presence | The Direction of Intention

Shift [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

shift key framed copy

Shift is not an insignificant key. In a nanosecond it can take you from lower case to upper. It can throw your backslash into question. The simple finality of a period can be pitched into a statement of worth: greater or lesser.

Doesn’t it feel like a malevolent pinky just hit the universal shift key in our world? Of this we can be sure: it’s a new sentence and there’s no going back to what we once knew as “normal.”

In spiritual circles, shift is what happens when our otherwise cloudy consciousness becomes crystal clear. In circles of learning and growth, shift is what happens to our perspective when what was previously unknown becomes readily apparent. The penny drops and we can never again not-know what we now comprehend.

Perhaps the omnipotent pinky pushing our shift key is not malevolent. Perhaps it was long past time that we took stock of the gap between our rhetoric and our actions, our professed history and the full accounting? Perhaps we needed a boost from our lower case value-set to actually approach our upper case potentials.

In the great stories, as in life, there is a paradox associated with profound shifts. They come, not through pursuit or seeking, they come when the protagonist stops looking, surrenders and stands still. The shift always comes with the realization that what is sought has been readily available all along. The belief in separation creates the necessity to seek. The commitment to division creates the necessity to fight for dominance.

Shift words like “unity” or “common” or “harmony” or “accord” or “wholeness” or “integrity” arise when the seeking and fighting and pursuing cease. They show up when we stand still, when we stop looking for them. They become options when we realize that they have been available all along.

read Kerri’s blog post about SHIFT

Kerri is still in the Facebook penalty box so if you enjoy reading her thoughts please consider subscribing to her blog. I do – even though I get to read what she writes before she publishes. As her greatest fan it is always a pleasure to read the before-publish AND after-publish versions.

an oldie but goodie: contemplation

contemplation ©️ 2004 david robinson

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: accord, common story, consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, harmony, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, paradox, potential, presence, seeing, seeking, shift, stillness, story, unity, wholeness | Leave a comment »

Create Calm [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 15, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

calm copy

This word, calm, is a rare bird among words. It is a triple play of words: an adjective, a noun, and a verb. A descriptor, a thing, and an action.

If I had a superpower, it would be to calm. To create calm. To inspire calm hearts. Soothe, make peaceful, generate calm within and beyond the eye of the hurricane.

Last night we watched The Barkley Marathons, a documentary about a wacky ultra-marathon trail race in Tennessee. Very few people finish the race. One of the racers, an unlikely finisher, told the story of how he came to be in the field. His dad did what he was supposed to do – he worked and saved all of his life so he might retire and then go have experiences. But – you know the story – he died one year shy of retirement. “I decided not to wait,” the runner said. “I want to suck the marrow from every moment of this life.”

Usually, the center of a delayed life smolders. Henny Penny races around the center-cage of a fearful life. But, you’ll know someone who is fully in their moment, who is sucking the marrow out of this tasty life, when you see them. Their center is calm. They are not predetermining their experiences. They’ve stripped off their “should” and “can’t.” Rather, they step onto the unknown field and open their arms to what comes. They play an infinite game, they play-to-play, and perhaps learn a little bit about themselves along the way.

read Kerri’s blog post about CALM

classic

classic ©️ 2013 david robinson

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Play, Power, Uncategorized | Tagged: calm, cease the day, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experiences, finite and infinite games, infinite games, inner peace, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, play, play to play, presence, superpower, The Barkley Marathons | Leave a comment »

Reflect [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 14, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

masked copy

A look in the mirror and something entirely surprising is reflected back to me:

I started writing because I discovered that I had something to say. The story goes like this: facilitating a group in a corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago, one of the participants asked a question about power. She was feeling powerless. I listened to the group discussion for a while. And then I surprised myself with more than a few things to say about power and empowerment. So, I went home and started writing this blog. The Direction of Intention. Move toward what you want, not away from what you resist.

Initially, I wrote as a challenge for myself. How many days in a row can I write and still have something to say. I thought I’d fizzle out in less than week. That was over a decade ago.

By my reflection in the mirror I can see that some things have changed. In fact, a lot has changed. This is from my archive; it was my 98th post:

My business partner and I have asked the group to do something akin to attempting to consciously create each moment of their day. We’ve asked them to place their focus on their immediate relationships (with others, with nature, with themselves) and to ask, “Is this how I want to story this moment? Is this what I want to create in this moment?”

It seems like an impossible request until you consider that it is what you are doing anyway. The pertinent question is not, “Can you do it?” rather, the question is, “Are you aware of how powerful you are at creating?”

