portal | The Direction of Intention

Happily Blank [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rob gave us the perfect word to describe our passage through COVID. He called it stubborn. It does not easily let go. Fortunately, we’ve been having brilliant autumn days so we entertain our stubborn guest by sitting in the sunshine. We have the energy for sitting and not much else.

Sitting in the sun for days on end has afforded ample time for reflection and random rumination. My thought-trail returns again and again to our southwest trip-COVID combination and how it feels like the end of a chapter. A portal into the new. I recently wrote about the number 9 – spurred by our 9th anniversary – as a significant number of completion. Our anniversary came the day after we returned home and neither of us remember it because we were both fevered, achy, and miserable.

Life passages are often marked by liminal spaces. Neither here nor there; in-between places. My favorite words associated with liminal spaces are uncertain, insecure, unsettling. They can be dreamlike. All are perfect descriptions for how we feel in our seeming eternal COVID zone. Life has stopped. I can no longer remember if I once served a purpose or not. It all seems made-up. The fever zone was preceded by a journey into sacred land, dreamscapes. I dare anyone to visit Goblin Valley and not feel as if they’ve entered another dimension.

A younger me would have tried hard to get grounded, to force a move beyond the discomfort of disorientation – essentially reaching backward to grab hold of what was known. This older version understands the wisdom of insecurity. It is a mistake to reject the liminal. Any significant step into the “new” chapter requires a loss of the known. An open hand, a blank slate, is sometimes uncomfortable.

Holding on to what is no longer useful will in the long run prove to be much more uncomfortable; this amazing universe is in no hurry to deliver its lessons and is quite capable of amping up the discomfort until letting go is recognized as less painful than holding on.

We’re moving on to the next…and, from our chairs in the sun, with achy bodies and no energy to speak of, we have not the first clue what will be written in the next chapter. For now, we do not need to know. In fact, we need to not-know. For now, the blank page will remain happily – if uncomfortably – blank.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TUNNEL ARCH

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Gratitude, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: arches national park, artistry, comfort, completion, covid, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discomfort, goblin valley state park, insecurity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life passage, liminal, liminal space, not knowing, passage, portal, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, Tunnel Arch, uncertainty, wisdom | 3 Comments »

Wonderland [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

And just how did the katydid get into the kitchen?

It sounds like the question at the heart of a children’s book to me! We have visits from flies and moths and the occasional ant or two. Never before has a katydid been in the kitchen.

Did it ride on the dog or sneak in the open screen door? It there a secret katydid portal, a wardrobe into our kitchen which, to a katydid, must have seemed like a strange new land? Did it wonder how to get back home?

How long had it adventured inside the house? Did it puzzle over inedible carpet and taste-test the plants-in-pots? Did it run from the giants who did not see it? Did it dance to the music that came from nowhere or was the noise thunderous, strange and unnerving?

Did it know it was learning inside from outside? Was the window glass a complete surprise? An impossible impediment to the known world?

Did it understand the giant lady when she marveled at its beauty? Did it pose for its picture? Did it show us its “good side” or did it not-care-in-the-least how it looked?

Was it terrified when the giant lady trapped it? What did it feel when constrained and rushed through the door? Was it disoriented, suddenly finding itself once again in the grassy world it recognized? Was it relieved? Did it think the adventure was a strange dream?

Will it seek the wardrobe again? Will it once again seek passage on the dog to confirm its peek into Wonderland?

The Storyteller emerges from the forest.
Lucy & The Waterfox

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE KATYDID

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Filed under: Creativity, DR Thursday, Story | Tagged: adventure, artistry, children's book, children's story, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dream, giants, imagination, journey, katydid, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, looking glass, new land, portal, story, strange, studio melange, the melange, wonderland | 1 Comment »

Celebrate And Release [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If this was a painting it would be titled “The View from the Kitchen Window in the Middle of the Polar Freeze.” It’s lovely and abstract yet also carries hints of an impressionist sky. One hundred years of painting history all wrapped up in a single frozen moment.

When I lived on the west coast I experienced my share of earthquakes. They were of varying intensity, some subtle shakers, another knocked my neighbor’s house off the foundation. And although they were different in character and spanned a few decades of time, one thing remained constant: in the moments that followed the quake, the best of human nature stepped forward. People immediately reached to strangers and friends – it didn’t matter – to ensure that everyone was alright. A shared experience, a shaking-to-the-core, loosened all the protective layers. The light came through the frozen facade.

As we’ve written, the polar freeze has driven us into the basement to clean out the stuff-of-life collected over three decades. It’s been a minor fascination that our cleaning process has inspired stories from friends about the time that they cleaned out the stuff-of-their-lives. Amidst the many stories we’ve heard, there is a triple constant: the stuff they saved, just like us, are the artifacts of their children with the intention of someday giving the treasures to their children. Clothes. Finger paintings. Trophies. Sporting equipment. Children’s books…our collection fills many shelves that now dip from the weight of too many books packed onto too small a shelf.

