See Green [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 6, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

If we call someone “green”, we mean that they are inexperienced. Innocent or new. The term “green-on-green” implies a team that has little experience. Young pilots. Mixed doubles swatting at tennis balls. Newly minted detectives. New growth. Immature. Seedlings.

A green issue is environmental. Renewable energy. Wind power. Green is the color of nature.

In street slang, green has two possible meanings. Money. Green is the color of currency. Or, weed. Green is the color of marijuana. A surprising twist on green-on-green!

I can be green with envy. Or green with jealousy. Green is the color of illness. Apparently coveting makes us sick. “Do you feel okay? You’re looking green.” The Romans thought so. Shakespeare, too.

Google the meaning of green and you’ll find it symbolizes peace, hope, and harmony. Optimism.

In spiritual circles, green refers to fruitfulness and fertility. New leaves. New growth. And so, a full-circle return to the first meaning of green, only “new” need not imply ineptitude as much as promise. Hope. A weave of the many meanings of green!

I’m left pondering why I rarely use green in my paintings. Van Gogh did not shy away from green. He was bold enough to smear his green adjacent to vibrant reds and orange. Opposites on the color wheel. A bang to the eyes. Perhaps there is some green in my future.

On our hike today I can say with all honesty that I was completely taken with the many shades of green.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREEN

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Be Unbearably Small [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We fought so long against small things that we became small ourselves.” Eugene O’Neill

“On my last day of work, the back wheels of my car won’t be out of the parking lot before they erase everything I’ve worked for,” Tom said. He was right, of course. I was there and witnessed the dismantling. His words were not resentful. They were matter-of-fact. He helped me understand that a life’s work is not about achievement. Rather, it is about integrity of process. Relationship. Bringing instead of getting.

“I’ve fought my battles. It’s time for someone younger to pick up the fight,” another in my tribe of dear-wise-guides reminded me when I was pushing him hard to care. I am a few years down the road now and I understand to my bones his position. I have limited time here. I have (mostly) turned my eyes away from the fight and toward the wonder-of-it all. I have no idea how to paint it so I am reticent to touch my brushes. How do you contain – or try to contain in an image or word – the inexplicable? It’s the artist’s dilemma and I love it.

Sitting on the back deck staring into the pastel sky, I thought about their words. Quiet summer nights are prime for reminiscence and reflection. I thought about the battles I have fought in my life. The hills I chose to die on. The art meant to heal or change or provoke. To reach and touch a heart. To shake a sleeper awake.

I have been fortunate to have had such wise guides showing me the way. To give me the rare gift of perspective. I am fortunate to understand how unbearably small I am in this limitless universe. Were I to believe myself grand I would not have access to the awe of this summer night, this rolling pastel sky.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the PASTEL SKY

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*happy birthday, columbus.

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Clear Your Mind [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

There’s nothing like a walk in a garden to clear your mind. It was the end of the week – or was it the beginning? In any case, our brains were overloaded. We sought a garden.

So the story goes, Adam and Eve lost their spot in the garden. They ate from the tree of knowledge and started to think about things. They became self-aware, a by-product of apple-eating, they had to tell stories of where they’d come from. They had to tell aspirational stories of where they wanted to go. They made rules. Look back. Imagine forward. Neither direction is true in the absolute sense of the word. Memory and imagination are not fixed. They are fluid, changing, like a stream.

Listening to our stories it’s easy to conclude that this good earth couldn’t possibly manage without us. As global weirding progresses, it’s likely that we’ll learn the opposite of our control-story is the case: we can’t possibly manage without the good earth. We may have to adapt our narrative! We may have to consider that the garden and its many inhabitants didn’t really need names; we invented knowledge-management to suit our purposes. We might need to recognize that we invented all forms of management to suit our narrative.

We like to tell stories of being in control, of being at the top of the pyramid. We especially like narratives placing us at the center of the universe – and the micro level variety: being the chosen ones. Believing that it all spins around us is, well, comforting. Or hubris. Or both.

