silence | The Direction of Intention

Count Six [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.” ~John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation

Six degrees of separation: the notion that all people on earth are only six – or fewer – social connections away from each other. A swelling world population. A shrinking world. Has there ever been a time in which our interconnectivity was more apparent?

Six feet: the distance we are told is generally safe enough to keep my breath from entering your body and vice versa. Distance slows but in no way interrupts our interconnectivity.

The number six in numerology symbolizes the caretaker. It is also known as the motherhood number: caring, healing, sacrificing, protecting. I find it oddly comforting that distance and separation in measures of six are associated – at least symbolically – with caring, protecting, sacrificing for others. Six is other-focused. Six, I just read, is the glue that keeps a community together.

Last night we sat on the deck in silence. Listening. Earlier, during our walk, we spoke little. We mostly listened to the creaking of the trees, the sounds of the birds, the chorus of frogs. In a pandemic, we are learning, there is very little to say that isn’t rooted in fear. So, we say very little. We hold silence, a vigil of sorts. The silence turns our minds toward listening, toward living. Caring.

This is the warm quiet ripple that rolls through Kerri’s SILENT DAYS: caring. The number of motherhood. A symbolic six. A turn toward living. Inextricably bound together.

SILENT DAYS on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available in iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about SILENT DAYS

silent days/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: blueprint for my soul, caring, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, distance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, motherhood, numerology, protection, silence, silent days, six degrees of separation, six feet, six feet of separation, social distancing | Leave a comment »

Rest Full [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 21, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

quarter rest

“The primeval beauty of silence becomes audible in the elemental music of the earth and in our music of instrument and voice. At the core of the world and at the core of the soul is silence that ripples with the music of beauty and the whisperings of the eternal.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

I have said more than once these past few weeks, that the silver lining of two broken wrists is that all the presses have stopped. The endless list of things-to-do fell into dust on the floor and the true priorities jumped into immediate clarity. The superficial things gave way to the essential.

Little things, like showering or getting dressed in the morning, are no longer mindless rote activities. The are now intentional. Attention is paid to every movement, every moment. They are care-full. I am learning once again that there are riches all around me when I am not racing to get to the next thing but, instead, occupying the moment that I am living. The other night at rehearsal I nearly burst into tears so beautiful were the people and the laughter surrounding us. A month ago, pre-wristgate, I might have missed it.

Caring for an other. Caring for one and another. Other caring.

We rest. We do not push through. So many in our amazing community have asked me, as I care for Kerri, am I also taking care of myself? I love this question. It is generous. The answer is ‘yes’ and the question it raises is ‘why isn’t this level of self-generosity the norm?’ Are you caring for yourself? In the midst of all that life flings your way, first and foremost, as you care for others, are you also attending to yourself?

I’m learning that the two things are inseparable: caring for another is also caring for yourself. Or, flip it over: it is impossible to fully care for yourself without caring for others. We know ourselves through relationship. We can only thrive when loved and while loving. People in isolation go mad. Banishment from the group was once considered a punishment worse than death.

As silence is to sound. Caring as making beautiful life-music. We take our quarter rest.

read Kerri’s blog post about QUARTER REST

Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, caring, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth, elemental, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, music, relationship, silence, sound | Leave a comment »

Sip [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 26, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

wine copy

Unlike wine, I am not getting better with age. The cliche’ would have me growing wiser with my years but the closer I walk to my end the farther away wisdom seems. I know less and less the more I live.

Yesterday, Kerri told a young man – a budding preacher – that he’d reach and impact more people through vulnerability than through knowledge. To be vulnerable is to open to life’s experiences. Knowledge is too often a protection against experience. A younger me used knowledge as a sword – just like this young man. I am only now finding gratitude for the day my sword shattered.

Perhaps standing at the edge of the mystery and acknowledging that I know nothing useful marks the beginning of wisdom. Quinn told me that wisdom had nothing to do with the stuff that you think you know. I am catching glimpses of what he meant. Isn’t it true that the real stuff, the stuff of deep value, always leads to silence? To quiet? To listening? To sitting comfortably in the space between and enjoying the moment just because?

These are the reasons I enjoy wine more and more. I drink it with friends. I sit on the back porch and sip it as I watch the sunset. As my agendas fall away, I find more open space for simple appreciation, utter appreciation, for this single sip of life.

read Kerri’s blog post about WINE

Filed under: Gratitude, Navel Gazing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Gratitude, in between, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mystery, quiet, silence, studio melange, vulnerability, wine, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Allow [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

moab.k. out there. copy

“If we allow time for soul, we will sense its dark and luminous path. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

These days are edge days. We began to feel strangers in our own lives. That is a sign to be heeded. It’s time for us to sit in silence.