The second constant: the children do not want what the parents have saved. The museum of parenthood. The cleaning commences once the parents realize that saving the artifacts was, in fact, something they did for themselves. And so their life review is called “cleaning out.”

The third constant: the cleanse is actually a portal. A next chapter, another identity, lives on the other side of the purge. New light calls through the frozen memories. The memories warm in the telling. The sharing of the tales of parenthood, lovingly mourned and with gratitude, celebrated and released.

I Will Hold You, 29.75 x 39.25, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FREEZE

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buymeacoffee is…

Filed under: DR Thursday, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: artifacts, artistry, celebration, children, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life review, memories, memory, parenthood, passage, portal, release, stories, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Stroll [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday, for some reason, I revisited days of early childhood. I played four-square in the driveway. I threw dirt clods at the site of new home construction. I raced my cars off the side of the abandoned building above Del and Dorothy’s house in the mountains; the cars tumbled and I ran to retrieve them so I might send them flying again and again. I ran home in a panic the day I learned that Nancy’s little sister had drowned in utility hole that was filled with water. It was on the route I walked to school and passing the hole filled me with trepidation, it was a dark portal, my first experience of death. I didn’t really understand it.

Late at night, Kerri and I sometimes talk about everything that has happened in the short time of our relationship. We’ve lost parents and lost careers, spiraled in a free fall of uncertainty, had surgeries and broken bones. We’ve also climbed mountains, watched sunrises and meteor showers, we hold hands when we walk, we write together every day. We dance in the kitchen. I am the sous chef to her cooking artistry.

I’m not sure if we practice paying attention to our moments or it’s something that has come naturally to us. She is rarely without her camera, noticing the smallest flower, capturing the angry sky. I hold the space and hope someday she stops apologizing for stopping again to take a photo; I love watching her discover the shapes and colors of this world. Besides, I get to see what she captures in her lens with an excited, ‘Lookit!”

Today the plumber comes. Yesterday we appealed to the company that destroyed our yard replacing the waterline to come back and strip off the top layer of soil, now filled with hardware and concrete and asphalt. Slowly, we are digging out, repairing and replacing all that was destroyed or delayed in our free fall. Our lessons seem to be about stress – or, rather – not stressing. We are having experiences, rich and varied. Some things we can control. Most, we cannot. The best we can do is hold hands and stand together in each experience. Appreciate them no matter whether they look like tragedy or comedy. We’ll make meaning of them later down the road.

The artist dances with death. The appreciation of the fragility of life. Each day I walk by that metaphoric utility hole, only now it does not fill me with trepidation. It makes me squeeze her hand and fills me with gratitude for this life, this moment, this shadow we cast together as we take our time strolling through the garden.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SHADOW

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Gratitude, Identity, Love, Metaphor, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, childhood, Dance Macabre, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experiences, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, lessons, life lessons, life review, meaning, meaning making, paying attention, portal, seeing, shadows, story, studio melange, the melange, together | Leave a comment »

Gaze Through It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

seasons through the tree copy

Once, doing a night dive, through the inky black water, the sum total of what I could see was what existed in the beam of my flashlight. That experience provided insights into the limitations of perception and the power of focus placement. We see what we decide to focus on. We never see the whole picture.

It also gave me the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling of looking through a tunnel at an alternate reality. Peering through the portal, strange shapes darted across my beam. I was tempted to swim into the light, toward the illuminated world, but knew that I would never reach it. “There” was in constant motion and moved as I moved. It was hypnotic.

There is a old tree stump on our walks that Kerri likes to visit. It has a knot that serves as a looking glass. She peers through it and sometimes takes a picture to record the changing seasons, life as seen through the magic knot. Her photographs are a record of another kind of portal, another alternate reality only this one is not fluid. It is a fixed point of view. Yet, were I to sit for many days and gaze through this knot hole I’d be overwhelmed by the endless life-in-motion slowly moving within this limited view.

I used to lead groups through an exercise called The Long Walk. It is simple. Walk in any direction for ten minutes. However, if anyone can discern your movement, you are walking too fast. In fact, if you cover more than a few inches of territory in ten minutes, you have moved too fast. The Long Walk creates quite the challenge in a body used to racing through life. After the panic and frustration of slowing way down, an amazing thing happens. Senses open. Perceptions sharpen. The rich sounds and smells and breezes that generally go unnoticed crackle into presence. Tight concentration morphs into wide awareness. And, for a few short breaths, the mind ceases its babble and nothing stands between the walker and the walk.

read Kerri’s blog post about TWO VIEWS