Of course, our story is pocked with kill-joys like Galileo. Though, to be fair, even though his telescope proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity is NOT at the center, it’s had very little impact on our dedication to being all important. Above it all. We are a tenacious bunch when our story of primacy is threatened.

I was especially moved by the sign in the garden and wondered what it would take for us to turn the tables and imagine ourselves as part of the spinning universe rather than above-it-all. There are plenty of examples to draw from, humans in symbiotic relationship with their garden. Listening rather than instructing. Spinning with.

I think that is why, when our brains are overloaded, we head to the garden. A return to our senses. We breathe. We listen. We feel. We clear our minds and, even for a moment, re-enter a naturally healthy relationship.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

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Measure The Path [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on September 2, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

And isn’t the true wealth of life about the extraordinary people that walk the path with you? I am, every day, astonished by my good fortune, especially by this woman who chooses to walk this life with me. In this measure, I am unbelievably rich.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HOLDING ON

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smack-dab. © 2023 kerrianddavid.com

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Be The Metaphor [David’s blog on KS Friday ]

Posted on September 1, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

There’s a scene in The Lost Boy that I especially love. In the play, Tom tells the story of finding his 90 year old aunt Buntie, on a very windy day, standing on the roof of the ranch house. He coaxes her down a rickety ladder and then chastises her, “Don’t go on the roof anymore! Call me if you need something!”

“Oh! You sound just like your uncle Sandy!” Buntie laughs. “He’s mad at me because I’m on the roof but I tell him I have to see that the shingles are still there. Dad put a fine roof on the house!”

When I see a bird on a wire, I think of Tom’s story. I’ve somehow associated a bird on a wire with Buntie on the roof.

Bird on a wire. It’s a perfect metaphor with many possible meanings. For Buntie, a true bird on the wire, the metaphor means to carefully consider your next step. You are in a potentially dangerous place. Wires carry electricity.

I remember sitting in Tom’s small living room at the ranch, late at night, when he began to reminisce. He delighted in telling stories of Buntie. I turned on my tape recorder. I asked a few questions but mostly listened. He was a great storyteller and needed no encouragement. He had become a bird on a wire. Like Buntie, he was reclusive in his old age, another possible meaning of the metaphor. He was sitting by himself on the metaphoric roof trying to keep the family stories from blowing away in time’s persistent wind.

We’re staying inside. Our area is under a “heat dome” for the next few days so the shades are drawn and our little window air conditioner is chanting, “I think I can! I think I can!” It’s taking the edge off the sizzle and for that we are grateful.

Somedays, like today, we feel like birds on a wire with our feet trapped in lime, preventing us from flying. It’s yet another possible meaning of the metaphor. Perhaps the oldest meaning of the metaphor. Caught in a sticky trap. Nothing is moving. No progress is being made. We sit on our wire, songbirds.

“We’re not getting anywhere,” she said, closing her laptop.

“Nope,” I agreed. “No. Where.”

“Good thing it’s really hot,” she smiled. “I don’t want to go anywhere anyway.” Lemonade from lemons.

“Yep.” I agreed, declaring, “It’s too hot. I want to sit right here. I don’t want to be anywhere else!”

“We’re lucky,” she smiled.

“Yep.” We are extraordinarily lucky. We may feel trapped but we’re still singing.

From somewhere out of time, Tom winked at me. Birds on a wire.

always with us/as it is © 2004 kerri sherwood

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora & iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about BIRDS ON A WIRE

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See The Spiral [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 31, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

20 asked if we saw the milky way when we were living on the island. As seen from space, two arms spiraling from a center. A spiral of billions of stars. From our seat on the island, as is true from most places on earth on cloudless nights, we saw the milky haze.

John and I often discussed the Fibbonacci sequence. The numbers of spirals, the keeper of the golden ratio. “It’s everywhere in nature,” he said. “We just don’t see it.”

Spirals in the stars. Spirals in the seeds of sunflowers. Macro to micro, through-and-through. And how is it that we routinely miss our interrelationship with all things?