The most potent recognition I have in doing this exercise (and I have it every time I do the exercise), is when I ask myself the question, “Is this how I want to story this moment?” Usually, my answer is, “No.” Usually I want to create something else. I do not want to create frustration or angst or rushing around. I do not want to attempt to control or manipulate or pressure an outcome. I do not want to invest in a fear or let loose the lack monologue to rage once again about my mind. I do not want to deflect or hide. And the moment I see it, I let go my grip on something I can only call a “story.”

I let go, my eyes clear and I become present. That is why I suspect that creating is a quality of being as much or more than anything I will ever do.

***

A look in the mirror. There is a woman by my side! She is blonde. We wear masks?!! There is a really bad shirt hanging behind her. I look as if there is a tea kettle growing out of my head. The person I was ten years ago would be mystified by this peek into the future. “Who’s the woman?” he’d ask. “And what’s up with the masks? Where are you, anyway?”

So. I ask myself now, how do I want to story this moment in time? In five years or ten, when I look back at this reflection in the mirror, will I be happy with how I storied myself in this precise moment? Will I be grateful for what I chose to create?

We live in a circumstance that we cannot impact. It’s true with or without a pandemic. But, within our circumstance, there is infinite capacity to determine the story. I create the story I live. I create the story I tell. I create.

I am married to the blonde woman! Everyday, sitting side by side, we write together. Using the same image or quote, we write our thoughts. He said/She said. No peeking. Then, we share. We read what we’ve written. We talk about what we created. We edit. We reflect. And then, together, we publish.

A look in the mirror. A story to tell. A choice to make. A question to ask. A moment to craft.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE MIRROR

pax

pax ©️ 2015 david robinson

Filed under: Power, Story, Surprises, The Direction of Intention, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: archive, artistry, being, blogging, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moments, power, presence, reflection, story. sense making, storying, writing | Leave a comment »

Learn to Look [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

part of the wind dandelion fluff copy

“At the heart of beauty must be a huge care and affection for creation, for nowhere is beauty an accidental presence.” John O’Dononue, Beauty, The Invisible Embrace

I read yesterday in my Brain Pickings that Georgia O’Keeffe believed her close-up paintings were “a magnifying lens for paying attention.” I read and appreciated this phrase: Painting these close-ups was a way of learning to look, a way of removing the blinders with which we gallop through the world, slowing down, shedding our notions and concepts of things, and taking things in as they really are.

It is the astonishing miracle of a human being: we can choose to see or choose to not see. Also, we can choose what we see or we can choose to deny what is right in front of us. In any case, seeing is predicated on slowing down, on taking the time to “shed our notions and concepts of things.”

Seeing is an intentional act or perhaps it is a creation-in-the-moment – which implies it is an intentional relationship. In this way, as I understand it, seeing the beauty of this life is a decision, it is a lens. It is a dance.

I’ve never been in a hot-air balloon. Kerri had the experience once, it is the source of this composition. Hovering in a basket above the earth, moving with the wind, very few controls. It was, I imagine, an exercise of giving over, of letting go. I think seeing is like the experience she describes of hanging in the basket of a hot-air balloon. All concepts of hurry-up or getting-things-done drop away. Hard time dissolves. There is nowhere else to be. And, in that space, beauty makes known her presence. She opens your eyes.

PART OF THE WIND is on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL

read Kerri’s blog post about PART OF THE WIND

from the archive: blanket of blue sky, 2004

part of the wind/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

blanket of blue sky ©️ 2004 david robinson

Filed under: KS Friday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, blueprint for my soul, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Georgia O'Keeffe, hot air balloon, intention, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lens, Part Of The Wind, presence, seeing, slowing down, taking time | Leave a comment »

Expect Nothing [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 1, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

happy copy

The man was about to begin hiking the Appalachian Trail. The interviewer asked, “What do you expect it will be like? What do you expect will happen?” The man replied, “I try not to have any expectations. I want to be open to what comes along, whatever that might be.”

It’s a spiritual practice. Make no assumptions. Release all preconceived notions. Open to what is and not what you think should be. Have the experience first, make meaning second. All good advice for attempting presence: that place we fully occupy but rarely visit.

Making meaning. It’s what people do. Wrap an experience in a story. Wrap it in a blanket of belief. Often we muffle the experience in a heavy cloak before we’ve had it.”It’s going to be hard.” “I don’t think they will like me.” Or, “This will be the best!” “I’m going to crush it!”

Joe used to call this high-dream/low-dream. Imagine the best. Imagine the worst. Like a magical invocation. Either way, an expectation is set. The story has begun and imposes a slick layer over the happenings. The story bleaches the experience-space, that full range of color available between the high and low.

It’s no wonder we can’t find compromise in our current nation-story.

