Restless [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~ Pema Chödrön

These dark days rolling into the winter solstice make me restless.

Last week, while cleaning her studio, Kerri found a demo tape. It was recorded for her producer and included song possibilities for her album As Sure As The Sun. It was just her and her piano, single takes. Simple. I was moved to tears. I didn’t know her during those years. When all of the production values are stripped away, there is nothing between you and the purity of the artist and this demo is a recording of pure artistry. Sharing it with me made her restless.

I have a new painting in progress. I’m painting over another piece, covering a painting I never liked that now reminds me of a not-so-good-time. I began the new painting using rags because I have a tendency to go to detail too fast. With a rag as a brush, detail is not possible. With a rag as a brush, fun is possible. I sighed with relief as the last bits of the old painting disappeared.

We haven’t walked much in these past weeks. It’s been cold and we’re not yet back to full speed after our visit with Covid. It’s making us restless. Our restlessness is helping our impulse to clean out our house. The energy has to go someplace and it’s finding release in moving furniture and tossing old relics. It’s finding release in tossing out long-held stories and too-rigidly-held-beliefs.

We’re mostly in the demolition stage of recreating our nest – and ourselves. There’s no rush. Winter promises to be long. The incoming kakistocracy is not going away anytime soon so our sanctuary-improvement-project, our strategy for self-preservation, need not be rushed and can move at a restless turtle’s pace.

Who wrote that discovery is more useful than invention? I can’t remember. No matter. We are restless and so, therefore, we are wide-open to discover. The gift of restlessness.

“…and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.” ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW

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Eat And Wait [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Neither the hummingbird nor the flower wonders how beautiful it is.” ~ unknown

Jay, Gay, and Kerri are waiting. They are watching for the return of the hummingbirds. The anticipation is palpable. Each day I come upon Kerri, staring out the kitchen window at the untouched feeder. She turns, and, mimicking a voice-over from a commercial for the television show, Wicked Tuna, she asks “WhehAuhThey?” I shrug. She returns to her watch.

A line from a book flashed into my mind. “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” Siddhartha replies to the beautiful Kamala when she asks what he can do. Hold on! Waiting is a marketable skill! Of course!

Inside my mind, I practice my answer in an imaginary job interview: “Now, tell me, Mr. Robinson, what are your most valuable skills?”

“I can think. I can wait.” I say to the too-serious-HR manager. Note how I cleverly omitted the part about fasting. As a rule I’m hungry all of the time. I want to create the illusion of value without having to outright lie. If I don’t eat, I can’t think. Period. And, if I can’t think, waiting-to-eat is virtually impossible. Just ask Kerri about that day in Minturn, Colorado. It was almost ugly. I have a long way to go before I add fasting to my short list of valuable skills.

In my mind I don’t get a second interview. “We want someone who can fast,” the too-serious-HR manager smiles thinly.

“I’m certain I can work on my delayed gratification skills,” I say as I’m escorted to the door. Wow. Another lie. I’ve been working on delayed gratification for a lifetime and have made very little progress. “I didn’t want that job anyway!” I declare as I stumble onto the noisy street-in-my-mind.

All of this fantasy lying to myself has made me hungry. “Do you want to eat something?” I ask Kerri who’s keeping her hummingbird vigil. “I’m starving.”

“Yes,” she says. “When do you think they’ll get here?” she asks, suddenly becoming a 5 year old. “How will they find us?”

“They’ll be here soon,” I say, perhaps telling another fib. I have no idea when they will be here. “All we can do is wait,” I offer, quickly adding, “So, what do you want to eat while we wait?”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about HUMMINGBIRDS

waiting/joy! a christmas album © 1998 kerri sherwood

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Listen To The River [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Have you learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

I’m not sure why I didn’t recognize it before now but Siddhartha and the Parcival grail epic are the same story. A ferryman. A hermit in the woods. A second teacher that appears and teaches presence – by example.

“The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. The rich and distinguished Siddhartha will become a rower…” Parcival removes his armor. The great and powerful knight loses himself; he chops wood and carries water.

