purpose | The Direction of Intention

Something To Hold Onto [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like this wisp, I thought, when she said, “We are all looking for something to hold onto.” We were walking the trail, still trying to process the results of the election. Reeling. The wisp was an apt image. We are at the mercy of the wind. She added, “Maybe that is what we need to offer in what we write. Something to hold onto.”

Something to hold onto. Yes. But not just anything. I suspect the people who latched onto maga were looking for something to hold onto. Their anger made them grasp the grifter. They coalesced around a petty swindler who preys on their frailty, spins their blind rage into misplaced hatred. Even though he makes them promises, they will find that there is no salvation on this path. There is no magic potion. He will empty their pockets – ours, too – and vanish from sight, blaming everything under the sun except for himself for the wreckage he leaves behind.

Something to hold onto. I’ve been heartened by those in our circle, like us, unplugging from media, detaching from family and friends who voted for the felon and fascism. Detaching from what can no longer be trusted. Stepping away from what has become toxic, unsafe. There’s clarity in this sweeping discernment. An unambiguous line. A re-dedication to honoring and protecting simple verifiable truth and guarding decency as our common ground.

This week I’ve had multiple conversations about the difference between purpose and filling time. We’re comparing strategies for staying healthy amidst the national dis-ease. From “Reading every book I’ve ever wanted to read,” to “Completing every home improvement project I’ve been putting off,” it’s more than simply staying occupied to avoid the pull of the doom-scroll, the call of the train wreck; it’s strategies for staying mentally and spiritually healthy through the coming wasteland. In each conversation there is this: a renewed focus on relationships. Reaching out with hope and support to the others who refuse to relinquish the unambiguous line.

Something to hold onto. We’ve spent the past few weeks, like King Lear, raging at the sky, shaking our heads in utter disbelief. A necessary phase I will call grief. So, as our nation wrestles with its ugly shadow, we hold onto the slim hope that this is how, like a snake, we shed our ugly-too-small-skin. We hope that, after the coming storm, we survive and step back into the sun, survey the wreckage, and ask, “How can we rebuild so that this never-ever happens again?”

It is something to hold onto.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WISP

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Filed under: KS Friday, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, clarity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grief, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, purpose, story, studio melange, support, the melange | Leave a comment »

A Different Criteria [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ~ John Muir

I once read that the word “wild” was only necessary to a people who’ve deluded themselves into thinking that they are somehow separate from or above nature, that wild is something that desperately needs to be tamed.

In a culture where many are predisposed to believe that one’s personal nature is fundamentally corrupt (sin-full) and, therefore, requires serious controlling, all of nature is destined to suffer the same fate. Rivers are dammed. Forests eradicated. Waterways and air polluted. It is inevitable. All of nature is reduced to the word “resource”. It is the ultimate expression of taming. A resource to be used and then discarded.

Human resources. We are not excluded from the reduction since we are the source and executors of the degradation. Is it no wonder that so many are so certain that their lives have little or no purpose, value, or meaning. Used and discarded. The magic and mystery of this enormous universe rendered inaccessible. Subdued. Tamed.

It’s never made sense to me.

There are other systems of belief on this earth that are not built upon separation-from-nature but upon relationship-with-nature. Wild and tame are not oppositional but part of the same whole.

In workshops – teaching what I most needed to learn – I used to tell people that “Nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed.” Start with a loving premise. And see what happens. It fosters a different view of the world. It fosters a foundational shift in the understanding of “self”.

Starting with appreciation-of-self leads naturally to appreciation-of-others. Inclusive.

People incessantly trying to fix themselves grow blind to others. It’s the path of self-absorption. Exclusive.

People who fundamentally love their nature…begin with love. In love, they are naturally connected to all of nature, through their nature. Interdependent. Unified. There is nothing to fix. There are expansive experiences. Rather than tame, there is caring for the health of the whole. From a grounding in love, there is an entirely different set of criteria for making choices.

In love, it is easy to see: what we do to nature, we do to ourselves. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NATURE

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, choice, choices, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exclusion, inclusion, John Muir, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, purpose, Reduction, relationship, self love, story, studio melange, tame, the melange, value, wild | 1 Comment »

How To Harmonize [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nature, in the intimate and in the vast, is not designed. It is designing. Our own nature confirms it.” ~ N.J. Berrill, You and the Universe (via The Marginalian)

In one of our famous conversations, Horatio suggested I read Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death. So, I did. Horatio has never led me astray. Boiled down to an essence, as a unifying principle for religion and science, it unpacks the human dilemma of being a finite animal with an unlimited imagination. We are unique among creatures because we know we will die yet we have the capacity to imagine ourselves infinite. And so, to live beyond the veil, we think we must leave a mark, to serve a greater purpose. We must seek or give meaning to our limited time. No other animal carries so great a burden, this split-dance of separation and unity.

