Burst [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on September 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

If there is a metaphor for Kerri and me, it is this. A seedpod filled to bursting, ready to release into the world an abundance of the new.

We write more than most people care to read. I’ve calculated that, at this point, we’ve written the equivalent of ten full length novels. We have readers all over the globe – yesterday someone in Mongolia showed up. “Why would someone in Mongolia want to read what we write?” we asked, delighted. No matter. It’s what happens when you love what you are doing.

Yesterday, in a fit of no-duh, I reformatted the Smack-dab page on our site so it might be readable (I’m not sure what took me so long…) and I was astounded at our output. I fell into it. Smack-dab joins the comic canon of Chicken Marsala, Flawed Cartoon, At the Door, Flip, and the KnowNow series.

We love to share what we love. Sometimes I see-just-for-a-moment that our ordinary is extraordinary.

We have the third of Beaky’s books to produce. Kerri’s written a children’s book that someday she will allow me to illustrate. I have new ideas every day that get written on slips of paper and tossed in a bin called Someday.

Our Roadtrip is ready to roll and join The Lost Boy in our canon of plays performed together. I am working on a draft of a new play that I’ve been thinking about for years. I allow myself an hour of space away from the job hunt to write or work on a scene. One scene a week. I’m awaiting the decision whether or not my Last of the Old Gods will be rescheduled into the PCO season. It’s a timely story. It needs performing and I need to perform it.

Kerri stares at her piano. There is so much more music to make. I know it. She knows it. I can personally attest to the fact that some of her best vocal pieces have yet to be recorded. I am the sole recipient of such riches.

Each day I stand in my studio and close my eyes and feel the pulse. There are so many more paintings to paint.

Years ago, Joyce, staring wide-eyed into my future, said to me: You express what is true. You reach people through their hearts. You help them to believe.

It’s not a career. It’s an imperative. Seedpods. Ready to burst.

That Morning Someday/The Best So Far © 1995/1999 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEDPOD

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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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Follow The Map [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the era when I was telling stories at conferences I liked to tell a particular tale of a woman on a quest. She didn’t know it but the many trials she faced on her journey gave her the exact knowledge she needed to confront her monster, complete her quest and return safely to her home. A field of shifting boulders. A dense impassable forest. A thicket of lost souls. She navigated all of them, learned from them, and returned home, changed by her experiences, wiser from her travails.

It’s most often the message in stories about quests. The journey changes us. We rarely understand the purpose or meaning of our passage until its conclusion. We only know we’ve changed after we arrive back from where we started. Then we can turn around and see.

Prior to the Brothers Grimm, there was no woodsman-savior in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. A little girl sets out in life on a winding road to grandma’s house. It’s a metaphor. The little girl becomes an old woman. The wolf is metaphoric of time. The wolf “eats” all of us in the end. No woodsman can save us. No Hallmark ending is possible. What did Red experience on the way to grandma’s house?

It’s hard not to want to rush to the end. To know. There’s the fantastic story of the western businessman who wanted the Dalai Lama to tell him the secret of illumination so he could fast-track enlightenment, to achieve in a month-or-a-minute that which takes many lifetimes. Life lessons pay little attention to the demands of efficiency and effectiveness. Business, after all, is never just business.

Stages of development. Queen Anne’s lace. In its first year it is dedicated to sinking a taproot and developing a “rosette of basal leaves.” Creating a solid base. Only in the second year does it “send forth a flower stalk with blossoms.” It’s impossible to skip step one and arrive at blossoms. In truth, step one and step two are not really separate phases but are a single, gorgeous process of life’s renewal. I imagine that is what the Dalai Lama thought but did not say to the businessman.

In stories, the magic sword fails. Death knocks politely on the front door. The ogre stands in the path. The sphinx smiles and demands an answer. A young girl skips with Time along a winding road. A woman returns home, wiser from her experiences, changed by her journey.

Stories serve as universal maps, like taproots and basal leaves. They ground us. They can help us understand that the arrival we seek, the journey we take, is to ourselves. They can locate us on the winding road of life’s renewal.

read Kerri’s blogpost about QUEEN ANNE’S LACE

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Lead With The Heart [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Do you remember The Little Prince? “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; that which is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

What about this one: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched – they must be felt with the heart.” ~ Helen Keller

Two extraordinary people sharing the same sentiment.

One more from Mary Oliver: “Every morning I walk around this pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close I am as good as dead.”

What is this business with the heart? Seeing the essential. Feeling the best and most beautiful. Vital life an open door of the heart.

It is a simple message that reaches back through Aeschylus and Confucius, it reaches beyond the invention of the written word. You’ll find it scratched in glyphs. It’s a message older than any religion or spiritual tradition yet weaves its way through all of them. Lead with your heart.

