presence | The Direction of Intention

Give And Receive [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 11, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

sleeping dogga copy

DogDog has two distinctly different personalities. In the sunny hours he is high strung, high energy, high joy. He rarely stops moving, circling the yard, circling the rooms of the house, moving his toys from here to there and back again. When it is time to take out the garbage, he delights in clearing the yard of marauding squirrels. I am always well protected when I deliver the trash to the can.

At night, our energizer-bunny-of-a-dog collapses. He gently herds us into the living room and, if we sit, even for a moment, he believes that his people are securely in the pen and he is off duty for the day. He punches out, settles on the cool floor and is asleep in a nanosecond. In that moment he is transformed into ‘sweet dog.’

Rather than serving as the protector, sweet dog is a sponge for affection. If we move, stand, cross the room, cough,… he rolls onto his back, availing himself for a belly-belly. Sweet dog does not bark. Sweet dog knows our nighttime travel patterns and is somehow always positioned in our path. Sweet dog is a no-apology opportunist.

High joy. Sweet. Giver. Receiver. Both are qualities to be admired.

At night, before he retires to his crate, he waits for us on the foot of our bed. We spend several minutes loving on him. He gives himself over completely to our affection. It is among my favorite rituals of the day to heap love on DogDog before putting him in his crate.

I read once that the phrase “unconditional love” was redundant. The quality that makes love love is the absence of condition. If what we call “love” comes with qualifiers or expectations then it is not love at all. It is something else.

High joy. Sweet. Love (unconditional). I am always, everyday, in awe of this furry teacher and mostly grateful that he is endlessly patient with the glacial pace of his student.

read Kerri’s blog post about DOGDOG SLEEPING

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Heroes, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, joy - a christmas album, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, patience, presence, service, student, sweet, teacher, unconditional love | Leave a comment »

Eat The Cold [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

every storm runs out copy

“Eat the cold!” the Buddhist monk said to the shivering novice. “Eat the cold.” It is” monk-speak for embracing rather than resisting the circumstances of your life.

Non-resistance. Detachment. Hold your self lightly. Presence. Make no assumptions. Be here now. Every spiritual tradition has language for the lesson. Eat the cold. Have the experience. Suspend your judgment. See what is there, not what you think is there. Feel it without condemnation or praise.

When I was a teenager I went on a trip with a school group. The bus broke down in the mountains. We sat on the side of the road bemoaning the state of our affair. The teacher laughed at us. “We’re on an adventure and this is part of it!” he exclaimed. “Rather than fool ourselves into thinking we are stuck, maybe we should fool ourselves into thinking this is exactly where we should be! What’s here? What can we do and create here?” I remember nothing about the rest of that trip but I do remember how much fun we had on the side of the road.

Kerri’s wrists are broken. We find ourselves on a metaphoric roadside. Our patterns are completely disrupted so we are experiencing the gift of mindfulness. Putting on a coat requires complete attention. Lifting a fork. Combing out her gorgeous naturally curly hair. Buckling a seat belt. We have abandoned all notion of rushing. It happens when it happens. When she plays the piano, she does it with full attention; nothing is taken for granted.

What’s here in this storm? Maybe this is exactly where we should be. Amazed at our friendships, our first walk since the accident with Jen and Brad, the sun and wind, laughter with 20, cooing at the meal Joan made for us, flowers, brownies and wine, crawling under the healing quilt that Janet sewed.

read Kerri’s blog post about EVERY STORM

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, attention, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, mindfulness, paying attention, presence, story | Leave a comment »

Ride The Lion [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 14, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

watershed the songbox copy

Let’s just say that 2020 is off to a rough start. If I was to get out my old-school label maker and slap a sticky tape descriptor on last year, on 2019, it would be the year of contention. 2020 is shaping up to be the watershed. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk.

Broken contracts [literal and metaphoric]. Broken wrists. Broken dreams. All of our presses have stopped. We are moving very, very slowly through our days. We are having long conversations about where we’ve been, our successes and failures, dreams realized and those that went to ashes in our mouths, and where we want to go from here.