It is an understatement to suggest that it has set me to thinking. It is the ultimate in creative tension.

For ages, artists have painted the Danse Macabre. Some are a painting a warning: it’s coming so be ready! Some are painting an appeal: it’s precious so live every moment of it!

And this is what Horatio’s recommendation has me thinking: It’s a cycle of movement, like the tides or the cycle of the seasons, the movement of the earth, spinning around the sun…It is movement. Life is movement.

I was hired at the software start-up, not because I know anything about technology or coding, but because I see movement. Dynamic whole systems. In my brief foray into the start-up, I learned that, in order to be successful, software has no end. It is never finished. It must constantly iterate. It must never assume a completion. It is, in that way, like a human being, constantly becoming, cycling through periods of stability and periods of chaos, through lostness and found-ness, each generation supporting the cycle of the next generation.

We confuse ourselves by seeking an answer to our end, as if the design is finished. As if we are complete. That is a statement of our denial. We are movement. Relationship. Cycle. Never complete.

She knelt to take a photograph of the daisies, each at various points in their life cycle. A perfect visual for the single question-with-no-answer at the core of our short season on earth:

“…how to harmonize our cosmic smallness with the immensity of our creaturely experience…” ~ N.J. Berrill

read Kerri’s blogpost about DAISIES

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Edges, Emergence | Tagged: artistry, becoming, creative tension, cycles, danse macabre, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, Ernest Becker, harmony, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, movement, N.J. Berrill, purpose, relationship, religion, science, seasons, separation and unity, story, studio melange, The Denial of Death, the melange, wholeness, You and the Universe | 1 Comment »

Sacred Voice [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

My niece said it perfectly: for the first time in eight years I can vote FOR someone rather than against someone. The direction of intention. Moving toward the light instead of reacting against the darkness. And now, with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, there is at long last a brilliant sunrise.

Beneath every action is a reason. A purpose or desire.

A vote is an action. It is the single action at the epicenter of every democracy. If there is a sacred action in the idea of democracy, voting is it. It is how we-the-people choose our path forward. It is how we participate (take responsibility) in our development. It is how we give voice to our intentions. To date, the people in the United States have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the world. Only 62%.

Choosing not to vote is…a choice. An inaction.

Over and over again in my career I heard people decry their voice-less-ness. Sunk in the quicksand-belief that their actions did not matter, their voice did not matter, they simply ceased trying. “No matter what I do, nothing changes.” Somehow, the connection between action and impact is snapped. And, the space between the broken pieces fills with the anger of helplessness.

As my former business partner responded to a woman who claimed voicelessness, “If you had a voice, what would you say?”

You have a voice. It’s called a vote. If you choose to use it, what will you say? Will you speak with dark fear or proclaim joy-filled-light? Will you declare possibility or mean-spirited-pout?

Our actions in the next few months, our vote this November, is our voice. I choose the light. My vote, my voice, will speak to a world that serves and shines on the whole community, that reaches for the central ideal: the creation of a nation built on the notion Out-Of-Many–One. Service to all. It is the reason we have a sacred vote, a voice of We-The-People.

There’s never been a better time, a more necessary time, to stand up and speak loud and clear. There’s never been a more important time to help others who have become complacent to claim – to reclaim – their sacred voice.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ACTION

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Power | Tagged: action, artistry, choice, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fear, helplessness, ideal, joy, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, purpose, reason, reclaim, service, speak, story, studio melange, the melange, Tim Walz, voice, voiceless, vote, We the People | 1 Comment »

Find Your Right Place [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A box of drawer pulls is a box of stories lost to time. Many are worn from long use, polished by human hands. Some have never been used, rarely touched, except by those of us that casually sift through the box.

It’s easy to personify a drawer pull and turn it into a story of yearning. A story of yearning for purpose. A story of being chosen. A story of finding a home.

As I lift a tiny knob from the box I ask, “And what about you?” I am tempted to buy the little knob for no other reason than to get it out of the box. To give it a home. I have already projected a personality onto this tiny pull and laugh heartily at myself.

The shopkeeper eyes me hopefully. It is unusual for the box of knobs to elicit laughter. She’s giving change to another customer.

I rub the tiny knob like a worry-stone and place it back in the box. “Have hope,” I tell the tiny knob. It is worn smooth from a long life of good use. “You’ll find your right place, your next life, someday soon.” I can feel it.

