responsibilities | The Direction of Intention

The Whole Of It [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on January 17, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rather than cut back our ornamental grasses in the fall, we opt to leave them untouched until later in the spring. Not only do they provide shelter for the critters through the cold months, they are also visually stunning and, as an artist, to be stunned visually is high on my priority list. Raw sienna and ochre slow-dance against the cold ice blue of the snow. My favorite is the sunset playing through the waving winter plumes, orange, pink and purple.

The chipmunks have a highway that runs behind the grasses on the side of the yard. It stretches from their sanctuary, Barney-the-piano, all the way to Kerri’s potting bench just off the deck. Lately, a tiger striped kitty visits in the night and stays close-in to the grasses. Dogga has surprised it a time or two and it beats a hasty retreat. I know where the kitty has been during the night because Dogga starts his day by tracking the kitty-path, sniffing along the grasses.

Between the birds, squirrels, bunnies, chippies, the kitty and dogga…there is an entire world, a vibrant life story thriving in and among the winter grasses. They are more than ornamental.

I’m reading about initiation rituals. I came upon this sentence and read it a few times: “…we boys realized that every human being’s goal in the village was the eventual admission into the pursuit and maintenance of the sacred.” [Martin Prechtel, Long Life Honey in the Heart] Pursuit of the sacred is eventual. Admission into the pursuit of the sacred comes with living a bit of life, navigating hardship, peeling off layers of self-importance and fully grasping the reality of mortality. Developing eyes that can see the sacred. Nurturing a heart that opens and appreciates the smallest-as-the-grandest of moments. My favorite word in the sentiment is “maintenance” – it suggests participation as well as responsibility. The sacred is connective tissue to the future and the past and disappears without tending. The maintenance of the sacred is a relationship: attend to the sacred and it will attend to you.

Actions with service intention. Living with attention.

In my reading I’ve learned of the fate of the uninitiated, those who know no responsibility to the village. They are destined to be adolescents forever, void of any greater perspective or sense of communal responsibility. Never capable of approaching their responsibility to maintaining the sacred since, to them, nothing is sacred. Self-serving. A life that collapses into dull inattention and usury.

It is one way of understanding the incoming administration and comprehending the sad, sad confirmation hearings: we are captive to the uninitiated. The uninitiated enabling the uninitiated. Thuggery is the inevitable aim and refuge of the perpetually adolescent. In this cadre, clearly, nothing is sacred. Nothing disqualifies.

The eventual admission into the pursuit and maintenance of the sacred. Every human being’s goal – if they mature into well-rounded human beings. It’s not a given. It’s a realization that comes from an orientation: a sense of greater responsibility to the village: the village – not only a place, but a relationship of people to a place, to ancestry, to tradition, to each other, to a dedication for the soul-health of all, now and into the future.

These days I feel grateful to those elders who felt a responsibility toward me, to steward my growth. To those who took time and care to orient me onto a life-path pointing toward the eventual admission and maintenance of the sacred. To those who helped nurture in me eyes capable of seeing beyond the ornament, capable of seeing the vibrant colors in winter grasses, capable of relishing the abundant life taking shelter, playing chase, enjoying safe passage…the whole of it a sanctuary.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about WINTER GRASSES

sharesharesharelikesupportlikelikecommentdanceseethrive…thankyou.

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Seeing | Tagged: adulthood, appreciation, artistry, attention, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, human being, initiation, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mortality, relationship, responsibilities, ritual, Sacred, service, story, studio melange, the melange, winter grasses | Leave a comment »

Recognize The Greater [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Can a shallow mind appreciate beauty?…When the mind is merely concerned with itself and its own activities, it is not beautiful; whatever it does, it remains ugly, limited, therefore it is incapable of knowing what beauty is.” ~Krishnamurti, Think On These Things

What accounts for the strange color of the sky? Smoke from the fires? A coming storm?

The quote above is only half of the thought. It is the set up for the real point to be made. A shallow mind is concerned only for itself. And, while consumed with the lesser, it misses the greater. It is the unintentional theme that emerged for me this week: losing the greater for the lesser. The baby goes out with the bathwater.

It is a matter of perception, of focus placement.

Yesterday I wrote about the judge questioning the potential juror about his capacity to experience hardship in order to keep the system going and growing. The juror entered the exchange with a self-focus and exited, admonished, with perhaps the possibility of seeing something beyond his own agenda. Perhaps.

I read that Rome fell when the luxuries became more important than the essentials. Societies fall when they can no longer discern between what is important and what is not, when the lesser is protected at the expense of the greater.

Years ago, during a facilitation, a young woman pulled herself from and exercise. She sat on the sidelines and brooded. After the exercise, during the debrief, she claimed that she was discriminated against because her team did not listen to her ideas. Initially, her team scrambled to apologize – one does not want to be accused of discrimination. We asked the team to explore the situation a bit further. Because the young woman’s idea was rejected, was she truly a victim of discrimination? It was an illuminating conversation. The problem – the real problem – arises when we can no longer discern between what is discrimination and what is not? There is terrible discrimination in our world and needs to be addressed. It can’t be seriously confronted if we are incapable of distinguishing between the rejection of an idea and laws that prevent citizens of color from voting.

In a pandemic, a mask is not a breach of personal freedom. It is not the state ripping away control of your body. It is a minor inconvenience to ensure the mitigation of a virus that is killing scores of fellow citizens. Despite the rhetoric otherwise, the fearmongering and tribe-building, wearing a mask is something done for the health of the whole. It is not unlike jury duty.

It is a matter of perception. Of focus placement. Self or other? Lesser or greater?

The rest of the quote: “Whereas, a mind that is not concerned with itself, that is free of ambition, a mind that is not caught up in its own desires or driven by pursuit of its own success – such a mind is not shallow, and it flowers in goodness. Do you understand? It is this inward goodness that gives beauty, even to a so-called ugly face.”

Pay attention to the verb. Beauty is given. Concern for the well-being of the other is a sentiment expressed and championed in every corner of the world, by all the figures we quote, elevate, and sometimes emulate. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa,…it’s a very, very long list.

Communities thrive when they are capable of enduring hardship for each other, for the benefit of the whole. They also thrive when they hold boundaries and protect the rights of the individuals. Those two seemingly different actions are, in fact, one and the same.

Societies fall when shallow minds prevail, when they can no longer discern between essentials and luxuries, privileges and responsibilities. When personal comfort takes precedence over enduring ideals.

It’s a matter of perception. Of focus placement, and make no mistake, focus is easily led. Just like a package of pastrami mistaken for a strange colored sky.

read Kerri’s blog post about PASTRAMI SKY