I watch DogDog in the morning. He can’t wait to race outside. He barks for no other reason than it feels good. He sits in the sun. He chases birds with no hope or expectation that he will catch one [he wouldn’t have the vaguest idea what to do if he actually caught one]. DogDog does not know there is a pandemic. He does not care about people politicizing mask wearing. He holds no expectation for the direction of the day. His to-do list is blank. He is happy going on errands. He is happy sleeping on the cool tiles. He holds no grudges. He makes no judgments. He holds his story lightly. He is happy both before and after he eats. Sometimes he even tastes his food. Above all, he is happiest when we are happy.

Open to experience, DogDog has much to teach me. He has much to teach the world.

read Kerri’s blog post about HAPPY DOING

spoons and sandcastles

The quote “happy doing something, happy doing nothing” comes from an article about Augie the dog.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: assumption, belief, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, presence, spiritual practice, story | Leave a comment »

Let The Pieces Fall [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 22, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

longing copy

“It is the paradox of spiritual growth that through such bleak midwinter journeys we eventually come through a hidden door into a bright field of springtime that we could never have discovered otherwise. This is the heart of the mystical. It is not about building protectionist armour of prayer and religion; it is, rather, the courage for absolute divestment. In the sheer vulnerability of Nothingness everything becomes possible in a new way, but there is an immense temptation to flee back to the shelter of old complacency. Now could be the most important moment in life to steel our courage and enter the risk of change.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

Parcival returned to the place in the deep woods where he’d stripped off his armor. Was it yesterday? A year ago? Two? He couldn’t remember. While he searched for the place he remembered with satisfaction the battles he’d waged, the ogres he’d defeated. The mission he’d served. He longed to once again inhabit that simple clarity, that single focus.

His old armor was not hard to find but it looked nothing like he remembered it. No longer shiny and hard, it was brittle with rust and covered in moss and vines. Nature was reclaiming it. Still, he wanted to put it back on. He wanted to forget the reasons he took it off in the first place. The loneliness. The fear. Forever fighting the lost cause, the imagined foe. He wanted to remember the good and ignore completely the painful parts of the story. He could go back! He could be the great knight once again.

His vision crumbled like his armor when he attempted to pick it up. Going back was a fantasy. Retreating back in time, donning again his old armor, was perhaps the final ogre to fight. Like all of the other ogres, it, too, was an illusion. He let the rusty pieces fall back to the forest floor.

Now, allowing the full force of his vulnerability, the utter absence of role or definition, he no longer yearned for the tight closure of what was, but wholly surrendered to the expansive, the infinite and uncontrollable new.

LONGING on the album AS IT IS is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about LONGING

longing/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: armor, AS IT IS, beauty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, illusion, illusions, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, loneliness, longing, mystical, Parcival, possibilities, presence, surrender, vulnerability | Leave a comment »

Why Wait? [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 30, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

they wait, mixed media, 24 x 18IN

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.” ~Rainier Maria Rilke

And, so, we wait. We sit in our homes for the benefit of all. I’ve heard from my pals that time has seemed to warp, twist, and fade. Routines are broken. Patterns scattered in the new necessity. It begs the question, as we wander from room to room, where can we go if cannot go from here?

I’m fond of a thought from Eckhart Tolle: Presence is when you are no longer waiting for the next moment, believing that the next moment will be more fulfilling than this one.

In our daily walks, we often end up in the cemetery at the end of the street. It is the only place we can go and not cross paths with other people. Cemeteries are good for perspective. There are birth dates and death dates and nothing in between. Whole lives lived, loves lost and found, fortunes made and lost. ‘Imagine all the crap this person worried about that didn’t really matter,” I say. Kerri nods. I imagine each and every one of these souls would give anything – anything for a single moment of precious life. Any moment would do, but I suspect they’d want back all of those moments that they branded as “waiting.” Moments wanting to be somewhere else and completely missing what was right before them, rich and beautiful.

Presence is one of those easily abstracted and often misunderstood experiences. It can be found in the drawer labeled ‘spiritual things.’ It is loaded with paradox. One cannot strive for presence. Striving for presence is the ultimate oxymoron. Presence is actually very practical. Stop striving to be elsewhere. That’s it. Simple. Yet, that is what makes it so hard to embody. It requires a bit of surrender.

And, so, in this time of pandemic, we wait. We sit in our homes for the benefit of all. Time twists. Assumptions turn to dust. Tomorrow cannot be planned. We writhe for entertainment, places to go. We grouse for something to fulfill us, distract us. We make up things to fill time.

Strolling through the cemetery, I ask myself, “How much of my life am I willing to give away to waiting?”

read Kerri’s blog post about THEY WAIT

Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: assumptions, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Eckhart Tolle, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mixed media, painting, pandemic, presence, they wait, waiting | Leave a comment »

Inhabit Someday [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 17, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

that morning someday 1 copy

My life is nothing like what I imagined it would be. I had ideals and visions, hopes and dreams. Yet, here I am.

