meditation | The Direction of Intention

Give Over The Melody Line [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

as it is songbox copy

Spiritual teachers across traditions suggest that the reason we suffer is that we focus on what we think should be/supposed to be instead of on what is. The dedication to being someplace other than where you are will split you every time! The notion that you can be someone other than who you are (at this moment) will cleave you in two. And so, we have traditions of mindfulness (be where you are) and acceptance (be who you are) and forgiveness (be at peace with who and where you are). The cliff notes version: stop hewing yourself in two and you will stop suffering.

This is the seed-idea that inspired AS IT IS. This is what is supposed to be. All is as it is, as it should be.

I delight when Kerri tells me the story behind a composition. This morning, as we listened, she asked me to pay attention to the melody line. The flute mostly carries it. The keyboard – what she is playing – is in a support role. She said it this way: the keyboard gives over the melody line. The flute gives it back. The keyboard returns it to the flute.

No resistance. Relationship. AS IT IS. These, too, are spiritual suggestions for mending the hew. I’ll add to my canon as a practice for presence: give over the melody line.

AS IT IS on the album AS IT IS, available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about AS IT IS

as it is/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: acceptance, AS IT IS, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, forgiveness, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mindfulness, no resistance, practices, presence, relationships, society6.com/kerrisherwood, spiritual journey, spiritual practice, spirituality, split, split focus, split intention, studio melange, suffering | Leave a comment »

Meditate [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 31, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

mother&childprocessshot copy

It’s a universal theme that I’ve painted over and over throughout my life. Mother and child. Sometimes the painting is inspired by a dear friend becoming a parent. Sometimes, like this iteration, I look up and find it staring at me from the canvas. When that happens I know I need to follow it.

I learned when I was a teenager that the act of painting was, for me, a form of meditation. Sometimes the meditation has nothing to do with the image that I am working with. The process becomes an exercise in presence. Sometimes, like this painting, the image has everything to do with the meditation. The image is the meditation.

So. Birth. New life. Possibilities. Life giving. A good meditation for the middle of winter. A good meditation for an artist surrounded by good friends retiring from work, becoming grandparents, asking what is next. A universal theme. A universal symbol.

read Kerri’s blog post on MOTHER AND CHILD IN PROCESS

mother & child (in process) ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mother and child, painting, presence, studio melange, symbol, universal themes | Leave a comment »

Pause [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

untitledinterlude songbox copy

Interlude. A pause. Breathing space. The silence between the notes. The space with no name. Untitled.

It seems that we, like all the people in our community, entered the new year exhausted. Our season celebrating the return of the light has become a season of rush and dash with nary a moment to reflect. Kerri said, in a moment of exasperation, “The bears are sleeping through this!” Nature knows what we are supposed to be doing in these dark winter months. Resting. Quiet in the branches sends all the good energy to the roots.

Take a moment. Listen. Breathe. Send some good UNTITLED INTERLUDE energy to your roots.

UNTITLED INTERLUDE from the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes and CDBaby. Purchase the physical CD here.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNTITLED INTERLUDE

untitled interlude/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Body, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: breathing space, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, music, pause, quiet, released from the heart, rest, silence, society6.com/kerrisherwood, studio melange, untitled interlude | Leave a comment »

Choose Your Meditation [on Not-So-Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on November 7, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

peace marbles copy

We found Peace Marbles in a basket at the door of Leap Of Faith, a small shop in Cedarburg. It’s one of our favorite shops for obvious reasons. Many faiths are represented in the shop so translate the accompanying lyrics/prayer/meditation accordingly.

The idea is ancient. What fills your mind-space, your meditation, is what you will create. Meditate on hate and that is what you will see. Focus on lack and that is what you will experience. Although it might not seem like it, what you think, what flows through your noggin on a daily basis, is a choice. It is a placement of focus. It is a prayer. A meditation.

Peace comes when people collectively focus on peace. A community chooses where to place its focus as readily as does an individual. It’s all in the narrative, the stuff flowing through our conversation, our storytelling, on a daily basis. It is a creative act – not something that ‘happens to us.’