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” ~ Carl Sagan

embraced now, 48x36IN, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about SPIRALS

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Share Through Your Eyes [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 30, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We slept on the living room floor last night. Our chugga-chugga air conditioner doesn’t reach our bedroom at the back of the house. Record breaking heat drove us to improvisation. “We’re camping!” we exclaimed, spreading blankets on the throw-rug, Dogga jumping with enthusiasm into our bed-making-attempts, ruffling our efforts.

In the morning, we could barely move. “My shoulder is killing me!” I whined.

“My hips are burning,” she frowned.

We laughed and together howled, “OUCH!” I creaked to the kitchen to make coffee.

While waiting for the coffee to brew I thought of the underpass. On Saturday we explored a new part of the river trail that ran beneath several busy roads, including the interstate highway. As we left the heat of the sun and entered the cool of the underpass, Kerri asked, “Do you think people sleep under here?”

“Yes, I do.”

Standing at the coffeemaker I was awash with thankfulness. I slept on the floor by choice. Our dog woke us this morning nuzzling our faces. Our ancient air conditioner kept us cool through a brutally hot night. We laughed at our aches and pain.

It’s funny the way thoughts tumble and connect with memory, constellating into well-worn images or plowing new conceptual pathways. Udayana University, Bali. One of my graduate school peers had just completed a presentation on homelessness in the United States. The Udayana faculty was horrified. “But you are the richest country on earth,” a wide-eyed Balinese professor stuttered. “How can you let a member of your community go without a home?” To him, it was the height of shame for a community not to care for their own. It was, in fact, inconceivable. This moment was central to my memory: I saw in his eyes the high esteem he held for us fall into the dark basement. He was suddenly very proud to be Balinese. His community might not have financial resources but they had a form of wealth that made paupers of his American guests.

“It’s the contrast principle”, 20 says. Oppositions illuminate. Cultural differences clarify. What we normalize we cease seeing. I’ve stepped over people sleeping in the street. In Seattle, I routinely rode my bike on paths under a freeway lined with tents and shopping-cart-possessions. In Bali, a man stopped his work in the fields and walked with me because it was rude to let a guest walk alone. We did not speak because we did not share a common language. When I reached my destination, we nodded and shared through our eyes that most universal of gratitudes: genuine appreciation for the companionship of the other; an authentic wish for the well-being of all.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE UNDERPASS

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Be An Alien [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are in an alien world…” he wrote, “and it is unraveling.” Somedays I wonder if I went to sleep and woke up in a tragicomedy. I wanted to reply that I feel more and more like an alien moving through an increasingly unrecognizable world. Well, truth be told, I’ve always felt like an alien. The rules of the game make no sense to me. For instance, if safe supportive society is what we seek, why are we arming ourselves to the teeth? I imagine I am not alone in my alien-feeling.

Walking the trail Kerri stopped and pointed. “Doesn’t that flower look like a spaceship?” Yellow petals stretched-like-wings in every direction. “Imagine the cool aliens!” she said, kneeling to take a photo.

The word “alien” brought to mind the recent congressional hearings on UFO’s (or UAPS: unidentified aerial phenomena). The hearings were a discussion about what we know. “No, really,” asked the panel, “What do we know?” It’s not known what we know or it’s known but concealed to the point of being unknown. The unknown is what makes an alien an alien, so, apparently, we’ll remain aliens to each other in the foreseeable future.

I had a jolting revelation yesterday. Kerri and I watch vlogs of PCT through-hikers. People who walk 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada. Thousands of people start the trail each year and only a small percentage actually finish. It seems a herculean task. They have tents, travel stoves, proper shoes, all-weather clothes, resupply stops, rest days and are well-funded. They speak lovingly of the kindness of strangers on the trail. In contrast, a hungry person leaving the Honduras walks approximately 2,558 miles, often with few or no resources, through dangerous and hostile environments, to reach the border of the mythical United States. Rather than celebrating their spirit, their fortitude and perseverance, qualities to be admired, qualities we celebrate as uniquely American, we vilify these people, calling them “aliens.” They do not tell stories of the kindness of strangers.

If you boil down the storyline of most apocalyptic-alien-invasion films, you’ll find the same inspiring moment. Humanity turns from its division and finally recognizes that ultimate survival necessitates combining forces, acting as one. Identifying as one. Transcending superficial differences and abstract lines on a map, redefining “us” to include “all human beings.”

