The Marvel [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 11, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The first dusting of snow arrived overnight*. What is bracing for us is a boon for Dogga. He loves the cold and snow. Prancing out the back door in the early morning, he was overjoyed to discover the frosty stuff. Rather than scout the yard, sniff the perimeter, chase the squirrels or any other of his usual morning activities, he performed his joyful ritual of first-snowfall: a full 360 degree Aussie spin followed by an immediate lay down – with a sigh of satisfaction.

From his snowy bed he surveyed his vast territories. He was the picture of contentment.

Hans-the-realtor once told me that, “Everyone has their heaven.” While I hastily closed the door and retreated into the warmth of the house to make breakfast, I left Dogga to enjoy his perfect slice of paradise.

We bipeds wield words like “mindfulness” or “presence” and pursue them as if they were achievements to be grabbed. This morning Dogga taught me – again – that there is nothing complicated about fully inhabiting and enjoying your moment; all you need do is stop the chase and lay down in the marvel called “snow”.

*We awoke this morning – the day after the dusting – to over a foot of snow. Dogga was in his glory plowing chest deep, cutting Aussie trails, through his favorite marvel: snow.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW

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With Abandon [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on May 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was my favorite paradox-quote of the week: “The discipline is free association,” he said. Horatio was describing his daily Wordle addiction and extended it to a metaphor for deeper art processes. Horatio is a poet, a writer, a painter, a filmmaker…Like all artists, he understands the necessity of left-brain discipline: technique and function. Color theory. Story structure. Yet, the ultimate discipline, the doorway to flow, is through the right-brain and requires the exercise of letting go of the left-brain-everything-you-think-you-know.

My teachers in theatre school often said on opening night, “Now, all you need do is let go and trust your work.” Let go of listening to yourself. Let go of your internal editor. Let go of self-judgement. Let go of your need to control. Open your heart. Dance the dance without inhibition. Dance the dance with abandon.

Leave your big ole brain behind.

The discipline of free association. It is a practice with layers. Like all life-practices it has no end; it has nothing at all to do with achievement. It’s a discipline like mindfulness is a discipline (a misnomer: mindfulness should be called sense-fullness). The practice becomes a way of living.

Approaching the park she stopped suddenly. I learned early in our life together that walks with Kerri are exercises in seeing. She sees a world that is mostly invisible to me because I am most often lost in my thoughts. She allows her eyes to roam without presupposition. Now, when she stops, before she shows me her photograph, I play the game of trying to see what grabbed her attention, what captured her eye. Inevitably, I am surprised by what she shows me. Her open focus is receptive. She doesn’t predict. She doesn’t seek. She responds. She sees composition beyond what she thinks-is-there. A tree. The lake. A strip of green.

She illuminates for me the extraordinary in the ordinary.

“How did you see that?” I ask.

She shrugs and says, “I don’t know. It was right there.”

To free associate one needs first to be free of preconception. To step on the stage, having done all the work and still be able to say, “Let’s see what happens.”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TREE

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Straw Into Gold [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?

At this moment the heat index is 107 degrees. Dogga is in the coolest spot in the house, sleeping between the window air conditioner and the fan. Our strategy for keeping cool includes frequent bites of cold watermelon.

I recently heard someone say that surviving is about getting through the day while thriving is about being fully alive within the day. With two forks and a large bowl of cut-up watermelon between us, I can safely say that we are thriving. “This is delicious,” I coo. She nods, savoring her bite.

As artists we have of necessity developed a healthy frugality. Our thriftiness is not tight-fisted or in any way austere. The opposite is true. We revel in the simple things. We appreciate small moments. We delight in tiny triumphs. We are not trying to survive the heat, we are making an adventure, moving slowly, mindfully, deliciously within our day. Our cold watermelon a feast-to-be-savored.

Last night we had dinner with 20. We make dinner for each other twice a week. It’s something we’ve done for years, something that began as a way to save money. It’s become the single ritual that gives shape to our otherwise fluid days. Sitting around the table, laughing, we acknowledge that “life doesn’t get any better than this.”

We spin our straw into gold. Out of frugality, deep abiding appreciation.

Good Moments on the album This Part of the Journey © 1997/2000 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATERMELON

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Get Out Of The Way [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Our mind is like a cloudy sky: in essence clear and pure, but overcast by clouds of delusions. Just as the thickest clouds can disperse, so, too, even the heaviest delusions can be removed from our mind.” ~ Kelsang Gyatso

I’ve heard for years that energy follows thought. It seems an obvious truism to me and though I have practices meant to dissipate my cloudy thoughts, I confess that I too easily bite my thought-hooks. Imagine my pleasant surprise, when poking around to find some fodder to write about, I found Energy Follows Thought, a song by Willie Nelson:

Imagine what you want
Then get out of the way
Remember energy follows thought
So be careful what you say…

Imagining what I want is the easy part. Getting out of the way is the challenge.

I once read that our thoughts are the motherlode of comedy. I suspect that it is true though there’s a catch. Few of us are aware that our thoughts are funny. If others heard our thoughts they’d howl with laughter. We have the unfortunate delusion to be the only audience to our thoughts and so, thinking we are more important than we actually are, we take ourselves seriously. We don’t get the joke.