Were I a sculptor, an artist that worked in three dimensions like Louise Nevelson, the whole box would be coming home with me. I know the right artist will find this box and when they do, this little drawer pull, rather than sit forgotten on my shelf, will be delighted to transform, serving a less-functional but more heart-inspired kind of beauty, sublime as a work of art.

read Kerri’s blogpost about KNOBS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: art, artistry, beauty, children's story, chosen, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drawer pulls, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knobs, Louise Nevelson, personification, purpose, sculpture, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation, worry stone, yearning | 1 Comment »

The Abdication of Answers [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Truth is a pathless land.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I confess. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life looking for answers. Mostly, the answers I sought concerned questions like “Who am I?” or “What’s my purpose?” I sought the answers as if they actually existed. Somewhere out there. I thought I’d find it if I kept looking.

“The whole of life, from the moment you are born until the moment you die, is a process of learning.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

It took a while but one of the later versions of myself quite suddenly understood that there was no answer to find. There was a life to be lived. I might arrive at answers – if I still needed answers – on check-out day. And even in that passing moment, my answers would most likely be a learning experience. A discovery.

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

On hot humid days we walk along the shore in hopes of finding a cool breeze. Our hot-day-walks are slow, ambling. Kerri stops periodically to take a photograph: the bamboo growing beside the marina, cornflowers in the community garden, a seagull atop a light post. We talk about what matters and what does not. The quiet river running beneath our conversation is the abdication of answer-seeking. We revel in the birds splashing in the birdbath, the first sip of coffee in the morning, the smell of onion and garlic sautéing…slow walks on hot days. Noticing a kindness. Answers are nowhere to be found. Presence is everywhere.

“When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Lately Kerri says, “I’m not all that. We’re not all that.” There is freedom found when perspective arrives, an undeniable truth in a vast, vast universe. We are passing through. Nothing more, nothing less. How we treat each other is on the list of what matters. Do we help or hurt others in the time we share together on our passage?

read Kerri’s blogpost about BAMBOO

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: Answers, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, desire, discovery, helping, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, learning, life purpose, love, mattering, presence, purpose, questions, sharing, story, studio melange, the melange, understanding | 1 Comment »

Joy All The Way Around [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although he is mostly black, our Australian Shepherd, like most Aussie’s, is tricolor. In addition to black, he sports rich copper and white fur patches. His eyes are auburn, lively and penetrating. Again, like most Aussies, he makes great eye contact because is always on the look-out to be one-step-ahead of our next move.

One step ahead.

I grew frustrated when he was a puppy and we were attempting to train him to walk with us. He could not, would not, walk by our side. Instead, he pulled-like-a-sled-dog to be in front of us. He seemed impossible to train. And then, one day, on a walk in a forest preserve, we let him off the leash and he raced ten paces ahead of us. He was delighted and kept exactly ten paces ahead of us. The penny dropped in my slow-on-the-uptake-mind. His job, his very reason for being, is to clear our way. To keep us safe. It’s not something he thinks about or intends, it’s in his DNA.

It has become a source of great joy to open the backdoor and watch his delight, racing out in front of me to clear the yard of potential marauders. Taking out the trash has become one of my favorite things. My Dogga has my back. He has our backs. Being one step ahead of us is his job, his purpose, his reason for being. Our well-being is his well-spring of joy.

It’s funny to me now, how he has become one of my great teachers in the art of non-resistance. I thought I was trying to teach him to walk-on-a-leash and, in truth, he was trying to teach me how to better walk in life. How to get off my leash and out of my tug-of-war. How much better is life once I ceased trying to bend him to my will and learned to listen to and lean into his gifts!

This is what I’ve learned from Dogga’s teaching: there is joy all the way around.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA PAW

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Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, Aussie, Aussie pup, Australian shepherd, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, master teacher, non resistance, purpose, story, studio melange, teacher, the melange, tripper dog-dog-dog, well being, wellspring | 1 Comment »

Unfurl [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m proud of her. Twice this week Kerri has fact-checked friends on FB who posted articles riddled with misinformation meant to rile. It took her less than a minute each time. In posting a link to the fact-check, she wrote, “Please check your information before you pass it on. xo”

It seems like such a small thing but it’s lately apparent that it’s becoming everything:

We forget that democracy is not a thing. It is an idea. It is an action rather than a noun. We forget that our democracy is young. Very, very young.

It worries me when I hear politicians making laws placing limits on the discussion of ideas at school. It worries me when I read that parents want teachers to teach “only the facts”. In today’s bubble-discourse it is a valid question to ask, “Whose facts?” Discerning between fact and fiction requires minds and hearts capable of questioning, capable of challenging the “facts” they are being fed. The notion of the purpose of education as a feeder-of-facts is nothing less than a sign of moral and mental decay. This is especially true in our great age of information with its ever-present shadow of rampant misinformation.

