spiritual practice | The Direction of Intention

Live Inside The Altar [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dear reader, you have done me a great service. You’ve connected my past to my present.

I’m not sure why but, initially, I numbered rather than named my blogposts. My 623rd blog post was about a practice I’d all but forgotten. Building an altar of gratitude.

Someone out there read #623 so it popped up in my analytic. “This is old!” I thought, staring at the screen. A numbered post! Another era. “I wonder what I was writing about?”

2012. Thanksgiving. Among the darkest days of my life and yet, on that day, I was deeply, profoundly grateful. Life had chased me to a cliff. There was nothing to do but leap. I remember like it was yesterday wandering the streets of Seattle placing notes of gratitude in the cracks of walls, at bus stops, at coffee shops. I felt as if I was invoking. I wanted a better world. If I wanted it, I needed to offer betterment to the world. It was a prayer. A weaving. It was the last time I built my “altar of gratitude.”

A year later I lived in an entirely different world. Everything went to ashes.

2022. Kerri and I are walking our trail. We’re giggling because we just planted a painted rock in the elbow of a tree. “Do you think someone will find it?” her inner 5 year old asks, too wiggly with excitement to stand still. I expect her to skip in circles of enthusiasm.

“Yes,” I laugh. “Someone, someday, will find it.”

As I reread #623 I realized that, in rising from the ashes, I was no longer building my altar on a single day in a single season. I was no longer invoking gratitude. I was no longer hoping for a world that might someday come into being.

I am creating it. Not on a single day or special occasion. I’m practicing gratitude every day. I’m living gratitude every day. Painting rocks, making dinner, watching sunsets, buying groceries, writing blogposts.

Because you sent #623 back to me, a marker in time, I’ve realized I’m living inside my altar. All the world….

read Kerri’s blogpost about EXPLORE

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: altar, artistry, ashes phoenix, dark days, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, explore, Gratitude, intention, invocation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, painted rocks, practices, prayer, presence, Sacred, spiritual practice, story, studio melange, thanks giving, Thanksgiving, the melange | 1 Comment »

Intend And Stop Wishing [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 11, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

We walk. Each day we stop all work, bundle up, and find a trail. That is how we create peace.

We create peace.

It might seem that peace is hard to come by in our angry divided nation, pandemic raging, deniers denying, propaganda smearing,… It’s not so hard if you look for it.

We say to the departed, “Rest in peace.” It is a wish. It’s always seemed to me a bit late to wish peace on others only after they die. Why not wish peace for the living?

Actually, we do – as a seasonal ritual. This is the time of year we hear the hopeful proclamation, “Peace on Earth!” It is sung and inscribed on holiday cards, it is printed on banners hanging in malls and city centers. A wish. Good will toward men and women.

Good will. Peace – like anything else – will always remain a wish, a holiday bromide, until it becomes an action. An intention with effort. A priority. Until we decide it is more important to create peace than it is to wish it. To wish for it.

Good will. To will good.

Will [verb]: expressing a strong intention or assertion for the future.

We walk. We create peace for ourselves. Every day. It is a practice. We know that peace cannot ripple out if the center is turbulent chaos. We know that peace will remain a wish unless we stop work, bundle up, and act on our desire to experience it. To spread it.

Peace. Good will. They are choices. They are actions. They will only be hard to come by until we decide, with strong intention, that it is what we desire for our future. Until we decide peace is more important than division, until we decide to create it. And create it. And create it. Peace isn’t an achievement. It is a relationship.

Pie-in-the-sky? Here’s a thought from my inner cynic: If peace made a profit we’d be doing more than singing about it.

Here’s a thought from my inner idealist: Look around you. We are capable of creating anything. Most likely there’s a little miracle called a “cell phone” within your reach. Peace is no more difficult to create than that little device of connectivity. It is no more difficult than walking. A simple practice. A pursuit. An intention. One step at a time.

All of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about PEACE

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Possibility | Tagged: AS IT IS, choice, choices, create, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, good will, holiday bromides, holidays, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood as it is, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, practice, priorities, relationship, spiritual practice | Leave a comment »

Expect Nothing [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 1, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

happy copy

The man was about to begin hiking the Appalachian Trail. The interviewer asked, “What do you expect it will be like? What do you expect will happen?” The man replied, “I try not to have any expectations. I want to be open to what comes along, whatever that might be.”

It’s a spiritual practice. Make no assumptions. Release all preconceived notions. Open to what is and not what you think should be. Have the experience first, make meaning second. All good advice for attempting presence: that place we fully occupy but rarely visit.

Making meaning. It’s what people do. Wrap an experience in a story. Wrap it in a blanket of belief. Often we muffle the experience in a heavy cloak before we’ve had it.”It’s going to be hard.” “I don’t think they will like me.” Or, “This will be the best!” “I’m going to crush it!”

Joe used to call this high-dream/low-dream. Imagine the best. Imagine the worst. Like a magical invocation. Either way, an expectation is set. The story has begun and imposes a slick layer over the happenings. The story bleaches the experience-space, that full range of color available between the high and low.

