letting go | The Direction of Intention

Let Go And Breathe [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 26, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We have been slow to reenter life at home. We were only gone for a few days but it feels like months. There is life before the farmhouse and life after. The time away serves as a hard line of distinction. And, because there is now a before, we are finding our reentry a bit disorienting. Nothing is the same yet everything is the same. Unrecognizable because it is familiar.

We are moving slow. We are noise averse. We are reticent to go to the store or drive on a busy road. Too much stimulus fries our wires. It’s as if we are walking through the life we know – we knew – as witnesses. There is a silent accounting: what stays, what we will let go.

Transformation is like that. Snakes shed old skin. Trees drop their leaves. People clean their closets. Letting go creates necessary space for a new rhythm and new rhythms emerge slowly over time.

Sitting on the back deck this morning, the air was still and warm. The birds were singing, the chippies foraged beneath the feeder for discarded seed, Kerri said, “This is the level of sound that I can tolerate right now.” I nodded.

Long ago, when I facilitated retreats, on the last day someone would usually ask, “How do we take what we’ve learned back into our normal lives?” They were changed by their experiences at the retreat but the circumstance of their daily lives remained unaltered. The real question was “How do I bring this feeling of openness and expansion from the protection of the retreat center to the squeeze and turmoil of the realities of life?” There isn’t a single answer to the question. In fact, there isn’t an answer. There’s a practice. There are decisions. What might fall off the list of to-dos? Spaciousness is not magic. Openness is often the result of generosity-to-self. One must slow down to see and hear and taste. Touch takes time. Positive thought takes intention and letting go of grudges. Forgiveness is a choice made again and again and again.

The first day back we walked our trail. We talked of the changes we want to make. The clearing of old baggage. Making space. Kerri stopped to photograph the honeysuckle. I took a deep breath of the sweet fragrance. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about HONEYSUCKLE

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Filed under: Edges, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expansion, heart opening, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, openness, positive thinking, quiet, reflection, slow down, spaciousness, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Practice Letting Go [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 19, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.” ~ Rainier Maria Rilke

Kathy Bates has a great line in the movie P.S. I Love You: “The thing to remember is…if we’re all alone, then we’re all together in that, too.”

It’s our aloneness that propels us to reach. Our aloneness can drive us to grab. To hold on with all of our might.

Mothers learn the lesson of letting go. Fathers, too. Children would suffocate otherwise. In time, children must also learn the lesson of letting go of their parents. It’s not an easy lesson. It’s counterintuitive.

Couples learn this lesson if they are lucky. They recognize the line between reaching and clutching. Growth is always a process of opening. Open hands. Open minds. Open hearts. Growing a relationship never comes from controlling it. And, don’t we all know the feeling when a hug lasts a bit too long?

And then there are memories. Slippery devils, they tend to fade. Even in this era of ubiquitous photos, the feel, taste, touch, sound, sight flattens and dims. Three dimensions becomes two. I grab at the memory. My hands close around air. Ephemeral-something.

Tonight I will look into the night sky and make my peace. Alone together. Together alone. I will sit on the porch, grateful beyond words to reach and hold Kerri’s hand. Together in this, too.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about BARNEY-TWO-NAILS

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Filed under: Edges, Family, Gratitude, Identity, Love | Tagged: alone, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kathy Bates, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, make peace, memory, open hands, open heart, open mind, P.S. I love you, peace, practice, Rainier Maria Rilke, relationship, Rilke, studio melange, the melange, together | 1 Comment »

Reseed [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We pulled everything off the walls of the office. The photographs and posters of plays I’ve directed, Kerri’s first album, framed, a gift. Our poster announcing Beaky’s Books. “I don’t think the office should be about the past,” she said. “It’s time to make this space about our current work and the future.”

She chose a painting, Nap On The Beach, one of many created from our experiences together. She’s making a poster of Smack-Dab, our cartoon. Turning our eyes from what we’ve done, where we’ve been, who we were. We’ve changed. We want different things now. We work in different ways now.

She’s slowly cleaning out the house. I can’t help. This is something she must do by herself. Purging closets, the laundry room, the storage and work rooms. The year of water upended our house. Several times. It continues in the front yard, all the way to the street. When the ground settles, we’ll reseed the lawn. How’s that for a metaphor? When the ground settles, we will reseed.