Unless you are being chased by a real lion, fear is mostly a function of imagination. In the real-lion scenario, fear is a life-saver that makes world-class sprinters of us all. In every other case, sans lion, it is a made-up monster that chases. Running does no good. This chasing monster requires the opposite of the real lion: stopping, turning, and looking squarely into the eyes of your own dark imagination. The only relevant question is, “What’s wearing the mask of this monster?” Shame? Failure? What should have been? What will never be?

It is a turning point. Stopping. Breathing. Turning and staring back at your wild-eyed scare-fantasy and realizing that it’s merely a mechanism to prevent you from being where you are. Standing in this exact moment is the only place from which you can enact change. It is the single location in which you can fully, unequivocally appreciate your life. Self-made monsters always dissipate when scrutinized.

Running away casts you as both runner and lion, chaser and chased. Fear the imagined-lion, be the runner. It splits you in half. The sky is falling! The sky is falling! And what if it is not falling? What if the lion-monster chases precisely to prevent you from standing still?

It’s a vicious circle, an energy eddy, this hyper-active dark imagination. It is true, if you think about it, that an imagination that is capable of so much doom is equally capable of fixating on the light side. Ride the lion. Better yet, give it wings so the ride is uncanny and wondrous. The ultimate human choice is where we decide to place our focus.

The story we decide to tell follows the focus-choice. Standing still, the only place from which we can see the array of choices and available stories, we are once again learning, seems to be the gift of the Watershed.

WATERSHED on the album AS IT IS is available on iTunes& CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about WATERSHED

watershed/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Navel Gazing, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: action, AS IT IS, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, facing fear, fear, focus, focus placement, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, monsters, presence, split focus, split intention, story, watershed | Leave a comment »

Suspend And Rest [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 31, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

rest with frame copy

Kerri took a fall earlier this week and broke both of her wrists. For a professional pianist there are few injuries more debilitating and frightening. Needless to say, our world stopped. We’ve stepped out of time.

Judy once told me, after her husband suffered a terrible stroke and she became his full-time caregiver, that she could not think about tomorrow or even an hour ahead. The moment at hand, the task immediately before her, was all that existed. I understood in an abstract way what she was experiencing. The weight of presence. The unbearable lightness of presence. All that exists is now. Today, I understand what Judy experienced beyond a simple abstract appreciation. At this point, there is no sense in thinking ahead.

A sip of coffee through a straw. Move the hair from her eyes. Help her sit up. There is the task at hand. That is all. And in “that is all” comes a great gift: instant perspective on what has actual importance and what does not. In these past several months everything has felt like a fight to swim upstream. Today, since Monday, there is no fight, there is only stream and it carries us where it will. We let go and are resting. A whole rest.

It is ironic to me that since her fall, in addition to the pain and the real fear of losing her capacity to play the piano [read: lose who she understands herself to be], we have laughed more in four days than in four months. We have let go. We look at what-this-time-last-week appeared to be so heavy with importance and merely shrug. Not important. It floats away. Or we float away from it. In this whole rest there is no capacity to push, no desire to paddle or resist. Suspended, we rest. We take this bite, sweet or savory, and that is all.

read Kerri’s blog post about WHOLE REST

Filed under: Awakening, Body, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, injury, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, non resistance, pain, presence, resistance, rest, timeless, whole rest | 1 Comment »

Coalesce [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 22, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

in the woods copy

Sometimes, when we are walking through the woods, I imagine myself with none of the labels that I claim as important. What if “artist” did not apply? Or “teacher.” What if none of my opinions or ideas or justifications had any merit or substance? What if they were bits of armor or heavy clothing that I could drop as I walked? So much lighter, less encumbered, who, then, would I be? Divested of my made-up-meaning and my hard-fought-for stress, what might I experience?

These imaginings, my questions – at least to me – are not nihilistic. They are the opposite. When I am walking in the woods and all the clutter and noise and the oh-so-important-to-do-list falls away, when all of my investments in my-very-important-ideas and my-resistances-to-immovable-objects drops off, when my frustrations and anxieties evaporate, I come back to my senses. Literally and metaphorically. The cold air. The limbs waving and groaning in the breeze. The quiet chatter of the brook that ambles through Bristol Wood. I become the moment I inhabit. I inhabit the moment of my becoming. That’s it. My “meaning” takes on a proper proportion, no greater or smaller than life itself.

