk on this earth is a pilgrimage toward the light. She asked me to consider whether or not my words were better spent helping others in this time of darkness to also step toward the light. I dumped my post. I felt relieved.

I was thoroughly admonished by my “weekly statistics”. Of particular concern to the algorithm-police was the rapid decline in my amount of screen time. It’s way down. It’s true. I am spending less and less time hurtling down the social media causeway. I am finding that alternate reality mind-numbing and increasingly less healthy. After all, the point is to keep me hooked. I am aware of the constant wash of anger and anxiety, the designer drug called fear-of-missing-out.

Every time we hit the trail, every time I turn off my phone, I feel as if I slowly come back to my senses. I re-enter the world of actual importance. I re-enter the world of living breathing 3-D humans instead of the flat-Stanley world of screen-names tossing bombs or affirmation at each other. We pass real people on the trail. We feel their presence. We say, “Hello”.

We stopped in awe when the winter sun electrified the pine needles. Just for a moment we entered timeless space, the place beyond the noisy insanity and manufactured division. Awash in the warmth of winter light we knew – beyond all doubt – that all everything we needed was right there, waiting for us in the natural order of the real world.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PINE NEEDLES

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The Nitty Gritty [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

“I wish it didn’t have the number 47 on it,” she said of the painted clay plate. “It ruins it for me.” We launched into a conversation about all the nitty gritty things that the authoritarian wannabe and his grotesques have ruined for us. The word “great”. The color red. The word “ice”. The Republican party. The office of the President. The Supreme Court. The word “tremendous”. It is a very long list. It includes family relationships. It includes having an iota of respect for anyone who supports him or makes excuses for him or justifies the horror show that he’s unleashed; it includes the systems (people) that seem unwilling or incapable of stopping what they know to be putrid. He leaves his stink on all of us.

It includes my understanding of the word “tolerance”. I have long believed it is important to stand in the shoes of “the other person”. I now have an asterisk next to the word “tolerance”: there are some shoes that are too ugly to stand in. There are some points of view too toxic to entertain. I’ve found within me the absolute necessity for intolerance and I cannot express how profoundly sad that makes me.

And then there is the contrast principle, the nitty gritty things that fill me with hope. I will never see a whistle in the same way. The word “taco” is forever altered. I am in awe of people dedicated to peaceful protest in the face of a gestapo that antagonizes them. The word “protest” has come to mean so much more than I understood. Phrases like “due process” and “habeas corpus” are now three-dimensional and brimming with importance. Amidst the utter cowardice of the major media, the phrase “a free press” carries renewed significance. An actual free press is rising among the progressive independent media. The word “truth” is no longer generic. I’ll now forever equate the word “courage” with people running out of their homes to protect their neighbors. “Protect”. People organizing to reclaim decency and to demand integrity in our leaders. “Organizing”. So many words finding gravity in this time.

I no longer take the word “democracy” for granted. It is forever changed, enlivened. I understand the word “vote” as one of the most powerful actions a human being can take. Deciding who represents us, our values and will steward our shared dream. And, if our representatives betray our trust, we vote to remove them and replace them with someone more capable. Someone with “integrity”. Yet another nitty gritty word that has renewed meaning.

Vote. Integrity. Democracy. Truth. Decency. Shared values, like “equality”. These are the nitty gritty: the basics, the essentials, the essence. These “words” are the most profound gifts that members of our community can give to each other. In these times, they are the epicenter of what we must claim and protect for each other.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PLATE

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