literal | The Direction of Intention

Pluck The Symbol [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tonight, as we near the day of clover, the celebration of St. Patrick’s snake dance, we will make corned beef and cabbage for our weekly dinner with 20. There will be Guinness, too. The snakes in the story, by-the-way, are symbolic. There were no actual snakes in the region. Remember, as I will when tipping my Guinness, it’s a religious holiday though, through the advent of Guinness, pagans like me can play, too.

One of my favorite things about human beings is how blind they are to their natural curiosity. For instance, read the wikipedia entry for four-leaf clover! There’s layers and layers of data on the odds of finding a four-leaf clover. Sometimes curiosity looks like study. Sometimes it looks like science. Or engineering. It’s one of my least favorite things about human beings: we can kill the spark, snuff the magic of the curious story-telling-mind, by how we tell the story.

Believe the snakes are literal and you miss the point of the story and misunderstand the reason for the holiday. The same is true with arks filled with animals and the Red Sea parting. Metaphors made literal: the apple remains uneaten. Knowledge dies on the vine.

Symbols open stories. Symbols make the story universal which is impressive if you stop and think about it. How can two people, living in two different cultures, who don’t share a common language, understand in-a-flash the same idea? Symbol. Metaphor. Heart openers. Mind expanders. Experience joiners.

In the epic of Saint Patrick, as a pagan I’d be one of the metaphoric snakes driven into the sea.

And remember, the data suggests that for every ten thousand three-leaf clover that you spy, you’ll find one stem with four. A symbol of good luck, no matter what the data suggests.

Train Through Trees, 51″x46″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about CLOVER

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, corned beef, creative mind, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, four leaf clover, good luck, Guinness, heart opening, Ireland, Irish, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, literal, metaphor, metaphors, pagan, snakes, St. Patrick's Day, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange | 1 Comment »

Turn The Phrase [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

them apples 1 copy

I just read this phrase and laughed aloud: Conversation in English is often full of phrases not to be taken literally.

It’s the word ‘often’ that got me chuckling. I’d have been more sober if ‘always’ had been the adverb. Conversation in English is always full of phrases not to be taken literally.

My head exploded! She turned the tables on me! You don’t say! I’ll be dogged. It’s nothing to sneeze at! It’s more than you can shake a stick at! I’d rather stick needles in my eyes!

Isn’t it the best of paradoxes? Language, at it’s best, is inexact. It is referential. It can only point toward experience. It’s why we have legal opinions, religious debates and news pundits that scream at each other. It’s why we have differing points of view.

“I didn’t say that!”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Just what are you implying?”

Nothing. No thing. The absence of a thing. The absence of a thought (in English, a thought, however fleeting, is a noun, a thing).

Of course, in it’s inexactness, there is also an infinity of space. There is as much reason to reach, to ask, to discover as there is to push, negate, or differ. To put down your end of the rope. To shake hands not make fists. A common ground.

Word for word. Line for line. To the letter. It’s never black and white. In a toxic time, a poisoned well. Find the middle way. Heart felt. We need not stab each other in the back. Kill two birds with one stone. Pull your head out of the sand. It’s a piece of cake. It literally blew me away. They put down their swords. They reached across the aisle.

Well I’ll be! How ’bout them apples?

read Kerri’s blog post BOUT THEM APPLES