He concluded his email with this: “I’m waiting for the crisis to finally arrive and further devastate us.  At least then we can get to the Awakening phase during which we will come together and reunite as humankind.”  He’s referring to the book The Fourth Turning. The cyclical pattern of chaos and order.

The question that identifies me more and more as an alien is this: why does it take a crisis? I know, I know…the rules of the game make no sense to me. And, after all, nature uses forest fires for renewal. I know, I know. Yet, why point a gun when extending a hand actually produces the safety and security we ultimately seek? Reaching creates kind humans; pointing a gun creates unkind humans. What am I missing? We always pull together in a crisis – it’s our natural impulse – so why wait for a crisis?

We are strange beings. Our stories are universally driven by conflict. Unknown to each other, we opt to be frightened of what we don’t understand (or refuse to consider). I’ve read that we are hardwired and dedicated to an Us-and-Them world.

I’ve also read that the purpose of our big-big brains is to transcend our animal nature so I’m confident that, one day, in the far distant future, our big-big brains will respond to the latest crisis and transcend our ancient hardwiring.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ALIEN FLOWER

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Deduce To Nowhere [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In a morning of surprises we learned that the water epoch, (common era 2020 – 2022) is not yet over. Another chapter is being written even as I type. The orange cones appeared as if by magic in front of our house and the neighbors on both sides. Kerri opened the shades and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” The “no parking signs”, by order of the water utility, lined the street. Inspecting the signs, hands on my hips, with wrinkled brow, in typically brilliant fashion, I managed to utter, “Well hmmmmm.” I hope the neighborhood was watching. Truly, a display of deductive genius.

Not-a-clue. Even after the crew came, sawed through the asphalt, carted away the offending pavement and left small swimming pool sized holes, the mystery remains. For us, this is the third excavation. The first two had a defined (known) purpose.

I was cavalier during the recent deluge. It sent us scrambling to channel the water in the basement to the drains, and I gloated-to-no-one-listening, “Well, at least the perpetual water weirdness is over!” A few days later the cones appeared. I put the water-cart before the water-horse. I should have kept my water thoughts to myself. If Kerri knew I’d jinxed the dryness, she’d punch me in the arm.

Perhaps this is a neighborhood improvement initiative! In “the olden days,” before the invention of air conditioners, folks used to sit on their porches at night and chat with their neighbors as they strolled by. Maybe these pool-sized holes are, in fact, pools! On hot nights we’ll walk with naked legs across the grass (yes – we have grass!) and sit in the cool water. We’ll chat as others on the block gingerly tip-toe across their lawns to take a dip in their personal city pool.

I know what you’re thinking of my genius hypothesis! “Well, hmmmmm.”

We’ll keep you posted. Water epoch (current era 2020 – date unknown)

read Kerri’s more coherent post about NO PARKING

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Rely On It [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on August 26, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our old window AC unit weighs a ton. On the day I haul it up from the basement and heft it into the window, Kerri retreats to the bedroom. “I can’t watch!” she says, fleeing. It’s part of our ritual. For some reason we always wait until the last moment to resurrect it. We wait until we’ve sufficiently suffered before we look at each other and say in unison, “I can’t stand it any more!” That, too, is part of our ritual.

We can’t afford to replace it with something made in the current century though, truth be told, I’m not sure we would if we could. It’s a workhorse! It comes from a time when planned obsolescence was not yet on the plan. It’s like our stove and will likely outlive us all. Built-to-last.

This week, while firmly under the heat-dome, with temperatures soaring to the ridiculous, our too-heavy-not-pretty-waaay-too-loud-ancient-old-AC was not only up to the task, it was a champ. We knew it would be. We’ll take steadfast over fast, dedicated over disposable, any day of the week. Loyal. Committed. Dependable.

Confidently relying on the extraordinary relevance of age and experience. How odd! It’s something we increasingly identify with. It’s rapidly becoming part of our reality.

read Kerri’s blogpost on RELEVANCE

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