An Audacious Thing [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I love it when the parks department rakes the beach. It reminds me of a Zen garden. Yohaku-no-bi: “The beauty of blank space.” I read that Zen gardens are meant for contemplation rather than meditation. Intentional thought rather than quieting the mind. What could be a better topic of contemplation than the beauty of blank space?

I have given much of my life to sitting before a blank canvas contemplating possibilities. Raking the sand in my garden.

Today Dwight flies to Portugal where he will embark on a pilgrimage. I love what he wrote as he prepared for his adventure: “…what audacious thing might occur to me when I let my mind get quiet?” Embracing the opportunity and the unknown!”

I flipped his words for contemplation: When I let my mind get quiet what audacious thing might occur to me?” Following a sentiment attributed to Aristotle, if “nature abhors a vacuum”, then a quiet mind is an invitation to the audacious.

A blank canvas. A quiet mind. An audacious thing. An embrace of the unknown opportunity. Beauty.

I didn’t intend it but I just wrote a haiku, a send off for Dwight using his own words:

An audacious thing:

An embrace of the unknown.

Opportunity.

Walk in quiet beauty, my friend.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BEACH

http://www.kerrianddavid.com

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Emerge Changed [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 29, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

This moment “is the place of pilgrimage to which I am a pilgrim.” Paul Murray

Columbus’ journey into dementia has reminded me once again that time is not a linear thing. We cycle as surely as the tides, the seasons, the days that move into night and back again. Each and every moment a pilgrimage, as poet Paul Murray writes, in which we are both pilgrim and the target of our pilgrimage. We journey to discover ourselves. As Columbus moves deeper into his world, I know the separation, the distance from him that I experience is necessary. He must walk alone into this season of his pilgrimage.

Walking the snowy trail a few days ago I asked Kerri about the experience of losing her father, I asked if it necessitated a life review. She told me that, when she thinks of her dad, she is filled with the impression of who he was; she rarely thinks or even remembers events. She viscerally feels his love. She knows his spirit. “I never think about his achievements or how much money he made – all the stuff we get lost in,” she said, “but I fully remember who he was.”

We are in transition. All jobs lost. Broken wrists challenging artistry as it was. Every day it begs us to consider who we are within our circumstance. Who are we if we are no longer that? “Our spirits are high. We take one day at a time,” I just wrote in a letter. It’s true. That is who we are. That, at this present moment, is all we are. Pilgrims walking.

I am, like my dad, in a “winter” in the cycle of time. He pulls in. I am also pulling in. To rest. To reflect. To rejuvenate. Pilgrim and pilgrimage, both. Each moment an unbroken circle. Each moment in transition. The old shell is too small. Someday, it will of necessity split. Columbus will emerge changed into his new world. I will emerge changed into mine.

in transition/released from the heart is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about IN TRANSITION

in transition/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

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Walk With Me [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 22, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

life is grace sleep copy

Lately, I’m dreaming of walking the Pacific Crest Trail. It is an escape fantasy. I want to unplug from this angry culture and its toxic division. I want to walk until it hurts. I want to listen to the wind. I want to think-no-thoughts.

I’m kinesthetic. Walking is a better form of meditation for me than sitting. I get quiet when I walk. Chris once told me that I should lead pilgrimages. At the time it made me laugh since I was certain I could probably guide the walk but had very little to offer seekers other than this bit of counsel: shhhhhhhhhhhh. Listen.

I grew up in Colorado and camped often. Say the word, “sacred” to me and I immediately hear the sound of wind rustling through the tops of pine trees. Once, walking a trail in the mountains, it began to gently snow. The forest stilled. It was so quiet I thought for a brief moment that I’d grown deaf. The wind. The quiet. I heard myself catch my breath. Sacred.

At the beginning of this pandemic time, we’d wake in the morning and, sometime during coffee, we’d remember. “Oh, right,” Kerri would say, “we’re living in a sci-fi movie.” The night had forgiven the previous day’s stresses.

One day in Bali, walking down a long road, I felt unsettled. A young man came from the fields and joined me. At first I was perturbed because I wanted to be alone but soon I found his company reassuring.  I asked where he was going and he said, “With you. I walk with you.”

I was confused and asked “Why?”

He was confused by my question. “You are a guest here,” he said in his broken English. “To let you walk alone…is not nice.”