Don Miguel Ruiz wrote as his 5th Agreement that we should doubt everything that we think. Doubting your thoughts is a strategy for dissipating them, for not biting the thought-hook. For getting out of the way. I try to remember his 5th Agreement when I am too adamant or somehow come to think that my thoughts represent truth.

Poor Kerri. She is often subjected to hearing my oh-so-serious-thoughts and has to work hard to suppress gales of laughter. She doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. 20 regularly asks her, “Did you know about this before you married him?” She shakes her head in mock-despair.

“You really had her fooled,” he says to me.

“I only had to keep my mouth closed until she said, ‘I do,” I smile. “Now, who wants to hear what I’m thinking?”

Angel You Are © 2002 Kerri Sherwood – this piece is not jazz nor is its copyright or publishing right owned in any capacity by rumblefish.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CLOUDS

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Mind The Deer [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 24, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We don’t always see them but we know they are present. The deer. We note their tracks and have learned where they usually cross the path. They follow careful pathways, game trails that are visible when we are walking slow enough to spot them.

As a symbol, they are heart-centered. They are associated with gentleness and it’s easy to understand why. They are gentle creatures. Even when bounding away, their leap is graceful and quiet, as if they are careful not to disturb the grasses and ground. They are mindful of their impact on the world.

We feel fortunate when we see them. It sometimes feels as if they show themselves to us. They seem to know when our hearts are hurting so reveal themselves, even for a moment, to help fill us with peace. It’s always true that we stop all movement, all thinking, all worry, all despair…when they show themselves. They are like magical makers of space, instantly turning tumult into vast acres of serenity. They look at us with large black eyes to make sure our spirits are calm, our hearts refreshed, and then they disappear as quickly as they appeared. “What were we talking about?”

“I can’t remember.”

The calm stays with us as we become like the deer, filled with their intentional spirit, quiet and innocent. Present, that special place beyond our future worries and past regrets.

watershed/as it is © 2004 kerri sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE DEER

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Drop In [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 21, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We stopped on the boardwalk. The sentinel tree stood solitary in the field. Its presence stopped us in our tracks. It was a bone keeping watch over the marshes. It felt forgotten. Unreachable. Made beautiful in its dedication. It inspired quiet. Suddenly, we found ourselves witness to the witness. Look-at-me-look-at-you.

Perhaps it was the boardwalk but I was thrust back in time to a pier. Long Island Sound. It was early morning. The sound and vibration called me to the pier’s end. I stood for a few minutes, eyes closed, and listened. Hundreds of birds, pigeons, chattering beneath the boards, their voices amplified by the wood and soundbox of the structure. I felt them through my feet. Kneeling, I tried to catch a glimpse of the cacophony-makers. They, too inspired quiet.

“Hawk!” Kerri said, pointing and bringing me back to the boardwalk. Beyond the sentinel a hawk threaded masterfully through branches.

I used to think that these magical moments took me out of the real world. Stopping time. Now, I believe the opposite is true. These moments snap me out of my mind-chatter and drop me into the real world. Achingly beautiful. Alive. No story necessary.

pigeon pier. 46x46IN

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SENTINEL

pigeon pier © 2007 david robinson

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Trip And Trip Again [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 4, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

One of the advantages of having stepped in every pothole, tripped on every cobble, and made every mistake at least twice, is that I’ve learned about potholes, cobbles, mistakes, tripping and stepping where I ought not step. If I could boil down to the essence the single thing I’m beginning to grok it is this: life is not elsewhere.

I laughed aloud when I at last I realized the absurdity of “practicing mindfulness” as if it was something to achieve. Mindfulness arrives when the practice stops. Of course. Meditating for self-improvement, I’ve read, is a uniquely Western oddity. “Trying” to be present is ridiculous if you think about it. You are present. What else? Because your mind is running amok does not actually magically transport you to the past or the future. You are present with a mind that is running amok. Minds are like puppies: chase them and they run away. Stand still and they will eventually come to you.

Is any of this pothole wisdom helpful? Absolutely not. Like mindfulness, wisdom arrives when the obsession with knowledge-for-betterment ceases. I’ll let you know what that looks like when I stop trying to attain it. There’s no end to the tripping stones. I’ve learned that, too. Again and again. And again.

The best things in life are not achievements. They are relationships. Me to you. Me to me. Me to the world I am passing through, one moment at a time. With you. Stand still in the moment – you might as well since it is where you are – and you’re libel to experience all manner of beauty.

read Kerri’s blog post about SNOWFLAKES

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

kindred spirits…away/released from the heart © 1995 kerri sherwood

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Look To The Field [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 14, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…if you observe your mind very quietly without giving explanations, if you just let the mind be aware of its own struggle, you will soon find that there comes a state in which there is no struggle at all, but an astonishing watchfulness. In that state of watchfulness there is no sense of superior or inferior, there is no big man or little man, there is no guru. All those absurdities are gone because the mind is fully awake; and the mind that is fully awake is joyous.” ~ Krishnamurti, Think On These Things

Saul told me to look beyond my opponent to the field of all-possibilities. He even gave it a location, a hundred feet beyond where he stood. We were doing an exercise called push-hands and, as a tai-chi master, he was teaching me not only where to place my focus but also where to place my belief. It took me a few years to grok: believe in resistance and resistance will appear. Call it an opponent and you’ve defined the relationship and, therefore, your choices. An obstacle is only an obstacle because it is identified as so.