A Blue Marble

It seems we could use all the help we can get. And, you never know, a fleet of little blue marbles rolling around in pockets and purses as reminders might be just the thing to help us choose to place our focus on the better things. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

read Kerri’s blog post on BLUE MARBLES

Filed under: Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: Blue Marble, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, faith, focus placement, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, meditation, parayer, peace, studio melange, the melange, thought | Leave a comment »

Contemplate [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 18, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

a detail from Contemplation, acrylic 48 x 24IN

I do more than my fair share of contemplating (just ask Kerri. My incessant contemplation drives her bonkers). For instance, years ago, it occurred to me that every thought we human-storytellers have IS a kind of meditation. It’s a fair question – a necessary question – to ask: what are you meditating on? Your pain? Your troubles? Who you blame? Your grudges? Your obstacles? Your joys? Your opportunities? Your privileges? Your love? Your losses? Your list? All of the above? Keep in mind (where else would you keep it) that most of your thoughts are repetitive. The majority of what you think today is a repeat of what you thought yesterday. Your thoughts are not passive. They are also not truth. They are patterned, mostly made up, and a powerful lens through which you define your experiences. The good news is that you can change your meditation if you want to.

Listening to the news it will make you gag when you stop and realize what actually populates our national meditation and how our angry narrative permeates your personal mediation. We are not as separate as we like to pretend. That’s good news. That, and, we can change our meditation. We can tell a better story.

This morsel comes from a painting that recently returned to the stable. It is, quite literally, a blast from the past. What I find most amazing about this particular return-to-the-fold is that, just a few months ago, I uncovered the old drawing that inspired Contemplation and sourced it again for another painting, Softly She Prays. And then, in a fit of good timing, Contemplation arrived at our door.

Paintings are like journal entries. It is not often that happenstance provides such a rich opportunity for comparison. Comparison of contemplation. What was my meditation 15 years ago? What is it now? Horatio told me my body of work is a study of stillness in motion (not a direct quote H, but I love the reflection non-the-less). The deep river story remains. The top layer meditation has shifted.

Ah. Do you see? Incessant contemplation.

Contemplation, circa 2004

Softly She Prays, 2018

read Kerri’s blog post on CONTEMPLATION

contemplation/softly she prays ©️ 2004/2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Navel Gazing, Uncategorized | Tagged: archeology, color, comparison, contemplation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, journal, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, motion, narrative, prayer, society6.com/davidrobinson, soflty she prays, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Realize It [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 5, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

i am alive song box copy

Years ago, at the retreat center on Whidbey Island, Kendy talked with me about her budding meditation practice. She was having difficulty quieting her mind chatter. To help, a teacher gave her a mantra to use in her meditation. The mantra gave her busy mind a focal point. It was a simple phrase: I Am. I Am. “It’s the craziest thing,” she said, “I feel like I need to add a description, I Am…what? I am happy? I am fulfilled? I am a loser? I am bored? And then it occurred to me that it’s the descriptor I’m trying to quiet! Why do I need to define everything? Judge everything? Assign a score to everything? Isn’t the whole point to realize how profound it is to be alive? I Am.”

There is a photograph of my uncle Al, just months before he died of cancer, fulfilling a dream of flying on a trapeze. At the moment of letting go of the bar, he reaches into space. The catcher is not in the frame. Al’s face, wracked with his disease, is shining with the joy of his moment. The simple pleasure of his moment of I Am.

There is a lyric in Kerri’s song, I Am Alive, that brings me back to my conversation with Kendy and the enormity of her realization. It makes me miss Al. The lyric goes like this: we are bonded by the power of this dream that is I Am.

Cut through all the chatter-of-the-day and it’s plain enough. It’s simple enough. Add the final descriptive word to the I Am. Realize, as Al did in that gorgeous moment of flight, of not-here-or-there. I Am Alive.

I AM ALIVE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about I AM ALIVE

i am alive/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Gratitude, KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, awakening, cancer, cancer survivor, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, I Am Alive, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, meditations, realization, society6.com/kerrisherwood | Leave a comment »

Take Another Step [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 24, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

in transition song box copy

In the past year I’ve been reading books a few pages at a time. Some days I only read a few paragraphs at a time. I’m not reading to get through a book. I’m reading to ponder. It’s become a form of reading meditation.