Listening to the brook, the sound of our feet crunching the snow, I remember something John O’Donohue wrote. “The river is a miracle of presence. Each place it flows through is the place that it is…In a river, past, present, and future coalesce in the one passionate flowing.”

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WOODS

Filed under: Emergence, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: bristol woods, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experiences, imaginings, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, meaning making, nature, presence, present moment | Leave a comment »

Change Your Mantra [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 13, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

dont try to get it over with copy

It was only after the dive that I realized my folly. Rather than enjoy it I repeated to myself, over and over, to just get through it. I’d be fine once I was back in the boat. I was afraid.

It was a very deep dive, the deepest I’d ever attempted. There were sharks swimming beneath me. There were sharks swimming above me. The Blue Hole. The wall was gorgeous, an explosion of red, orange, and yellow. Looking up was a miracle of sunlight on water. Looking down was a study in the color blue, layers of turquoise, cerulean, disappearing into a bottomless (aptly named) ultramarine.

My mantra, just get through it, was a wall between me and extraordinary beauty of it.

Later, in the boat, I appreciated it. I also appreciated that my experience was unnecessarily fearful. Rather, I understood that the only real danger in The Blue Hole was my doubt in myself. The sharks were not man-eaters. The depth was the limit for amateur divers but not extreme. The dive master was world class. I had plenty of oxygen. I was safe everywhere but in my imagination.

The dive made me wonder how much of my life I’ve spent telling myself fear tales? Instead of having an experience of wonder, how often have I storied myself in fear? How often have I made up monsters and raced to the other side of the moment, raced to get it over with rather than be in it?

Sitting in the boat, I realized that it wasn’t the fear that I was wrangling with. Fear is natural, especially in alien environments like deep water, especially when sharks are involved. It was my mantra that plagued me. Get through it.

Next time, I told myself, I will have a new mantra. Be in it. Fear is an experience, too. It’s part of life and, at the end of my days, I will be sad if the story of my life was simply getting through it. Or over it. I want to know that I was in it, all of it; the fear, the joy, the ugly, the angry, the beautiful blues, the sad days, and the quiet wandering.

read Kerri’s blog post about GETTING IT OVER WITH

Filed under: Edges, Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing, Perspective, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: Blue Hole, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dive, experience, fear, fear tales, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mantra, monsters, presence, safety, sharks, story, storying | Leave a comment »

Take One Glorious Step [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 6, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

make hundreds copy

This post marks the 100th week of our Studio Melange. As it turns out, to my great surprise, the body of work I leave behind in this lifetime will probably have nothing to do with my paintings. I write everyday. I do not paint everyday.

I read that Graham Greene, one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, wrote 500 words a day. Sometimes those 500 words took an hour. Sometimes they took several hours. Either way. Write 500 words a day, every day, and you, too, will be prolific.

Listen to enough mountain climbers and you’ll receive the same advice. One step at a time. One hand hold at a time. Don’t think of climbing the whole mountain. Rather, pay attention to the next step and the next and the next. The action of stepping will take you farther than the wishing. Step consciously and the summit will cease to be a goal and will become another glorious step en route to another glorious step [and, best of all, your odds of survival will skyrocket].

Were Kerri and I to scrabble together into book form our 100 weeks of writing, we’d have more than a few tomes on the shelf. A single prompt. He said/She said. Mounds of accumulated thoughts. Lots of writing. A few precious and treasured readers. Every once in a while, especially on these dark winter days, one of us asks, “Why do we keep doing this?” The other will inevitably say, “Well, let’s stop.” The answer is always, “Nooooo! I love doing this!”

Why do it? Why climb the mountain? Why walk toward the horizon? Why paint what no one sees or compose what no one hears? Our answer, after 100 weeks, is becoming clearer and clearer: do what you love. Even better, do it with someone you love. One glorious step en route to another glorious step.

read Kerri’s blog post about MAKING HUNDREDS

Filed under: Creativity, Language, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, graham greene, he said/she said, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love it, one step at a time, presence, prolific, studio melange, week 100, Why | Leave a comment »

Feel Them [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 25, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

heartlights copy

This is a symbol and as symbols go, this one is arguably the epicenter. It is universal. It transcends all other symbols, religious and otherwise. The others deal with energies, vertical and horizontal, masculine and feminine, spiritual and secular. They are symbols of polarities, separation ends that point to a center, a unity. This symbol is the unity. Heart. The meeting ground. The commons. The push-me-pull-you of life.