Eileen, 20’s mom, turns 100 today. Her party was last week. 20 made a beautiful photo board of her long life. The child. The sassy teenager. A vibrant young woman. A mother. A keeper-of-the-books. A grandmother. An aged woman. The full cycle of life. Her granddaughters attended the party. Her great-granddaughters, too.

“Age-and-stage,” 20 often says. Age and stage.

“Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean, and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?”

“That is it,” said Siddhartha, “and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river…”

Parcival turned and was shocked to see the grail castle standing in the meadow behind him. The hermit smiled and said, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

Happy Birthday, Eileen. 100 years. A moment.

read Kerri’s blogpost about 100 YEARS

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See The Cycle [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I want to re-read Hermann Hesse’ book Siddhartha. Lately I’ve been thinking about cycles of nature, cycles of growth, cycles of life. Chaos-to-order and back again. Daylight-to-dark-night and back again. Nature, Hesse writes, is a self-fulfilling continuous cycle.

In the book, Siddhartha “achieves” illumination when he realizes the lesson of the cycle: that inside every “truth” is the potential for its opposite. Arrival is departure. Birth is death. Both/And.

The demands of language necessitate slicing single moments from the cycle. Isolating a “truth” from its opposite thereby fragmenting the wholeness inherent in the cycle. Slicing the cycle stops the fluid motion and calcifies the “belief,” making it hard, rigid in separation.

And then there’s this, the reason I want to re-visit the book. At the end of his life Siddhartha, as the ferryman, watches the river in full knowledge that what he sees moment-to-moment is never the same river. In the cycle, the moment is always unique. Both/And.

Standing on our trail, having stopped and witnessed many, many sunsets, the thought was so pure it swept the dullness from my eyes. This sunset is Siddhartha’s river. I’ve never seen THIS sunset or this forest or lived this moment. Quietly electric, I watched Kerri, caught in the beauty of the moment, point her camera as if for the first time toward the trees and the setting sun.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNSET

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Discover It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The mist from the falls danced with the sunlight. Waterfall aura. Waterfall halo. We stood in the bands of color and laughed. Full body color tickle.

And then, a hush of utter appreciation. We listened to the chamber music of rushing water over the edge of rock. It was so beautiful there was nothing to be done but to close our eyes. Drink it in. Mist on our faces.

And then, we continued upward. The trail was steep so our steps were slow.

Krishnamurti wrote that, “To find out what is truth there must be great love and a deep awareness of (hu)man’s relationship to all things – which means that one is not concerned for one’s progress and achievements.”

In his book, Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse wrote that for every truth there exists an opposite truth. We humans are largely resistant to grasping both sides of wholeness. We like to be right so we tend to “fix” our half-truth in white-knuckled abstractions. Lost in our minds and paging through our rulebook-for-living, we miss the fullness of our relationship to all that surrounds us.

Standing by the waterfall, slowly climbing the mountain, it was easy to love our relationship to all things. The trail brought quiet to our minds. Each step, moment to moment, a full vibrant discovery of truth.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATERFALL HALO

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Make A Mess [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

One cannot know life’s ups without experience of life’s downs. The quality that defines order is chaos. And, vice-versa.

In the same vein, Horatio hit me with a thought that gave me the shivers: wisdom is the blossom of regret.

Regret is one of those special words that is both a verb and a noun. To lament. A feeling of sorrow. It comes from experience. When he was young, Roger told me that he wanted to live a life with no regrets and although we’ve lost touch, my great hope is that he was incapable of living the life he wanted to live. He is made of deeper stuff.

Hermann Hesse’ novel, Siddhartha, is a story of arriving at wisdom. So, too, is his novel Narcissus and Goldmund. Far beyond the lands of understanding and knowledge, the fields of wisdom are born of messy life. Mistakes made. Fears confronted. Loss and awe. Illusions pierced. A protected life may fill your cup and bank account with information but will leave you with a limited palette of life experience. A full closet of clothes for the ghost that wears them.

Coincidentally, last week, Horatio and I both spent some time on sterile medical beds looking up at the bright lights on the ceiling. Doctors looking down. Suddenly filled with gratitude for the regrets that we’ve racked up in this life.

Sitting by the river, watching the river flow by, we compared notes. We shared life stories. How on earth did I get to be so lucky?

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATERPILLAR ON A ROPE

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