I thought of this young Balinese man, my one-day companion, as I drifted off to sleep last night. The gentle courtesy of his act. His deeply felt obligation of presence. His work-of-the-day was less important, less vital, than showing spontaneous kindness to a stranger. Would I need my escape fantasy, my epic walk, if the people in my country were as generous, as respectful of each other, as he was to me?

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.” ~ Frederick Buechner

 

read Kerri’s blog post about ANOTHER DAY’S CHALKING

 

 

boardwalk shadow feet website copy

 

 

 

held in grace: rest now ©️ 2016 david robinson

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Hear The Whisper [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 25, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

a house copy

A house remembers.

We took my dad back to his home town. It was a pilgrimage. He wanted to see it one last time. We walked through the cemetery. He pointed to headstones and told stories. He looked for people and grew frustrated when he couldn’t find them. He’d breathe a sigh of relief when, after walking row after row, we finally found them.

The pilgrimage was not to the cemetery. It was to a tiny little house that his grandfather built that he needed to return. To touch. Nowadays it is being used as a shed. His dad grew up in that tiny house. It was the center of his universe when he was a child, his cathedral.

Standing before the tiny house, he told the story of how his grandfather split open and pried apart the rafters, making a second story. He built on a small kitchen. He added a small bedroom on one side. There was a porch.

To our eyes, it was now barely standing. To my dad’s eyes, it was the most beautiful home on earth.

As we walked the perimeter I couldn’t help but feel that the house needed to see him as much as he needed to see the house. It remembered, “You came back!” It seemed to sit up straight, remembering the days that it housed a family, that meals were cooked within its walls, that children slept there. As my dad told the stories, I was overwhelmed with the notion that he wasn’t just telling us, he was talking to the house. And the house was nodding, smiling, “Yes, I remember…” The children ran free. Everyone worked hard.

As we walked away he knew he would never see it again. But he’d shared the story. He’d introduced us to this house, his-and-now-my sacred place. “This is where you come from,” the house and my dad whispered together, “Remember.”

IMG_2909

 

read Kerri’s blog post about A HOUSE REMEMBERS

 

 

footprints in sunlit snow website box copy

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Follow The Map [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

wait a while songbox copy

These days I am more interested in the rough draft than the finished piece. Recently, 20 gave me a great gift as we sorted through Duke’s old sketches and throw-away paintings. Duke was brilliant and his explorations were free and full of art-frolic.

When Kerri brings out the box of rough cuts I secretly clap my flippers. It means I am going to hear the story behind the composition. We listen and she tells me of the day she recorded the piece or about the problems she and her producer faced. The unforeseen, the discovery-in-the-moment.

My favorite days in this life happen when I am down in the studio and, upstairs, Kerri begins to noodle on the piano, when she allows herself to fall into composing. Our house fills with an enchantment, an invocation of all that is essential. A creative pilgrimage that has no leader and no follower, only the pull of the impulse.

WAIT A WHILE, a rough cut, will give you some sense of what it feels like to be in my studio when Kerri begins the pilgrimage. Like Duke’s free flowing sketches, this rough cut is a map to the sacred place.

Listen to WAIT A WHILE, the rough cut piano track here:

https://www.kerrianddavid.com/ks-friday

 

Kerri on ITunes

 

picnic table website box copy

 

wait a while: rough cut ©️ 1995 – 2019 kerri sherwood

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Visit With Your Guardian

Posted on December 17, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

My Threshold Guardian at the Jelly Belly store.

My Threshold Guardian at the Jelly Belly store.

In addition to being a dear friend, Arnie is my personal threshold guardian. His appearances in my life always signal that change is a’comin’. The last time that I saw Arnie I left behind everything that I knew (literally and metaphorically). I began a long pilgrimage to the church of my self. It felt as if I stepped into my big wooden sailing ship and set a course for the edge of the known world and then, with great intention, sailed over the edge.

Two years have passed since our last meeting. In the interim, I have experienced Sirens and Cyclops, I lost my metaphoric ship and crew to the great whirling Charybdis, I was held captive on an island, I paid an extraordinary visit to the underworld and, at last, returned to the light with new knowledge. And, this week, as is his custom when I am ready to pass through the next portal, Arnie came to visit.

Saul’s voice roared in my head as Arnie and I debriefed my two-year journey: address your self to the field of possibility, not to the opponent. Possibility, I learned, becomes visible when we are vulnerable and available to it. It appears when we place our focus on it, when we seek it. Pushing and protecting and fighting and resisting obscures the field of possibility because our focus is on the opponent, not on the possibility.

And, of course, the greatest opponent is our self.