It’s no wonder we can’t find compromise in our current nation-story.

I watch DogDog in the morning. He can’t wait to race outside. He barks for no other reason than it feels good. He sits in the sun. He chases birds with no hope or expectation that he will catch one [he wouldn’t have the vaguest idea what to do if he actually caught one]. DogDog does not know there is a pandemic. He does not care about people politicizing mask wearing. He holds no expectation for the direction of the day. His to-do list is blank. He is happy going on errands. He is happy sleeping on the cool tiles. He holds no grudges. He makes no judgments. He holds his story lightly. He is happy both before and after he eats. Sometimes he even tastes his food. Above all, he is happiest when we are happy.

Open to experience, DogDog has much to teach me. He has much to teach the world.

read Kerri’s blog post about HAPPY DOING

spoons and sandcastles

The quote “happy doing something, happy doing nothing” comes from an article about Augie the dog.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: assumption, belief, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, presence, spiritual practice, story | Leave a comment »

Step Into The Ripple [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 12, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

sometimesfaith WITH EYES jpeg copy 2

I’ve never understood faith as a religious term. Look up the word in the dictionary and you’ll come across trust, belief, and conviction. Rather than a lofty word reserved for worship day, it has always struck me as an everyday something – that becomes extraordinary when you realize how ever-present-and-ordinary it actually is. Stepping blindly. Blindly stepping. Each and everyday.

We surround ourselves with calendars and lists and routines and rituals and patterns – all necessary mechanisms to plan our days but they also serve to protect us from the truth of our walk on this earth: there is not a moment, an hour, or day that is actually known before it is lived. Every moment of every day is a step into the unknown.

The real practice of faith is not about an abstraction. It is a recognition that walking in faith is an essential part of the human condition. The real practice is in realizing it. Being right where you are, open to the reality and empty of the illusion of certainty that you know what is coming. You do not. The true spiritual practice is to empty yourself of the need for the illusion of control.

Fully inhabiting the moment. Standing at the crossroad of past and future without the map of ‘I-know-what’s-going-to-happen’ dulling the experience.

Spiritual practices are not meant to be other worldly. They are, at their best, concrete relationships found at the intersection of past and future, in that tiny slice of infinity called “the moment.” It is a miracle of unknowns and surprises.

The practice of faith is the practice of putting down what you think you know – dropping the notion that you know what will happen- and stepping fully and with intention into the rippling unknown.

read Kerri’s blog post about FAITH

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

chasing bubbles ©️ 2019 david robinson

chicken marsala ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: abstraction, belief, chicken marsala, Chicken nugget, conviction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, faith, future, illusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, past, pattern, practice, presence, recognition, society6.com/chickenmarsala, spiritual practice, trust, unknown | Leave a comment »

Practice, Practice, Practice [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 15, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

clean blackboard copy

Before Jonathan left town he gave us a book of daily devotions from his spiritual tradition. It is a significant book for him. It was his mother’s favorite and now it is his. He starts his day with it, reading a passage, meditating on its meaning, and carrying the meditation through his day.

A mind needs a focus. Jonathan is one of the most positive people I’ve met and this lightness of spirit is not an accident. He carefully attends to the story he tells himself. He exercises his muscle of interpretation and, because he is looking for it, he will always sort to the positive. He assumes a positive tale.

One of the lessons I learned while in Bali goes like this (almost a direct quote from Budi): In Bali, when two cars crash, the drivers do not get out and begin yelling and blaming the other driver. Instead, they get out of their cars and greet the other driver because the gods meant for them to meet that day. They try to discover why they were brought together.

Sometimes I think the whole journey is a master class in focus-placement and assumption-making.

Early on in our life together, Kerri taught me this phrase: leave the outbreak of baggage behind. We carry yesterday’s baggage into today’s experiences. It’s possible to carry a lifetime’s collection of baggage into each and every moment. Heavy living comes from looking at life though the baggage-layer.

The first meditation in Jonathan’s book is the same first principle found in every spiritual tradition: Be present in this moment. Your life is not what happened yesterday; it is what is happening right now. If you are looking for your life you will miss it if your focus is backwards or forwards. It sounds trite in a world awash in Hallmark cards, Successories, Motivational Moments or books of daily devotions.

It’s trite until put into practice. It’s easy to say ‘be present’ or ‘make no assumptions’ or ‘be the change you seek’ or ‘focus on the positive’ or… It’s a whole different ballgame when the trite phrase comes off the aspirational wall and enters the daily grind. Presence, the sensitivity to life happening right now, is not an achievement. It is an awareness that comes from practice amidst a world screaming for your attention.

Everyday a clean blackboard. I suspect that thought was Jonathan’s real gift to us.

read Kerri’s blog post about

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: aspirations, assumption, assumptions, baggage, Bali, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, Hallmark cards, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mantra, meditation, Motivational Moments, presence, society6.com/davidrobinson, society6.com/kerrisherwood, spiritual journey, spiritual practice, spirituality, studio melange, Successories | Leave a comment »

Give Over The Melody Line [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

as it is songbox copy

Spiritual teachers across traditions suggest that the reason we suffer is that we focus on what we think should be/supposed to be instead of on what is. The dedication to being someplace other than where you are will split you every time! The notion that you can be someone other than who you are (at this moment) will cleave you in two. And so, we have traditions of mindfulness (be where you are) and acceptance (be who you are) and forgiveness (be at peace with who and where you are). The cliff notes version: stop hewing yourself in two and you will stop suffering.