“Beauty inhabits the cutting edge of creativity – mediating between the known and the unknown, light and darkness, masculine and feminine, visible and invisible, chaos and meaning, sound and silence, self and others.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

Kerri doubts her beauty. And then she approaches the edge. She stands at her piano. When she plays all doubt leaves the room because the polarity finds its middle way, there is no this or that.

Sometimes it is enough – it is necessary – to stand at the piano with hands nowhere near the keys.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Kerri on iTunes

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doubt, edge, edges, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle way, piano, polarity, silence, soul, sound, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Grow More Beautiful [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 30, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

Barney copy

Barney is growing more beautiful with each passing year. New colors emerge. His wood splinters and new patterns play across his keys. The laminate that once served as skin is loose, wrinkled and twisting.

He was once forgotten. Years ago, someone thought it was a good idea to store him next to the boiler in the basement of the church. He sat in the dark for decades. He provided a surface for loose tools. He stood in water more than once; the basement floods and the boiler breaks. Over time his soundboard was ruined. He was no longer useful according to his original purpose.

He was rediscovered. He was rolled into the light. It was determined that he was too broken to be fixed and he was scheduled to be taken away by the scrap man. It took some convincing but we talked the scrap man into bringing Barney to our house. He helped us roll Barney across the grass. He helped us lift him into his resting place.

Barney has been a fixture in our backyard for the past 4 years. Kerri played him on his first day here and he sounded pretty good. The next day his sound collapsed, his keys stuck; he let us know his time for giving voice was over. He is content in his silence.

Now, he rests. He weathers. He drinks in the sun and the snow and rain as the years cycle through. The plants grow up around him as he slowly sinks into them. We watch and note his changes, the pieces falling off, the chipmunks who live beneath his lid. The purples and ochres and deep rich blues that were hiding beneath the laminate have surfaced. The changing weather, the long road of his life, has teased them to the top.

He quite simply grows more and more beautiful. We think that was his purpose all along.

read Kerri’s blog post about BARNEY

Filed under: Emergence, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Uncategorized | Tagged: aging, beauty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, piano, seasons, seasons of life, silence, studio melange, transition, voice | Leave a comment »

Pause [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

untitledinterlude songbox copy

Interlude. A pause. Breathing space. The silence between the notes. The space with no name. Untitled.

It seems that we, like all the people in our community, entered the new year exhausted. Our season celebrating the return of the light has become a season of rush and dash with nary a moment to reflect. Kerri said, in a moment of exasperation, “The bears are sleeping through this!” Nature knows what we are supposed to be doing in these dark winter months. Resting. Quiet in the branches sends all the good energy to the roots.

Take a moment. Listen. Breathe. Send some good UNTITLED INTERLUDE energy to your roots.

UNTITLED INTERLUDE from the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes and CDBaby. Purchase the physical CD here.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNTITLED INTERLUDE

untitled interlude/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, Body, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: breathing space, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, music, pause, quiet, released from the heart, rest, silence, society6.com/kerrisherwood, studio melange, untitled interlude | Leave a comment »

Wait Here [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 30, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

waiting song box copy

Last night when we came out of rehearsal it was snowing, just barely. There is something immediately meditative about a gentle snowfall. We stopped and stood for a moment watching the flakes flutter like tiny feathers to the ground.

Sometimes snow stops time. Or, better, it interrupts the rush through life and drops us into time. It drops us into the present moment. No other place to be. Nothing more important to do.

Kerri’s WAITING has the same power as a gentle snowfall. It calms the rush and quiets the noise. It opens the door into this moment, the present moment, and asks nothing more from you than be witness to the stillness, the silent emergence of those tiny flakes traveling through infinite space to the place on earth where, at just the right moment, you happen to be standing. Just in time.

WAITING on the album JOY – A CHRISTMAS ALBUM is available on iTunes & CDBaby

to find all of Kerri’s Christmas albums, go here

KS Designs! Pillows, pillows, and more pillows

read Kerri’s blog post about WAITING

waiting/joy-a christmas album ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: christmas, christmas albums, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inner quiet, joy, joy - a christmas album, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, silence, snow, snowfall, society6.com/kerrisherwood, stilness, waiting, witness | Leave a comment »

Recognize It [on Not-So-Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on November 14, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

beaky text copy

I love this text. It is from 93 year old Beaky to her daughter. The specific context is not important. What I love is the universality of this sentiment, a text every mother across the ages might have written to their children. It is a text Kerri could write to Kirsten or Craig. What mother does not know more than they say, think more than they speak, notice much more than their underestimating children realize?