I am a student of metaphor and pattern and can say this with absolute certainty: beneath the hoohah of our angry times is a simple enduring pattern, an appeal from wise voices ringing across the ages and cutting across cultures. A single metaphor: seeing rightly has nothing to do with our eyes. To be human is to lead with our hearts. Closing our hearts to one another might seem righteous but leaves us as good as dead.

[Now that I’m finished moralizing for the day, I think I’ll take a slow walk around our tiny pond, close my eyes, feel the sun, and revel in this day of being alive.]

slow dance/as sure as the sun © 2002 kerri sherwood

…and a bonus!

same sweet love/as sure as the sun © 2002 kerri sherwood

Close your eyes and you’ll see that these tracks have nothing to do with Jazz. Open your eyes and you’ll note that Rumblefish has absolutely no ownership right or copyright to these songs though they somehow possess a ridiculous capacity to misrepresent Kerri and her music.

Kerri’s albums can be found on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART LEAF

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Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Ponder It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

As you know, Breck-the-aspen-tree almost didn’t make it. Three years in a pot and one ill-conceived planting in the backyard left our poor Breck withered. A new spot in the yard restored Breck’s health but her growth was minimal. We removed dead branches. We assumed we’d stunted Breck’s growth so she would always be beloved and diminutive.

And then…It seems Breck is growing an inch every day. We began the summer looking down at her. Now, we crane our necks to see the new leaves sprouting at the top of her gangly reach. We joke that Breck is doing her Jack-In-The-Beanstalk imitation, though, at this rate of growth, it’s no joke. I confess to having a sit-down chat with her, cautioning her to not grow up too fast.

Last night I was awake most of the night. I thought about Breck and new growth. I thought about the cicadas, a surprising new form emerging from a discarded old body. I hoped against all hope that nature was talking to me, sending me a message. Be patient. All in good time. I’ve been sitting in the hallway for a very long time.

Perhaps, like Breck, I too am waiting for the optimal time, some intrinsic trigger and, suddenly and without warning or inhibition, I will reach to the sky. Perhaps, like the cicadas, in a moment of surprise, my new form will burst out of the old body, amazed at the sudden addition of wings.

In the meantime, I continue to do as I was taught: my job is to “put it out there”. The rest is out of my control [meantime: the intervening time. The hallway]. The operative word is “it”. It. I write and publish almost everyday. I paint and publish. We cartoon and publish. I toss resumes into the wind.

In the dark of night, thinking of aspen trees and cicadas, I ponder worthy questions. Breck needed assistance to move to new soil and then required recovery time. Storing energy for the right moment. The cicada lived underground until it felt an internal imperative to climb – an imperative that I imagine made no sense but had to be heeded just the right moment. For me, if nature is talking to me, it has me pondering what else – that I’ve not yet considered – might “it” be that I should “put out there”? Or better, does “it” matter at all? Perhaps all that I lack is the right moment. And there’s nothing to be done about that.

weeping man, 48x36IN, mixed media

My Site. Up and Running. At Long Last.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Sail Anew [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s hard to know what to believe. For instance, each day I cross paths with an advertisement showing me what to do if I experience tinnitus. The ad is muted so what I see is a smiling woman yanking repeatedly on her earlobes. And, each day, I think the same thing: this has to be some trickster-ish plot to get masses of people to pull on their ears. Invisible theatre worthy of the great Augusto Boal. I’m considering jumping on the city bus, taking a center seat, and without comment, begin tugging my lobes. I’ll either clear the bus, make friends or, in these United States, most likely be shot by an armed citizen whose only answer to the unknown is to shoot it. I suppose that sounds cynical but we citizens of the U.S.A. are living proof of the adage, “If a hammer is the only tool in your toolbox, then everything looks like a nail.” If a gun is your only solution, you’ll kill a teenager who accidentally pulled in your driveway or shoot someone who mistakenly knocked on your door. We read about it everyday. Every single day.

There’s another ad I appreciate appealing to people to check-the-facts before forwarding or liking what they read. “We are awash in misinformation…” it warns. “Amen, advertisement!” I cheer, “What took you so long?” With so much mis-info-noise ringing in our ears, we either need to regularly check what we hear or smile and yank our earlobes. My theory is that yanking our lobes will occupy our fingers so we can’t like or forward info-dreck. By-the-way, the statistics on gun deaths are easy to check. No one is making up the story of neighbors killing neighbors rather than talking to them. Of course, in one horrific case, a neighbor killed his neighbors because they talked to him. Sometimes the factual stuff is so disturbing it’s better to yank on your ears than consider how out of control it’s all become. Our elected officials are certainly yanking on their ears to make our noise go away.

My hope? My fantasy? We are trying to bust out of our cocoon. A caterpillar transformed can’t know it has become a different critter until it breaks out of its hard protective shell. Escape from a cocoon is not an easy process. It looks ugly. It’s not meant to be easy. The difficult cocoon-exit is essential for the next stage of butterfly survival and thriving. An arduous rebirth is necessary for the caterpillar to fulfill its transformation. Flight, an utter impossibility prior to the protective cocoon, the next part of the story. The fulfillment of possibility beyond imagining. Maturity. Wings dry while the butterfly catches its breath following the struggle. And then, the newly-minted butterfly takes its first step off the branch, releasing the old story, and sails anew into the world. Or, sails into a new world.