This is the seed-idea that inspired AS IT IS. This is what is supposed to be. All is as it is, as it should be.

I delight when Kerri tells me the story behind a composition. This morning, as we listened, she asked me to pay attention to the melody line. The flute mostly carries it. The keyboard – what she is playing – is in a support role. She said it this way: the keyboard gives over the melody line. The flute gives it back. The keyboard returns it to the flute.

No resistance. Relationship. AS IT IS. These, too, are spiritual suggestions for mending the hew. I’ll add to my canon as a practice for presence: give over the melody line.

AS IT IS on the album AS IT IS, available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about AS IT IS

as it is/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: acceptance, AS IT IS, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, forgiveness, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mindfulness, no resistance, practices, presence, relationships, society6.com/kerrisherwood, spiritual journey, spiritual practice, spirituality, split, split focus, split intention, studio melange, suffering | Leave a comment »

Enjoy The Puddles [it’s Chicken Marsala Monday]

Posted on May 21, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Puddle is a fun word to say. Try it. Puddle. Muddle. Fuddle. In fact, when fuddled or muddled, there is only one thing to be done and that is to find and jump gleefully into a puddle. Essentially, become puddled.

Chicken has a decidedly Buddhist side. If he had three simple rules for spiritual growth, one would certainly involve puddles and play. Speaking to we too serious adult-types, he might say: you can never control the rain, but you can most certainly control how often you play in the puddles .

On this Chicken Marsala Monday, from studio melange, leave behind your muddle and go to the puddle side of life [begin by reading this post out loud to someone you love – puddles are more fun with friends].

ENJOY THE PUDDLES gifts and cool things to remind you to play

bags, bags, bags

read Kerri’s blog post on ENJOY THE PUDDLES.

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Awakening, Chicken Marsala Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: Buddhist, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detachment, fun, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, play, puddles, society6.com/chickenmarsala, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

(Y)Our Earth [It’s Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 17, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Take a moment to take a look around you. A thought to ponder and share from the melange.

Tibetan monks have been in residence this week at a local technical college. They are creating a mandala sand painting. For the monks, creating the mandala is a spiritual practice, a meditation. As they construct the design they contemplate the meaning of the symbols within the design. In other words, they are in a constant state of prayer while they create. They invite the community to enter the prayerful space and contemplate with them; the “space” is, of course, the essential part of their creation. More to the point, the shared space of peace, an intentional communal tranquility, is the creation. And, to make sure we grasp the point, the final step in their creative process is to blow the design away. Nothing is permanent. Beauty is passing and so are you and me. It is, we are, energy in motion. The process, rather than the product, is the meditation.

When Kerri drew this design it immediately reminded me of the Earth’s currents, a perfect sentiment for the coming Earth Day celebrations. The essential convection currents that create our wind, our weather. The currents in the earth moving layers of magma, the transfer of energy in the heating and cooling of the ocean. Motion creates life, tosses up forms and pulls them down again. Motion is life, life is motion. And, in this mandala we call Earth, there is a deeper meditation found within the sand and the impermanence: it’s all connected. We are all connected. Blowing sands. The process, the quality of our participation in impermanence, is the art.

From studio melange, an earth day meditation: this is your/our earth.

THIS IS (Y)OUR EARTH reminders/merchandise

iphone cases

a beach towel!

(Y)Our Earth Leggings

read kerri’s blog post on (Y)Our Earth

kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Energy, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: #earthday, art, art and spirituality, beauty, communal peace, connected, connection, connectivity, convection current, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth day, earth's currents, impermanence, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mandala, meditation, passing beauty, peace, prayer, process, sand painting, shared peace, society6.com/twoartists, spiritual practice, studio melange, the melange, tibetan monks, tranquility, Two Artists Tuesday | 2 Comments »

Two Artists Tuesday

Posted on April 3, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

your thought for Tuesday from studio melange

There are a few consistent thought-practices that cut across most spiritual traditions. ‘Just Shrug’ is our version of one of those universal practices. In some traditions Just Shrug it is called ‘detachment.’ Or, spun another way, it is known as ‘take nothing personally.’ Lilies of the field. Centering, grounding, presence, stepping back, quieting the mind,…, are variations on the theme. Practice not taking the bait of the crisis-of-the-moment. “There are 7 billion people on the planet,” Quinn used to quip, “and none of them are thinking about you.” Just shrug.

I laughed aloud when Kerri dashed off this Two Artists graphic because it looks like an operator’s manual illustration for detachment. The little arrows are diagram-perfect instruction for how to begin the practice. Just shrug.

JUST SHRUG reminder/merchandise [mugs and cards and pillows, oh my!]