I’ve learned, as I watch Kerri not-say things to her children, letting them make their own mistakes and untangle their own webs, that the effort involved in not-speaking is herculean.

Sisu sometimes requires silence. When every impulse in a mother’s body is to reach, Sisu sometimes demands stillness.

As a child who routinely underestimates his mother, Beaky’s text gives sends chills up my spine. I’ve certainly made a mess of things and I can only imagine the fortitude (unrecognized by me) my mother displayed – and continues to display – by letting me fall down. Sisu. Sisu. Sisu.

Of course, the flip side of the coin is that the interruption-of-the-reach, the silence-in-the-midst-of-knowing, comes from a deeper mom-like-faith. Mothers know that the great trip-and-fall-down moments come with some necessary pain but will always end with a return to standing, a re-entry to the game. It’s a cycle. It’s how moms everywhere awaken Sisu in their children. Like all good life cycles, it’s a paradox, to be sure.

The second thing I love about Beaky’s text? She signs her dope-slap to her daughter with ‘Mom.” This love-thing is tough!

read Kerri’s blog post about BEAKY’S TEXT

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: Beaky, children, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycles, mom-faith, motherhood, mothers, silence, sisu, stillness, studio melange, texts, tough love | Leave a comment »

Sail The Silence [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 9, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Albert used to come by my studio each evening and pick me up. He knew me well and feared my studio solitude. He’d take me to a coffee house and sit with me until I recovered my capacity to converse. He’d wait until I was capable of crawling out of my silence. We’d laugh when I finally “returned.”

He was right to fear. I didn’t know at that time that the work of an artist – the real work – is to comprehend and navigate their silence. To sail the immensity. We live in this odd age of the individual so an artist’s life is often like solo spelunking. So many get lost in their caves – as I almost did – or their fame (same thing).

My brother-from-a-different-mother recently directed a play. It was a great success. He wrote in the midst of his play’s triumph to tell me how hard he has to work at giving himself any credit. He wrote, “It’s amazing to think how *surprising* that might be for non-artists…” Silence, as he knows, is vast. It is bigger than any single person. When a work of art comes from the vastness it is nearly impossible to claim it. I didn’t tell him that his wrestling match is the mark of a mature artist. How do you claim the ocean or the universe? Success for an artist, unlike the success of a dentist or business person, is an infinite game.

Kerri’s SILENT DAYS could be the soundtrack for the infinite game, sailing into the immensity of the silence. She knows its yearning and awe and brings it back to share with us. I tell myself that she composed SILENT DAYS so others, unfamiliar with their silence, might catch even a small glimpse of life in the boundless places.

SILENT DAYS from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about SILENT DAYS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, blueprint for my soul, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, music, silence, silent days, society6.com/kerrisherwood, solo piano, success, vastness | Leave a comment »

Look For The Exit [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Roger's Park Feet copy

Two decades ago, living in Los Angeles, on a beautiful crystal clear morning, I walked to the corner market to buy a Sunday newspaper and milk for coffee. With my milk and newspaper in hand, I circled the store pretending to shop with the rest of my fellow shoppers. We delayed checking out because another customer, enraged, was having a heated argument with the cashier. We were afraid and unwilling to step in the way of an escalating confrontation. When the angry man slapped the counter, the rest of us – the entire group of shoppers – spontaneously hit the deck. We thought it was a gun shot. Laying on the tile floor looking at the panicked faces, I had a realization. I must be afraid all of the time; low-grade fear. Gun violence was so prevalent that it was my first thought, my first expectation, not the last. And then, the most remarkable thing happened. We slowly stood up, brushed ourselves off, picked up our items from the floor and put them back into our baskets – and never said a word to each other. We paid for our purchases. We pretended it didn’t happen. Fear is like that.

“California is ten years ahead of the rest of the nation.” At the time I heard this sentiment often. “If it’s happening here it will be happening in the rest of the nation within a decade.”

I am now twenty years beyond my corner market floor dive. I routinely look for the exits when I enter a movie theatre. We avoided attending open air concerts after Las Vegas. School shootings and workplace massacres are more common than not. There is training offered by experts on what to do if you are caught in a mass shooting. The palaver rolling out of Congress is like a dusty old play. We know the script and it goes nowhere.

“There’s been another one,” we say and shake our heads, upset that a few weeks ago we’d walked the street where the latest young man was killed. He was going to the store. A student who needed to buy hangers. “It could have been us.” And, so, once again, we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, put the items of our day back into our basket, realizing, not too late, that it did happen. It is happening to us.