Try an experiment and think back on these past weeks running up to the solstice (no matter your tradition of celebrating it); re-member the moments that you felt heart. Kerri’s song. A bonfire at midnight. A walk in the woods at sunset. Dogga buried in gift wrap. Craig’s face when we opened the package with smart bulbs. Kirsten clutching the sloth. There are too many to count. None are abstractions. All are experiences. Feel them.

Yearning can be filled with heart. Loss can be heart-full. This symbol is all inclusive. It does not discriminate. It’s bigger than any single desire, any hot pursuit. It, in fact, requires no seeking. It is ubiquitous. It everywhere and nowhere all at the same time because it has nothing to do with time. It asks little more than paying attention to the many faces it lives through, the many moments it simply waits for you to notice, to see/feel/hear/taste/sense what is already here.

read Kerri’s blog post about the NEON HEART

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, heartbreak, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, separation, symbol, transcendence, unity | Leave a comment »

Invite Some Joy [On KS Friday]

Posted on December 20, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

joy songbox copy

David and Molly are taking their amazing young son, Dawson, home to Seattle for the holidays. Margaret, Dawson’s equally amazing grandma, adores them and will heap huge joy on them.

Quinn’s daughter wrote after his death that she is who she is in the world because her dad delighted in her. It’s true. His intense delight forged a joyful intrepid spirit.

We walked with our son in the bitter cold from Ogilvie Station to Lincoln Park Zoo to see the lights. Kerri threaded her arm through Craig’s and I could literally feel the joy, mother and son, walking together.

Last night we went to 20’s house and tried a new soup recipe. We laughed and drank wine and talked about…everything and nothing at all. Late in the evening 20 said, “People don’t get it. This is what the holiday is about. Being together. It’s not about the stuff. It’s about time together. That’s what makes life rich. Joyful.” Sounds like a cliche’, doesn’t it? It will until you, for whatever reason, spend a holiday alone.

Kerri was missing Kirsten. The holidays come with a hot yearning to be close and Kirsten is far away. And then, a text binged in. Mother and daughter are deeply connected. It is a joke in our house that if Kerri speaks Kirsten’s name, inevitably, within a few minutes, we hear from her. It’s uncanny. With Kirsten’s text, a simple ”hello” to her mom, Kerri’s despair flared into huge Joy. I wrote to Kirsten, “Best gift ever.”

It’s true. What could be better than the gift of presence? What could be better than Joy?

Joy! on the album Joy! A Christmas Album is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about JOY!

Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: being present, christmas, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, gifts, holiday, joy, joy - a christmas album, joyful, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, yearning | Leave a comment »

Turn And See [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 29, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

grateful songbox 1 copy

Gratitude is a word easily tossed about in this season. It is often a nod to something that ought to be more present. It can be momentary, skipping a stone over the water. A commandment for how we should feel. Be Grateful.

Gratitude finds roots and deep resonance the day you turn around and realize beyond the abstract that this life is limited. These moments are limited. No longer an easy sentimental phrase on a Thanksgiving card, gratitude looks at what and who is present and loses all interest in what may-or-may-not-be missing. A sunset, each sunset, becomes a unique once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Last night, late, 20 came over. We sat at the table, told stories. Drank wine. Chocolate and raspberries. Heather and Brian Facetimed with Kerri. Her laughter in the next room, the enthusiasm of their conversation, made 20 and I smile. A long lost friend tossed a cryptic note into our ocean. We puzzled it deep into the night.

There has never been another evening like it. There will never be another.

Kerri’s GRATEFUL is not a Hallmark card. It is not a commandment or a should-feel. It’s not flowers and feel-good honey bees. It flows with the urgency, the power, and the recognition of that day when you at last turn and see an end to yourself. It is a love note to being alive, a meditation on the everyday priceless moments, a call to awaken to the unparalleled now.