A new world. People protecting each other as civilized people are meant to do. All grown up. Listening. A bag full of tools for every situation. No guns needed. No longer a necessity to yank on its ears.

taking stock/right now © 2010 kerri sherwood

Kerri’s albums can be found at iTunes or streaming on Pandora or iHeart Radio

read kerri’s blogpost about BUTTERFLIES

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Listen To The River [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Have you learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

I’m not sure why I didn’t recognize it before now but Siddhartha and the Parcival grail epic are the same story. A ferryman. A hermit in the woods. A second teacher that appears and teaches presence – by example.

“The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. The rich and distinguished Siddhartha will become a rower…” Parcival removes his armor. The great and powerful knight loses himself; he chops wood and carries water.

Eileen, 20’s mom, turns 100 today. Her party was last week. 20 made a beautiful photo board of her long life. The child. The sassy teenager. A vibrant young woman. A mother. A keeper-of-the-books. A grandmother. An aged woman. The full cycle of life. Her granddaughters attended the party. Her great-granddaughters, too.

“Age-and-stage,” 20 often says. Age and stage.

“Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean, and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?”

“That is it,” said Siddhartha, “and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river…”

Parcival turned and was shocked to see the grail castle standing in the meadow behind him. The hermit smiled and said, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

Happy Birthday, Eileen. 100 years. A moment.

read Kerri’s blogpost about 100 YEARS

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Consider The Fact [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In writing yesterday about the frogs arising from their eradicated landscape, I realized our front yard has become a bit of a metaphor. It, too, was eradicated. In the past two years it has been blasted to bits, trenched by too-large machines, huge mounds of earth and debris left behind to molder. After a prolonged battle, the digger of trenches and leaver of mounds returned with a different batch of too-large machines and quickly scraped away the mounds and all the living things, tossed some seed, spread some hay, and tacked some netting to the ground to keep the seed from blowing away.

A metaphor of our life. Eradicated landscape. Willy-nilly seed.

Yet, just as the frogs filled us with awe at their resilience, we are amazed watching determined shoots of hardy green reach through the disruption. Each patch of green perseverance fills us with giddy hope. New life is coming!

“We are like that,” we affirm.

We are not alone in our renewal. We are surrounded by a mighty community. Dan shares his grass-mastery and guides us toward lawn renewal. Dwight shares his wisdom and encourages us toward soul regeneration. 20 keeps us laughing and our hearts light. Brad and Jen walk each step with us. There is more support than we can count, more friendship than we can believe, both near and from afar. Abundance.

Abundance. Beyond metaphor, it is the fact of our life.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREEN

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Hold Space [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I just realized why the stripped forest is having such an impact on me. While opening the back door to let Dogga out, my dials spun and it slapped me in the face. I am like the forest.

For several minutes, staring at the photograph, writing then rejecting, then writing and again rejecting what I’d written, I decided to get up and let Dogga out. This picture was making me anxious. Moving around has always been good for me when I’m thought-wrestling.

I am like this forest. Exposed. Chips and debris are everywhere. Water is overtaking the trees.

I was writing about a question Justin asked one night at dinner. “What’s your stance about secular Calvinism?” he asked.

“I don’t think I have one,” I replied. Justin’s eyebrows hit the ceiling and I made a snap decision not to follow my reply with an explanation. He was sorting his belief and searching his heart. Empty space was more useful than cramming my erudite-and-empty justification into the moment.

Insight requires space. Lots of space.

I wish I could express how rare it is for me to keep my mouth closed when I have a thought on a topic. Kerri will laugh aloud when I read this to her. “No joke!” she’ll say. I wanted to say to Justin, “I don’t have a stance because I think it’s a given.” His question was akin to asking about my stance on the existence of the moon. No culture sees itself clearly.

No person (me) sees himself clearly.

Chips and debris. The river has overrun its banks. One half of the photo is the result of natural forces. The other half is man-made. Choices. Circumstance and intention. This landscape, once so familiar, will never be the same.

I’ve spent my life cultivating my capacity to see pattern and metaphor. It’s an artist’s prerogative to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. I am the forest. Familiar, yet completely unknown. Stripped for rejuvenation.

Insight requires space. Perspective requires distance. Perhaps the reason I left open space in my conversation with Justin is something I need do for myself, too. Searching my heart, I am the forest. Stripped of invasive plants I can see all the way to the river. So much space.

What is my stance? Right now, thankfully, I don’t think I have one. I’m holding the space for insight to come.

read Kerri’s blogpost THE FOREST

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Pattern | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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