Loggins & Messina | The Direction of Intention

Wandered [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Help me if you can I’ve got to get back the house at Pooh corner by one.” ~ Loggins & Messina, House at Pooh Corner

It is the height of irony that under the banner of going back to some fantasy greatness we hurtle forward into a fascist future. Those in my info-bubble, woke progressives, yearn for a time when adults were at the wheel of the nation.

Escapism is one of our coping mechanism. A favorite escape is The Chicago Botanic Garden. We’d live there if they let us. Passing through the gates we leave the chaos and corruption behind and enter a world of peaceful calm. It inspires slow walking. It is a playground for the senses: rich colors and interesting shapes. Many of the flowers beckon the nose to savor a deep fragrant inhale. It is nearly impossible to pass the vibrant plants without reaching out to touch them.

It never fails that I round a corner and am met by an image that is straight out of a children’s book. In those moments I am immediately stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia or jumping down the rabbit hole with Alice. The rabbit with the pocket watch must surely have passed this way! If I were a writer of children’s books I’d wander the garden each day for inspiration.

In our last visit to the garden a few weeks ago, wandering through the Japanese garden, I was taken by “the inaccessible Horaijima,” the Island of Everlasting Happiness. It symbolizes paradise. It is purposefully inaccessible, an island of beauty that humans beings cannot reach. Its purpose is for meditation. In the garden of our lives we are meant to focus our minds and hearts on a place of beauty. We are meant to reach for beauty, strive for serene beauty. Place our minds there.

I was overwhelmed. How far has our poor sad nation wandered from its focus on anything serene or beautiful? We currently focus on the opposite, our minds steeped in images from the Island of Devastating Ugliness.

Standing at the water’s edge, Horaijima seemed so close yet so far away.

The children’s book: The adults are inundated with darkness and spiraling down the well of hatred. The Island of Everlasting Happiness is shrouded from view. In desperation, the young girl or boy – or both – set out on a journey to lift the fog, to bring the Island back into view, to return beauty to their elders. Their path is fraught with ogres and trolls determined to stop them. Will they make it in time?

“But I’ve wandered much further today than I should
And I can’t seem to find my way back to the wood.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GARDEN

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Filed under: Creativity, DR Thursday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, Chicago Botanic Garden, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, happiness, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Loggins & Messina, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, ugliness | 1 Comment »

Drink It Up [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although they are rare, yesterday we had what Kerri calls “a very negative day”. It was so pronounced that while out on the trail we made fun of ourselves, “What else can we be negative about?” she chirped.

“I don’t know but I’m sure there’s something!”

As usual, following a very negative day, I was awake most of the night having a chat with myself. “What was that about?” I asked. A question, I know, with no answer. Some days simply go off the rails. Still, the question has to be asked.

What I appreciate about my particular orientation to the world is that, instead of an answer, I never arrive at answers, a song floated to the top. Something better than an answer. Something more immense than a solution. A heart-call rather than a mind-pleaser. Like a poem. Last night, the deep response to my discord, was Danny’s Song, by Jim Messina:

Love the girl who holds the world in a paper cup
Drink it up
Love her and she’ll bring you luck
And if you find she helps your mind
Better take her home, home, yeah
Don’t you live alone
Try to earn what lovers own

I lay in bed through the dawn, listening to the birds awake and sing, the chimes call me to presence, feeling the cool morning breeze through the windows, knowing in my bones that I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Not really.

And even though we ain’t got money
I’m so in love with you, honey
And everything will bring a chain of love, oh, oh, oh
In the morning, when I rise
You bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything is gonna be alright

Better than an answer: “love the girl who holds the world in a paper cup.” I do. “Drink it up.” I am. “And in the morning when I rise/ You bring a tear of joy to my eyes/ And tell me everything is gonna be alright.”

It is a new day.

read Kerri’s blog post about CHOCO-FACE

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Sing With Pooh [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Why does a song suddenly pop-up in your mind and beg you to hum along? Yesterday, for no apparent reason, out of the blue, Loggins and Messina’s song, The House At Pooh Corner, washed over me and forced me to maul the lyrics. At the time I was writing a business blogpost about assembly lines (uff-da). House At Pooh Corner was released in 1971, it’s a bubble from the deep-deep archives.

It changed my day. I made such gumbo of the lyrics that I pulled it up on YouTube. I sang along so I might refresh the muddied words in my mind. In addition to word-recall, it lightened my spirits. Writing about spirit-stripping manufacturing processes, command-and-control structures, had my brows knitted and my brain squeezed. Maybe that’s why Pooh decided to visit. I had a honey jar stuck on my nose. I sang along and laughed.

By the end of the sing-along I was dedicated to taking myself less seriously. I suspect that’s the message and gift A.A. Milne released upon the world with Pooh and Piglet. None of it is as serious as we pretend. Will my knitted brow blogpost about new systems illuminate the world? Yawn. Probably not. Did it feel good to write? Absolutely. I love thinking about a better world. Pooh lives in one – and maybe that’s yet another reason he jumped a bubble and rode to the surface of my thinking. He came as a song. A lovely light-hearted wish. A seed pod of silly presence.

“…So I sent him to ask of the owl, if he’s there, how to loosen a jar from the nose of a bear…Help me if you can I’ve got to get back to the house at Pooh corner by one, you’d be surprised there’s so much to be done….” Kenny Loggins & Jim Messina