It takes time for the ground to settle. It can’t be rushed. It should not be rushed. The same is true for cleaning out. We have new piles forming: what goes, what stays. I climb the stairs to the office each morning. When I come down again, she shows me the new space that she’s created from the day’s purge. It’s true on many levels. She’s creating space. Old baggage and burdens are going out with the old clothes and broken appliances. I can see it in her eyes. Space. Light. Like the house, she is beginning to breathe again.

She told me about the dream, her father was setting up microphones. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Working for tomorrow,” he said.

I had to work hard not to weep. She’s had a rough few years. “Your daddy’s talking to you,” I said. “Sage advice.”

She nodded. Her eyes turning from the pain and constraints of the injuries. Letting go of the past. “Work for tomorrow,” she smiled.

read Kerri’s blog post about WORK FOR TOMORROW

Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, breathe, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreams, focus, focus placement, Guidance, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, light, look forward, making space, meaning making, metaphor, new beginning, past, purge, purging, renewal, reseed, sage advice, settling, space, spacioousness, story, studio melange, The Direction of Intention, the melange | Leave a comment »

Await The Return [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

This time of year I do a lot of staring into the night sky, pondering vastness. Reflecting on the year. It’s what we’re hard-wired to do as we approach the darkest night of the year. And, along with the darkest night of the year, comes the turning point. The return of light. This fact of earth’s orbit has spawned ritual, religious metaphor, and all manner of contemplation, letting go, setting new intentions, since humans first started, as I did last night, looking into the sky. We feel our smallness looking into the face of starry infinity.

This year there’s a delightful serendipity associated with the solstice. We cross the line from darkest night to return of the light on December 21. On December 22nd, as we creep our way back into light, the James Webb telescope will be launched into space and, when it unfurls and points its lens into other star systems, it will be looking for life on other planets. It will be looking for other beings staring into the night sky who might also be pondering their relationship with the universe. I look at you, you look at me.

We are candle people. We light them all the time for various reasons, marking auspicious occasions or simply to lift our spirits. We bought a menorah this fall. Kerri’s clan is religiously complex and we wanted to celebrate Hanukkah with her cousins. I read a bit since I am fond of finding the roots of rituals. I learned that the menorahs with seven branches, among other things, represent the five visible planets plus the sun and the moon. The rounded shape of the branches represents their trajectories across the sky. We lit the candles each night, singing poorly but with love and conviction the prayers. Connecting with her cousins, connecting with the light and pondering our place in a spinning universe.

Sitting at my desk, upstairs, too long staring at a computer screen, I heard her at the piano. I crept halfway down the stairs not wanting to break the spell. She played a carol, quietly. It’s rare these days that she plays. Broken wrists. Resistant fingers. Bruised heart. Yet, the piano calls. The lighting of the candles, the quiet pondering of “what’s it all about”, has made a crack in the darkness. There is a vast inner universe, too. We shoot telescopes into our selves. I look at you, you look at me. Smiling on the steps, I realized that I am anxiously awaiting the return of the light.

read Kerri’s blog post about LIGHT

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, composer, contemplation, dark night, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hanukkah, Infinite, James Webb telescope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, light, menorah, moon, musician, piano, planets, prayers, reflection, release, rituals, solstice, space, spell, spirits, stars, story, studio melange, sun, the melange, vastness | Leave a comment »

Roll Easier [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 15, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I feel like I’ve been writing about fall all week!” she said, “What more do I have to say?”

She took this photograph during a walk around our neighborhood. When we left for Colorado the leaves were just beginning to turn. A week later, when we returned, the ground was a festival of color. The sidewalks beckoned children of all ages to drag their feet through the leaves. Shushing sounds. Instead of dragging her feet, she knelt to get closer. “Lookit!” she gasped, all one word. If appreciation is prayer, then sometimes taking a picture is prayer.

Rather than at new years, the fall is when I find myself making resolutions. My resolutions are rarely about achievements – things that I want – and more of what I desire to let go. What will lighten my spirit-load? I am a wanderer to the core and so much of what I’ve accumulated in life is heavy to carry. Making shushing sounds through the leaves, I know this fall that I will leave behind some friction. I’m dropping some long-held resistance, so I might roll easier in the world.

Fall is for reflection. Fall is for dropping brilliant leaves and making sounds with the crunchy color. Synesthesia. What more is there to say?