In the language of story, for great personal transformation to occur, we must leave behind everything we know and go on a journey into the unknown. That includes leaving behind who we know ourselves to be. In other words, we are required to let go of all the things we believe that we can control – but in truth cannot; we are required to release our insistence on keeping things “as they are.” In the end, we are required to face and then release the things that we are trying “to make work” but cannot – and let go of all the things we want to force into existence but cannot. That is the moment the opponent in our self disappears and we are at last able to turn our eyes outward and see the field of possibility that has been available for us all along.

title_pageGo here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

Eve, by David Robinson

Eve, by David Robinson

Go here to buy fine art prints of my paintings.

 

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Know Your Pilgrimage

Posted on July 2, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

Arnie owns this one. A watercolor from days past.

Arnie owns this one. A watercolor from days past.

I keep notes and short phrases to spark thoughts for future posts. The notes are scattered everywhere: scribbled in margins of my notebooks, written on Post-it notes stuck to the wall or in a helter-skelter line running the length of the table, or cryptic messages typed at the bottom of other documents. This morning I caught sight of this prompt:

Pilgrimages are supposed to be arduous.

During facilitations I used to tell groups that people without challenges create challenges. These created challenges are called hobbies. Or, really bored people create drama: drama is a unique challenge otherwise known as gossip.

People thrive when challenged. People grow when challenged. When I was a teacher I used to love the skateboarders. They’d dedicate hours and hours of repetition, broken wrists and ankles to master a move. Every athlete and artist knows the journey to their personal Everest is fraught with challenge and impossibility. That is why they do what they do. One of the people I admire most on this planet is John Kirschenbaum. He is a master woodworker. His criteria for taking on a project: it has to include something that he does not know how to do.

The idea that a good life is safe and easy is a marketing idea meant to sell you a suburban house in a gated community that includes a hot tub. It is also a recipe for boredom and frustration. It is also a lie. A good life is not without obstacles just as a good story is driven by challenges. A good life is not safe or easy. A good life is passionate. A life well-lived has a bliss-center that is focused on fields of potential and not fears of failure. A life well-lived does not avoid challenges; it embraces them. It courts them. It celebrates them.

Pilgrimages are meant to challenge you. They make your feet ache while they open your eyes and heart. They are meant to help you recognize what matters and what does not.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go to Amazon: The Seer, David Robinson

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Summit

Posted on June 1, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

A painting from the distant past. For some reason I wanted to reach deep into the archives for this post.

A painting from the distant past. For some reason I wanted to reach deep into the archives for this post.

The theme for the workshop in Holland is “team.” I’ve never been linear about how I think about anything and this time of planning has been exceptionally circular. I complimented Alan the other day; he has a genius for immediately reducing complex concepts into easily graspable models. I, on the other hand, have to circle and circle in an ever-tightening spiral in order to articulate what I see to others. I generally live in the stratosphere and have to grab ahold of a stone in order to touch the ground.

It’s been over a year since I gave much thought to the corporate world or any form of facilitation. I left it when I went on my pilgrimage. Walking away affords space and perspective. I wrote my book, The Seer, during the first months of my walk-about. It served as a shorthand story for all the things I’ve so far learned. It also served as a “letting go,” a release of all the things I thought I knew. All of my previously held sacred assumptions dissipated. What was known is now unknown. I am certain that I know nothing at all so it is the perfect time to begin a discovery process with a group of people. My worth to any group has been my perspective, my capacity to say, “I don’t know. Let’s find out together.” I need to be an outlier to be able to see. I need to stand on the margin to serve.

I’ve come to recognize that my pilgrimage is not over. It entered a different phase. It is not a path to a cathedral or holy land, it is the ascension of a summit. My lengthy walk took me to base camp merely. For many months I’ve been acclimating to the altitude and now it is time to travel toward the summit. For the first time in my life I am asking myself a better set of questions about my unique pursuit. I can see how my unique K2 is distinct from all of the other peaks. I’ve climbed other people’s mountains. I’ve helped carry lots of other people’s stuff. This peak, this summit is mine.

As I spiral in tighter and tighter, coming to understand what is so allusive about this simple word, “team,” I am amused to realize that what was once charted territory is now the outland. The wilderness into which I step is the very field I left behind. What was known is now unknown. I am certain of two things and recognizing both lets me know I am ready to move forward: 1) I know nothing at all. 2) No one summits alone.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies.

