monkey mind | The Direction of Intention

Give Over [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on September 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the pontoon boat I give over. I do not drive so I make no significant decisions. I sit in a sunny spot. I laugh with good friends or am quiet. There are snacks. I open myself to whatever comes my way. I give-over.

It seems so easy on the pontoon boat. To relax. To go with the flow. To forget the all-important-lists. To drop the illusion that I am more than I am. No need to achieve, to prove, to strive, to become. On the pontoon boat I am just this. I am with friends. We move slowly. We chase nothing. We circumnavigate the lake. On the pontoon boat I am enough – and I know because I do not think about it at all. I measure nothing. No need to measure up.

I wonder why I reserve this kind of living to time on the pontoon boat.

Yesterday was an exceedingly hard day. I filled my cup with discord and self-loathing. I was a wasteland.

The boat is not magic. The peace I feel is not given to me by the boat. I give it to myself. My friends are with me whether we ride the boat or not. The reasons for my discord existed only in my mind. A very dark cloud. In my mind I did not measure up. I withheld peace and chose inner-enmity. Why?

You would think the grace I afford myself when riding in the pontoon boat would be available when riding on the earth as we circle and circle the sun. Why is my ride on this earth any different than my ride on the pontoon boat? Why would I choose anything other than grace?

When not on the pontoon boat am I not capable of opening myself to whatever comes my way? What – other than myself – prevents me from giving-over?

I measure illusions against illusions to fully achieve my misery.

The illusions and incessant measurement are what I drop when climbing onto the pontoon boat. They are what I easily-give-over when taking my seat in the sun with friends. How much more important is it to give-over the illusions with the same ease while inhabiting this seat as I circle and circle the sun?

The music Kerri has recorded is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the PONTOON BOAT

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Perspective, Random | Tagged: artistry, being and becoming, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discord, flow, friends, friendship, illusions, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, measure, monkey mind, open, open heart, peace, peace of mind, relationships, self loathing, story, struggle, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Lean Into The Lull [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I’m trying to immerse in the lull,” Kerri said and smiled.

We find ourselves with a square or two on the calendar with nothing written in it. A wise friend suggested we embrace the lull and cultivate a bit of quiet mind. We have some big decisions looming but not yet pressing. Fortunately, we have a trip up north that meshes with our empty calendar. There’s a canoe calling our name.

“Nothing needs deciding today,” our wise friend suggested.

Krishnamurti wrote that no problem can truly be solved until the mind is still. Constantly chewing on the question rarely leads to anything but more problem creation. Panic. Or blindness to possibility.

Usually “letting go” for a day or two is a difficult task but we’re finding exhaustion is a great helper. “I don’t have a thought in my head!” I said this morning, staring into space.

“Good!” Kerri said. “That’s the whole point!”

Actions for leaning into the lull: Hug the exhaustion. Send the weighty decisions to sleep-away-camp. Keep the calendar space as empty as the mind. Paddle the canoe. Take a nap.

Peace will find us there.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEACE

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Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Navel Gazing | Tagged: artistry, AS IT IS, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lull, monkey mind, opportunity, peace, peace by kerri sherwood, problem solving, quiet mind, rest, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

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?”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CLOUDS

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Filed under: Energy, KS Friday | Tagged: Angel You Are, artistry, comedy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delusion, don miguel ruiz, doubt, Energy Follows Thought, Kelsang Gyatso, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mind, mindfulness, monkey mind, room, spirituality, story, studio melange, the melange, thought, Willie Nelson, yoga | Leave a comment »

Hold Your Head Up [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

She rarely sleeps the whole night through. Which means neither do I. And, to be honest, most of our midnight conversations are world-class. The deep night calls forward the deep conversations. We generally talk until dawn. It is ironic that the light in the sky is, for Kerri, like a sleeping potion.

And, if I am honest, there are nights that I am incapable of cogency. In other words, I am less than lucid. With white noise buzzing between my ears, the best I can do is listen. And nod. And mutter. And hold my head up. And hang on for the dawn.

*****

and in a fit of randomness, here’s a blast from the past song that has almost nothing to do with this post except that Kerri began raucously singing the chorus when I read her my post…

read Kerri’s blogpost about BEING AWAKE ALL NIGHT

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, attention, cartoon, cartoon about middle age, cogency, cogent, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dawn, insomnia, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, listening, lucid, middle age romance, midnight conversations, monkey mind, pay attention, second chances, sleeping potion, sleepless, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | Leave a comment »

Listen To Leonardo [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

You need look no further than nature to understand where David Hockney gets his vivid color palette. Vibrant orange, yellows and greens. Brilliant-color-paintings borne from a luminous colorful world. All he needed to do was open his eyes.

I laughed aloud when I bumbled into this quote from Leonardo da Vinci: Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes! It’s somehow comforting knowing that, even at the height of the Renaissance, the apex of the great enlightenment, blinding ignorance was running rampant through the streets. I’m particularly fond of Leonardo’s cry of despair. O! It invites me to ponder what he saw that wrought his distress and subsequent appeal to “open your eyes!”

This morning in the kitchen, making breakfast and waiting for the potatoes to crisp, my mind was awhirl with nonsense. I held the wooden spoon and stared at nothing, so taken was I at the frenetic yammering in my brain. Gloom and doom. The news of the day. Then, in a moment of unintentional grace, I heard Leonardo’s cry, “O!” I followed his advice. I pulled a page from David Hockney and opened my eyes. In the calm quiet that ensued, I saw the magic-shadow-dance of the fan whirring above my head, the soft morning light reflecting off the wall made the room glow. The smell of rain on earth. Wren song.