A few weeks ago, I began a slow read of my own book, The Seer. I published it nearly five years ago and immediately abandoned it. Today I read this: change never comes from the direction of what you know. It is a prerequisite of learning, growth and change to step away from what is known, from what is comfortable. From what feels safe. Learning and change are always in the direction of the unknown.

Kerri’s IN TRANSITION is a musical mantra for stepping into the unknown. As is true of all transitions, it is a yearning in two directions. Yearning for what was. Yearning for what will be. But more than yearning, it is a river of determination. Take another step. And another. And another. Discover.

If you are in transition, as we are, stand still for a moment and listen to the yearning, steep yourself in the simple encouragement of IN TRANSITION.

IN TRANSITION on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART available on iTunes & CDBaby. The physical CD is available here.

read Kerri’s blog post about IN TRANSITION

www.kerrianddavid.com

in transition/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: change, comfort, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, determination, discovery, growth, In transition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, meditation, released from the heart, society6.com/kerrisherwood, studio melange, the melange, The Seer, transition, unknown, yearning | Leave a comment »

Pray In Opposites [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 9, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Prayer Of Opposites, acrylic on panel, 48 x 48IN

I love this painting and for some reason have never included it in a show. An early version of it hung for a few years in the undergraduate offices of Antioch University, Seattle. After returning from Bali I took it down, hauled it back to the studio and repainted it.

On my gallery site I wrote about this painting that paradoxes and oppositions are lively topics for me. Truth is always found in the “in-between” spaces. Truth is connective tissue.

Separation is only the beginning of the life-story. The rest of the story is a search for connection. It is lived as a quest to find the common center – through a prayer of opposites. As the Balinese would say in shorthand, many faces, one god.

read Kerri’s blog post about A PRAYER OF OPPOSITES

www.kerrianddavid.com

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: Bali, common center, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life story, meditation, oppositions, paradoxes, polarity, prayer, presence, quest, society6.com/davidrobinson, story, storytelling, studio melange, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Have Wings [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 12, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

This painting jumped to the canvas fully formed. It announced itself and I simply opened the door. It was not what I’d intended to paint when I entered the studio. I had a wholly different idea In Mind. I’ve learned that the best work has very little to do with what I have In Mind. The best work comes from the other place, the place available when Mind steps out of the way.

Meditation, prayer, inner reaching….is a theme I loop back to again and again. Lately, I’ve been pondering what happens when we cease searching for peace and instead simply bring it. What if prayer/meditation was not a quest for center, a search for inner peace or quiet mind? What if there was no separation? What if prayer/meditation was a bringing to the surface of the peace that already exists? What if you need not search for it because it is already here? What if, like this painting, that place is available when we stop listening to a Mind that tells us the center is lost, that peace is somewhere over there?

I suspect my pondering produced this painting. Kerri calls it Winged.

Winged, 27 x 20 IN acrylic on canvas

read Kerri’s blog post on WINGED

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, balance, center, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inner peace, intuition, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mind, peace, prayer, quiet mind, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, the melange, wings | Leave a comment »

(Y)Our Earth [It’s Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 17, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Take a moment to take a look around you. A thought to ponder and share from the melange.

Tibetan monks have been in residence this week at a local technical college. They are creating a mandala sand painting. For the monks, creating the mandala is a spiritual practice, a meditation. As they construct the design they contemplate the meaning of the symbols within the design. In other words, they are in a constant state of prayer while they create. They invite the community to enter the prayerful space and contemplate with them; the “space” is, of course, the essential part of their creation. More to the point, the shared space of peace, an intentional communal tranquility, is the creation. And, to make sure we grasp the point, the final step in their creative process is to blow the design away. Nothing is permanent. Beauty is passing and so are you and me. It is, we are, energy in motion. The process, rather than the product, is the meditation.

When Kerri drew this design it immediately reminded me of the Earth’s currents, a perfect sentiment for the coming Earth Day celebrations. The essential convection currents that create our wind, our weather. The currents in the earth moving layers of magma, the transfer of energy in the heating and cooling of the ocean. Motion creates life, tosses up forms and pulls them down again. Motion is life, life is motion. And, in this mandala we call Earth, there is a deeper meditation found within the sand and the impermanence: it’s all connected. We are all connected. Blowing sands. The process, the quality of our participation in impermanence, is the art.