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Return To Life

Posted on April 7, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tripper-dog-dog-dog listens to birds

Tripper-dog-dog-dog listens to birds

I’m writing this from the choir loft. It’s gorgeous outside and I wonder what I’m doing inside on such a beautiful morning. Kerri is playing the organ for an early morning service. I’ve decided – just this moment – that the organ is an instrument for the dark days of winter. It is heavy and fills your belly like good hearty stew. Birdsong is the music of spring.

Before coming here this morning I was hanging out in the back yard with Tripper-dog-dog-dog. We were watching birds. We were listening to their worship service. He is mystified by them. They are a relatively recent discovery for him. He cocks his head sideways as he stares at them as if to say, “What the heck!” Then he looks to me to see if I’m having the same revelation. I say, “Pretty incredible, huh!” He nods in agreement (no exaggeration. really. no really).

My conversation with the stained glass window continues. The three panels of the window are, of course, the nativity on the left, the crucifixion on the right, and the resurrection in the center panel. It is the largest image. The focal point. The return to life is the center and perhaps this is the meta-point of my window conversation. Many years ago in a class on ritual and life cycles, the instructor said that each one of us would die and be reborn 12 times in the course of our lives. These mini deaths and rebirths were preparation for the main event. Energy does not die, it changes form.

The window is a perfect cycle of the seasons. Throughout the winter the window and I have been talking about the return to life. We’ve talked about birth and rebirth. We’ve talked about pilgrimages. Every life is a pilgrimage. There are long stretches of walking, rich with discovery, sometimes with achy legs and exhaustion. There are days of rest. There are arrivals and departures. Sometimes the weather is fair and sometimes not. The bad weather days make better stories; protagonists need obstacles to move things forward. Flow rarely requires lengthy recounting. Sunrise and sunset are, of course, our daily birth and death cycle, a solar pilgrimage!

Birth and rebirth is the mirror image of death and resurrection and, of course, this is the season of things coming back to life. Both are progressions, movement through the cycle of life. This cycle, punctuated by my first Wisconsin winter, is especially pronounced for me. Three weeks ago we were knee deep in snow. I can see and feel the return of life, the warmth of the sun’s return.

One year ago I was wandering, in the exhaustion phase of my pilgrimage, dropping the old knapsack; it was too heavy to carry any longer. I enacted and presided over one of my mini deaths. This morning I breathed in the cool air and watched the worship of birds. Nests are being built and I am enjoying the sweetness of life’s return.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies.

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Come Home

Posted on May 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

790. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I generally tell stories about others and lately my pals have been asking me to turn the story mirror around and have a crack at myself. I am aloof. Tom once told me in frustration that I was the only person on the planet more aloof that he was. I wanted to deny it but couldn’t so my only recourse was to laugh and accept that I am often a balloon floating just out of reach. If you knew Tom this would be a profound statement because no one in the history of humanity was as aloof as Tom. That is, until me. I chose my mentor wisely. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about his accusation. I am not naturally aloof. No one is naturally aloof. We are pack animals. One of our strongest impulses is to belong. Perhaps “aloof” my way of belonging.

I sit comfortably at the edge of the village. I watch. I translate between worlds. I bridge without knowing it. I have deep diving conversations at the most casual dinner party. People I do not know betray their deepest secrets to me and wonder why. Balloons that hover just out of reach are safe. We balloons are conduits to the spirit world. We are transformers. Someone recently told me that I am a magnet to the island of misfit toys. And aren’t we – all of us – misfit toys?

During these past several months two words have repeatedly thundered down upon my head: 1) receive and 2) availability. These are big words especially when, like me, all established patterns come together in the word “aloof.” With so much thunder the message for me is clear: to grow, to fulfill this big voice, I must walk to the center of the village. I must sit and receive. I must open and become available to the community. This one-way communication is nice but two way communication is relationship and to thrive I must open the two way channel. I will always know how to do aloof. I will always be a transformer. Now I must learn to be accessible, too.

In Holland Chris guided us through a constellations exercise. The entire community gathered in a circle and I remained aloof. When I was beckoned and joined the circle, I quivered and quaked with conflicting desires: to belong and to run. To step in and step out. I have wandered my whole life. I am on a pilgrimage that, until recently, had no destination. And today, like a light turning on in my heart, I understand that “receive” and “availability” will be obtainable only after I finally arrive home. Home is the end of my pilgrimage. Home is a person. It is a place. It is a place inside me and outside me. I can see it from here. So, to my pals, I am soon to sit in the center of the village. Come join me there. I’m ready to come home. I have lots of stories to tell.

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