I met Kerri because my world collapsed. Did my world collapse or did it open? Saul would say, “Neither.” Energy is energy. It moves and we give story to the movement, thereby shaping it. Storytelling is more powerful than we know.

Saul might as well have said, “The opponent lives in your mind. Look beyond your mind. Look beyond the story.” It’s a good practice to have an experience before naming it. It’s a better practice to have an experience and not name it at all. I’m not there yet, though I can see the field that Saul recommended. It exists beyond my definition-noise.

Saul threw me across the room yet never touched me. He laughed. I wanted to ask, “How did you do that?” but I already knew what his answer would be: “I didn’t. You threw yourself.”

read Kerri’s blog post on this Two Artists Tuesday

tree and sky © 2021 kerri sherwood

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Receive The Message [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

We just made a pact to lighten up. It’s not the first time we’ve made this pact and it probably won’t be the last. What’s important in this particular version of our pact is that we are growing more capable of keeping it.

The week before Columbus died, my sister-in-law sent some pictures of him. He was at the very beginning of what would become a rapid decline. She sent the photos to reassure us but they had the opposite impact on me: I was shocked.

Those photos threw me into a pendulum: some days, nothing seems worth getting riled up about. This ride is short and it ends. I know my mind can whip up a fruit-smoothie of drama in a nano-second but that doesn’t mean I need to drink it. And, on the other end of the pendulum, everything seems worth getting riled up about. This ride is short and it ends. Both/And.

I know the pendulum will settle. I know equilibrium is merely a matter of not indulging in the swing but stepping back and watching. The thoughts will sway to-and-fro and I need not sway with them. To lighten up, as Don Miguel Ruiz advises, “Doubt everything that you think.” Or, as someone once told me, “What we think is the mother-lode of comedy.” Changing a mind begins with realizing that a mind, although it will tell you otherwise, is not the keeper of truth.

We hit the trail for many reasons but first and foremost a good walk serves to restore our balance. Someone has been leaving good spirits along our favorite trail and we delight in discovering them. We leave them for others to find. We’ve encountered happy messages, halloween goblins, and folks just like the red and orange googly-eyed fellow that made us laugh. He was sitting with his back to us in the middle of the path. Kerri did a photo shoot with him; he was a willing subject.

I’ve decided that he crossed our path to affirm our pact: he is the spirit of lighten-up. He is the messenger of you-are-not-all-that so enjoy the day. A trail jester to remind us that nothing we imagine or create compares or is more real or important than the step we are currently taking. “Alas, poor Yorick…” he had his time and so do we. What we decide to do with it, how we decide to live it, is not happenstance; it is completely up to us.

read Kerri’s blog post about GOOGLY EYES

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Sit On The Curb [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 5, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

As much as our wily-ole brains would like us to believe otherwise, we can be nowhere else but in the present. Everything else is imagination.

Years ago I belonged to a support group of independent consultants. We met once a month to discuss our business challenges, insights, and to give and receive some advice. One of the members of the group was a Byron Cady coach. I have no memory of the discussion that prompted her to offer this Byron-thought-metaphor: “If your house burns down, rather than race around in panic, the best thing you can do is sit on the curb and appreciate the moment.”

To the consumer-mind, wisdom often sounds like bad advice. That you are alive, that you have this moment, means that no real possession was lost. The question is, in the face of calamity, what will you make of the moment?

Brother Joseph told the story of holding a woman wearing expensive furs, each finger was diamond encrusted, as she died on the street. He was, in the moment, overwhelmed by the worthlessness of her stuff. The illusion of value once life has gone.

Life. This moment. Calamity is certain to come. Sit on the curb and see what is there, beyond what you think is there.

We’ve had our share of adversity these past few years. I would like to report that we laughed heartily in the face of lost jobs and broken wrists and pandemic madness and civil unrest. We did not. We shook our fists at the sky. We made up words and ran loops like Chicken Little. We invested in all manner of fear-of-the-future and ran from monsters-of-the-past. None of our racing around or fist-shaking brought comfort or change.

But, the moments that we took a breath, walked a trail or sat on the back deck and listened to the cardinals and crows, sipped hot coffee on cold mornings, held hands – sat on the curb and appreciated the undeniable truth of our moment: we have everything. We have this moment – the only moment of life that we’ll ever inhabit. We have each other. The rest, the fear of future, demons of the past, are pure imagination. In those moments, wrapped in a circumstance of calamity, we laughed at the beauty of it all.

read Kerri’s blog post about LAUGH IN THE FACE OF CALAMITY

Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Edges, Gratitude, Metaphor, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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