One day I awoke with the realization that I was spending an inordinate amount of my life wanting to be somewhere else, someone else, in a place I called “fulfillment.” In other words, I was giving away my day – my happiness – for an illusion. I spent that entire day paying attention to where I was. I didn’t have to try. I had to allow. You’ll not be surprised to learn that my day was extraordinary. An outside observer would have commented that nothing happened but they would have been…mistaken.

I painted for the pure pleasure of doing it. And breakfast (OMG)! I smelled coffee. I walked in the sun. I held my wife’s hand. I fixed again the perpetually broken handle on back door. I sat on the raft and wrote. I read aloud what I wrote (as we used to say, “tasting the words”). I laughed. We laughed. I played with dogga in the backyard. I listened as Kerri played the piano. She sang! We cooked dinner together. Sipped wine.

In fact, my day was much better than my imagined fulfillment because, well, it was actual fulfillment. True, I was not Leonardo Da Vinci, I had no Oscars on my shelf, and my financial situation was the stuff of comedy. Yet, in fully inhabiting my actual moment, I was surprised at how little those other things mattered. As Quinn might say, my wall of respect had nothing on it and I couldn’t be more pleased.

My life is nothing like what I imagined it would be. It is so much better. That Morning Someday, I’ve learned, is nothing (quite literally nothing) if not today.

THAT MORNING SOMEDAY on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Love, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: blueprint for my soul, fulfillment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moment, presence, Quinn, realization, studio melange, that morning someday, wall of respect | Leave a comment »

Admit It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 1, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

snow in evergreen copy

When we first met, a snowfall – especially at night – served as an immediate call to strap on our shoes, pull on our parkas, and walk into the quiet of the new snow. Somewhere in the passage of time, we ceased heeding the call and, instead, opted for warm blankets, wine and a gaze out the window. “Look at how huge those flakes are!” we exclaim and sip.

So it was a surprise that with last weeks sudden spring snow, we both felt that old giddy schoolchild’s enthusiasm and threw on our coats (pulled mittens over splinted wrists) and crunched into the evening flurry.

The sun was setting so the neighborhood was awash in purple and blue. The wind through the trees served to hush an already muted world. We came upon an evergreen tree that made us gasp. We pulled off her mittens so she could take a picture.

It is in moments like these that I remember all that I know about perfection, all that I forget the second I re-remember all that I know about perfection. Namely, it is not an achievement. It is not something to strive for. It is not distinct or otherworldly. It is here all the time. The challenge is in seeing it. The challenge is offering it admission into our otherwise busted and angst-ridden narratives.

A quiet evening. The crunch of our feet in new snow. A flurry of unique-in-all-the-world flakes falling into uniformity on the ground, resting in the needles of an evergreen. Kerri gasps, “Help me take off my mitten! I want a picture.” I step back, breathe in the cold clean air. The wind playing music through the trees. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she asks moving in for a close-up.

‘Perfect.” I nod. Just perfect.

read Kerri’s blog post about SNOW IN EVERGREENS

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moment, perfection, presence, snow | Leave a comment »

Step Into The Ripple [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 12, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

sometimesfaith WITH EYES jpeg copy 2

I’ve never understood faith as a religious term. Look up the word in the dictionary and you’ll come across trust, belief, and conviction. Rather than a lofty word reserved for worship day, it has always struck me as an everyday something – that becomes extraordinary when you realize how ever-present-and-ordinary it actually is. Stepping blindly. Blindly stepping. Each and everyday.

We surround ourselves with calendars and lists and routines and rituals and patterns – all necessary mechanisms to plan our days but they also serve to protect us from the truth of our walk on this earth: there is not a moment, an hour, or day that is actually known before it is lived. Every moment of every day is a step into the unknown.

The real practice of faith is not about an abstraction. It is a recognition that walking in faith is an essential part of the human condition. The real practice is in realizing it. Being right where you are, open to the reality and empty of the illusion of certainty that you know what is coming. You do not. The true spiritual practice is to empty yourself of the need for the illusion of control.

Fully inhabiting the moment. Standing at the crossroad of past and future without the map of ‘I-know-what’s-going-to-happen’ dulling the experience.

Spiritual practices are not meant to be other worldly. They are, at their best, concrete relationships found at the intersection of past and future, in that tiny slice of infinity called “the moment.” It is a miracle of unknowns and surprises.

The practice of faith is the practice of putting down what you think you know – dropping the notion that you know what will happen- and stepping fully and with intention into the rippling unknown.

read Kerri’s blog post about FAITH