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

read Kerri’s blog post about FALL

Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, autumn, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fall, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, leaves, leaving, letting go, reflection, resistance, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Listen To The House [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our house is telling a tale. If you wandered through the rooms you’d see two related intentions. First, there is a transformation in the sunroom that reaches into the outside spaces, the deck and patio. They are now designed for quiet and for simple gathering. They are beautiful no matter which direction that you look. We are attending to our peace-of-mind. The ripple is reaching into all of the rooms.

Second, the dining room is full of bins and boxes. The table is a place for sorting and reviewing. We are cleaning out. We are making space. We are letting go of non-essentials.

My favorite part of both intentions is that there is no rush. Our cleanse is not manic. Our space-creation is rolling, meditative, fluid. We are, quite literally, taking our time. Appreciating our time, our space, our sanctuary. We are using dishes that have never been used, attending to the beauty as well as the taste of our meals.

We are not spending vast sums of money to achieve our design. In fact, almost none-at-all. We’ve bought a few plants. Some pillows. Replacement bulbs for the string of outdoor lights. We are mostly working with what we have. Rearranging. Eliminating.

As Heather once told me, what you do outside you are also doing inside. I hope she is right in that. It implies that, inside, we are making our peace-of-mind a priority. We are removing much of the clutter from our souls. Cleaning out the garbage bag or, perhaps, simply letting-go-the-non-essential-fight. Taking stock. Making space. Appreciating the day.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about the FIRE TOWER

taking stock/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Emergence, Gratitude, KS Friday, Story | Tagged: appreciation, beauty, cleaning house, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, home, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, making space, peace, peace of mind, quiet, right now, Right Now by kerri sherwood, sanctuary, studio melange, taking stock, Taking stock on Right Now, transformation | Leave a comment »

Do What They Do [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 17, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve posted this painting more than any other in my stacks.

Some paintings serve as markers for new directions. This painting is one of those. What came before this painting was suddenly old. What came after was an exciting unknown path. Exploration and play. Big mistakes and messes followed by understanding. Materials can only be pushed so far. Bodies and shapes reveling in negative and positive space.

When I met Kerri, this painting did not have a name. I called it #7 in my yoga series. She called it “Iconic” and the name stuck. I liked the name. It seemed appropriate. An icon is a symbol. Something worthy of veneration.

Now, over ten years later, this icon, once the harbinger of the new, serves as the hallmark of what was.

I delight in this painting, Iconic. It is one of the few. And, although I am grateful for where it led me, I’ve come to realize that it no longer serves to locate me, except in a past chapter, like a yearbook photo.

Letting go. It is why I stand in my studio – I can’t even sit there of late – and look at the mess on canvas that sits untouched on my easel these many months. Somewhere, after this mishmash phase, somewhere, beyond the chaos and disorder and wiping away, there will emerge another marker. An icon. A compass.

Although I’ve written it many times in these past few months, it’s way past time that I admit – to myself – that I am, once again, in the wilderness. Someone once told me that we go to the wilderness to face our demons and find our gods. That seems a bit dramatic. Demons and gods are one and the same, like positive and negative space or comedy and tragedy. The lesson is always the same: stop taking yourself so seriously and the oppositions, the demons and gods, will stop pulling you apart.

Find a child and watch them play with paint. Do that. Do what they do. The wilderness is rich in sustenance if you know where to look.

Someday, in the midst of being lost, I’ll make an accidental mark that jolts me. I’ll turn it around, asking, “What’s this?” A new direction will emerge.

Read Kerri’s blog post about ICONIC

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Pattern | Tagged: artist, artistry, comedy and tragedy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, demons and gods, disorient, icon, Iconic, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, letting go, locate, opposites, orient, painting, story, studio, studio melange, symbol, wilderness | Leave a comment »

Listen To The Painting [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Surrender Now, 24 x 24IN, mixed media. 2016

This painting is called Surrender Now. In this moment. in my life, I can think of no more appropriate sentiment. Surrender. Now.

The playwright John Guare wrote that it is necessary to write ten bad pages to write one good one. I am the visual artist proof of his thought. In my life I have painted a lot of crap and will continue to do so. This painting is one of my good pages, one of my good paintings. I’m doubt if my ratio is as good as ten-for-one but, mostly the ratio doesn’t matter. As Tom McK said, “A writer writes, a painter paints.” The rest is not really that important.

The great gift of being a painter is that your paintings talk back to you. Sometimes they are sassy. Sometimes they are sage. This one is the latter. It reminds me in times of contention to open my hand rather than make a fist. It reminds me to let go. Palms to the sky.