Democracies collapse when ideas and ideals are no longer debated, when winning-at-any-cost overshadows compromise, when respect for divergent points of view is overrun by intolerance. Healthy democracies are an ongoing tug-of-war; creative tension generated by a lively and respectful exchange of perspectives. This requires a system of education that nurtures these qualities and capacities.

Democracies collapse when they aim for an end result rather than steward a living process.

The point of education in a democracy is to consciously and carefully unfurl young minds so they might become active questioners, expansive thinkers, participating citizens in an ongoing experiment in a complex system called democracy, capable of stewarding their communities forward through an ever-changing world toward the promises inherent in the IDEA: equality, inclusion, governance by the people, for the people.

I would hope that we become capable of grokking governance-by-the-people which necessitates a people educated in ideas, reinforced in their curiosity and capacity to question, to converse and debate complex issues, capable of discerning ruinous power-over-agendas from the central idea enlivening their budding democracy: power with.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FERNS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Education, Power, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, collaboration, community, Compromise, curioisty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, debate, democracy, divergence, education, equality, expansive thinking, facts, ideas, inclusion, information, information age, information bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, misinformation, power with, purpose, questioning, stewards, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Water, Water [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

‘For in the end, he [Huxley] was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

The water rises.

Last week, at dinner, disconcerted by the headlines, 20 asked if I could explain the politics of our day. “Entertainment,” I thought, but did not say. We – the community – talk about politics – the news of the day – as if it was serious business – because we want it to be – we need it to be – but we seem mortally blind to the emptiness of the chatter. Song and dance. The purpose, after all, is not to inform us but to keep us hooked.

“Water, water, everywhere. Nor any drop to drink.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Thirst. Purpose.

It’s not an insignificant question to ask, “What is the reason for being?” We seem puzzled by our purpose or at least conflicted, as made apparent by our insatiable division. My theory is that our division is a distraction, it’s an old colonialists trick, baked into our national dna. A magician’s sleight of hand. There’s no better way to control a populace than to divide them. A people united – and not distracted – demand purposeful and responsible governance. Honest discourse. They demand it of themselves, too. They live from and in-service to a cohesive and shared narrative. The deep root of integrity. Purpose, after all, when clear and meaning-full, is always about others; it is always about service to the community. The betterment of all.

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” ~Paulo Coehlo

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATER WATER

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: addiction, aldus huxley, amusement, Amusing Ourselves to Death, artistry, Brave new world, Coleridge, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discourse, division, entertainment, integrity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narrative, Neil Postman, news, Paulo Coehlo, politics, purpose, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, story, studio melange, the melange, thinking, thought, unity | Leave a comment »

Deal In Imagination [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.” ~ William Blake

I think a lot about artists that were influential but financially unsuccessful. The list is much longer than you might imagine. Most artists fit into that category. William Blake shook the cultural foundations but died a pauper. Mozart. Van Gogh. Artists that are successful according to our recognized standard are the exception and not the rule. Thankfully, there is an imperative that reaches deeper than money. A need to create. A need to come together. There is a resonance that we recognize with the currency of genuine appreciation.

Occasionally I revisit a book by Wayne Muller, How Then Shall We Live. It’s about giving meaning to life, bringing purpose to it as opposed to finding purpose in it. Although Wayne Muller might not recognize it, his book is about imagination. Imagination is what we bring to life (yes, a double entendre). Imagination is where we create our purpose. We imagine ourselves whole.

Wander your neighborhood for an hour and comprehend the truth that everything you see sprang from someone’s imagination. The plumbing and electrics, the structures and finishes; someone, somewhere, imagined it before it came into three dimensions. Form and function chasing each other. Someone imagined how to make life easier or prettier or more secure. We are a rolling anthill of roiling imagination. We might think our imagination is self-serving but even the most dedicated expressionist needs an audience to fulfill their purpose. No one throws paint on a canvas or dances on a stage without imagining the witness of others. The moving of spirits to join together. No one builds a road so they alone can drive on it.

Look around. Imagination is abundant. The paper napkins are designed. The silverware is crafted. In our old house, the wood floors were laid by someone who cared about their work; caring is a function of imagination.

So is remembrance; my wild imagination loves to toy with the past: this is how I remember it! This is how I’d like to remember it.

When I am lost and afraid, like you, I imagine myself warm at home. It keeps we walking.

Artists deal in imagination and, so, are stewards of a special kind of riches: the power to bring even the most lost heart back to itself, the power to bring a room full of dedicated strangers into a single shared story.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FLOWERS