Blinding ignorance. Monkey mind. 20 tells us that gossip is a more powerful force than gravity.

And a force more powerful than gossip, an antidote to the ignorance that blinds? Open your eyes. See the vibrant, colorful world immediately available beyond the discord. It will still the foolish noise (both inside your brain, and out).

read Kerri’s blogpost about ORANGE!

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Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, calm, color, david hockney, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gossip, grace, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Leonardo da Vinci, monkey mind, presence, quiet, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Dance [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We find that the balm to most of life’s greatest challenges is to dance. Anxious? Dance! Confused? Dance! Worried? Dance!

In truth, most of our worries, anxieties, and confusions don’t have a solution or a single answer. They are passing circumstance. Monkey mind run amok. Unsolvable dilemmas. In the face of uncertainty, quandary, or existential mess, it feels really good to dance. And that’s precisely the point. No sense to be made? Dance. Dance. Dance with the one you love! In the kitchen. In the front yard. In the airport.

And, isn’t that the name of the balm! The epicenter of existence! The purpose of life? To dance with the one you love. Preferably a slow dance. There’s no reason to rush when a solution feels so good.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DANCE WITH ME

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, anxiety, artistry, cartoon, cartoon about middle age, challenges, confusion, dance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, monkey mind, problems, purpose, saturday morning smack-dab, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, worries | 1 Comment »

Laugh Your Way Into Slumber [on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on December 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Once again, instead of peacefully sleeping, the mother-lode-of-comedy rolled through my brainpan. If I could only remember, after the lights go out, to order a drink, sit back, and play audience to the nonsense that takes the stage-in-my-mind, I’d laugh my way into slumber. Seriously, what I think is funny.

I’ve read that a mind needs to be occupied with something. It doesn’t matter what the “something” is as long as it’s sufficiently occupied. Without some parameters, that monkey-mind will latch onto anything passing through and then whip it into a full-blown stand-up routine. I suspect that the person who first said, “Don’t take yourself too seriously,” arrived at their insight after several sleepless nights.

I’m putting a post-it note by the bed. It reads, “The joke is on you.” No, really. It’s on me.

r ead Kerri’s blogp ost about SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, cartoon, cartoon about middle age, cartoon strip, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, middle age, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, mind, monkey mind, musician, painter, second chances, sleepless, sleepless nights, story, studio melange, the melange, writer | 1 Comment »

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

Filed under: Awakening, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Navel Gazing, Seeing | Tagged: achievements, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, in the moment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons learned, meditation, mindful, mindfulness, mistakes, monkey mind, presence, relationship, relationships, stillness, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Spin With The Earth [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 26, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

adrift songbox copy

If I was stranded on a desert island and could only have two books, they would be Think On These Things by Krishnamurti and The Actor And The Target by Declan Donnellan. If I was teaching a class on leadership, a beginning or advanced class in acting, a seminar on entrepreneurship, a master class in spiritual living,… I’d only need these two books. I go to them often. They remind me to remain open and appropriately adrift.

“The fact is that truth is life, and life has no permanency. Life has to be discovered from moment to moment, from day to day; it has to be discovered…” ~ Krishnamurti

“We cannot control reality, but we can control our fantasies. Except our fantasies don’t exist; so we are not controlling anything at all. But the illusion of control is deeply reassuring. And the price we pay for this reassurance is unimaginable.” ~ Declan Donnellan

Peaking through a triangular keyhole from 1996, the woman who would someday be my wife smiles at me. Neither of us knew then where life would take us. Neither of us know today where life will take us. Some days we know for certain that this spinning globe is beyond our capacity to control. Some days we delude ourselves.

One evening, shortly after we met, I went with her to a Taize service. She was playing the service and I had no idea what a Taize was. I sat in a tiny pew just off the chancel, just behind where she was playing. Something mystical happened that night. It was and is beyond my capacity to explain. After the service we sat in the tiny pew for hours. Completely stripped of our control fantasy, we sat spinning with the earth, listening, completely content to discover the moment. Appropriately adrift. Completely alive.

ADRIFT on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about ADRIFT

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: adrift, blueprint for my soul, control fantasy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, declan donnellan, delusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, krishnamurti, life, monkey mind, society6.com/davidrobinson, society6.com/kerrisherwood, studio melange, taize, the actor and the target, think on these things, truth | Leave a comment »

Catch The Small [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 19, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

copley place - back bay, boston copy

Chasing Dan and Craig through Copley Place in Boston I was amused by the ENORMOUS holiday ornaments either hanging from the rafters or well placed in the walkways by giant designer hands. We were cutting through the mall to avoid the cold. I felt as if I stepped into the movie,The Incredible Shrinking Man. Either that or Richard Serra had taken over the universe and large-scale was the rule-of-the-day. I became the guy that people avoid, giggling my way through the vigorous sea of shoppers.

I delight in experiences that shock me into SEEING. Moments that take me out of my monkey mind, that jettison me beyond the veil of my incessant (and ridiculous) inner monologue are priceless. To marvel. To laugh. To see with clarity our investments in all the BIG things that do not really matter and catch the few precious small moments that do matter.

Later on the train out of the city, Kerri and I did not talk about the monster ornaments or the massive decorations and ubiquitous lights adorning everything. Selling the season with such gusto! We talked of the moment that Craig slowed down and put his arm around his mother. Just for a moment. Such a small priceless thing to happen amidst so many monumental lovely displays.

read Kerri’s blog post about BIG ORNAMENTS

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston, children, Copley Place Boston, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Decorations, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moments, monkey mind, Ornaments, Priceless moments, Richard Serra, seeing, small things, The incredible Shrinking Man | Leave a comment »

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