So much these days is out of my control. I suppose that is always true but currently it is in my face. The castle crumbles. So, I look to the painting for solace. The advice is abundantly clear.

read Kerri’s blog post about SURRENDER NOW

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Edges | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, John Guare, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, painting, surrender, Surrender Now | Leave a comment »

Pull It Apart [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 30, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

lettuce copy

The thing that I didn’t write about last week, in fact I avoided, was my latest brush with coincidence. It went something like this: I’ve been moving the Prometheus paintings for years. They are big paintings! Three canvases, each 4ft x 8ft. They require a truck to move. I’ve shown them. I’ve stored them. When I moved to Kenosha they literally could not fit into my studio in our house so Brad and Jen were kind enough to store them for me.

Truth? I thought that someday I would again perform the symphony for which I painted the series. I wrote and performed the script. I painted the pieces to accompany the performance. I thought they might someday have a second life. Over the years, Yaki and I have tossed the idea around once or twice but it always fell into the maybe-someday-abyss.

Jen and Brad are doing some renovation and I needed to move the paintings. I brought them home and they lived in our dining room. I offered to donate them to the PCO – the company that produced Prometheus. I approached several organizations that might be interested in visual statements borne from literature and performance. The paintings are too big. So, finally, last week, I pulled them apart. Took them out of the frames, disassembled the panels so I could move them down the stairs. The frames went into the garage. There was something cleansing about acknowledging that these pieces were done. I sighed with relief when dropping the illusion that they might someday see the light of day. Two of the panels are hidden behind a tall cabinet in our sitting room, still too big to make it down the curve of the stair into the studio.

The next day, Yaki called. “I want to do the Prometheus,” he said. “But, can we pull it apart? Can we make it more relevant to what’s happening today?”

I laughed heartily. “Yes,” I responded. We can pull it apart.”

Sometimes space must be made. This universe abhors a vacuum. It seems all of my life lessons these days are about letting go of what was. Letting go of how things used to work or who I represented myself to be.

Can I pull it apart. Yes. Done and done. “Cultivate your serendipity,” Quinn used to say.

And, what on earth does this have to do with lettuce? I’d never planted it before. I’d never planted anything before. 20 gave us the boxes. He told us what to do. Growing lettuce – growing anything, it seems – takes some patience. And, some luck. Sunshine and attention. From the seed, if it is tended and mostly left alone -given space – something good will grow.

read Kerri’s blog post about LETTUCE

greet the day

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Metaphor, Navel Gazing, Truly Powerful People, Uncategorized | Tagged: coincidence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, lettuce, paintings, patience, pco, prometheus, Quinn, serendipity, surrender, yaki | Leave a comment »

Let The Pieces Fall [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 22, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

longing copy

“It is the paradox of spiritual growth that through such bleak midwinter journeys we eventually come through a hidden door into a bright field of springtime that we could never have discovered otherwise. This is the heart of the mystical. It is not about building protectionist armour of prayer and religion; it is, rather, the courage for absolute divestment. In the sheer vulnerability of Nothingness everything becomes possible in a new way, but there is an immense temptation to flee back to the shelter of old complacency. Now could be the most important moment in life to steel our courage and enter the risk of change.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

Parcival returned to the place in the deep woods where he’d stripped off his armor. Was it yesterday? A year ago? Two? He couldn’t remember. While he searched for the place he remembered with satisfaction the battles he’d waged, the ogres he’d defeated. The mission he’d served. He longed to once again inhabit that simple clarity, that single focus.

His old armor was not hard to find but it looked nothing like he remembered it. No longer shiny and hard, it was brittle with rust and covered in moss and vines. Nature was reclaiming it. Still, he wanted to put it back on. He wanted to forget the reasons he took it off in the first place. The loneliness. The fear. Forever fighting the lost cause, the imagined foe. He wanted to remember the good and ignore completely the painful parts of the story. He could go back! He could be the great knight once again.

His vision crumbled like his armor when he attempted to pick it up. Going back was a fantasy. Retreating back in time, donning again his old armor, was perhaps the final ogre to fight. Like all of the other ogres, it, too, was an illusion. He let the rusty pieces fall back to the forest floor.

Now, allowing the full force of his vulnerability, the utter absence of role or definition, he no longer yearned for the tight closure of what was, but wholly surrendered to the expansive, the infinite and uncontrollable new.