Pass The Cheer [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 21, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We do some quirky things. Driving an aspen tree halfway across America in the back of our car is certainly on the list of quirky.

It’s from a place special to us. We honeymooned at Linda and Bill’s condo in Breckenridge, Colorado. I am from Colorado and our honeymoon trip felt like coming home – for both of us. We return to that special place when we can, though not often enough. There is a trail we like to hike. It’s become an old friend that we need to visit when in the area. If we do nothing else, we strap on our boots and begin the climb. It follows a brook up the side of the mountain. We’ve never made it to the top but one day…

On our mantel is a piece of driftwood from Long Island, Kerri’s home. In our dining room is a log – literally a log – we carried from our trail in Breckenridge. Elemental. We have stones from our respective birthplaces, too. Our house is filled with confused cairns, pointing both east and west.

We named the little aspen tree Breck. It traveled in a pot with its tippy top branches bent against the car ceiling for the ride. It survived the journey. For the first few years it lived in a pot on the deck in the warm months and was wrapped and protected in the winter. Breck’s quaking leaves make us smile and instantly transport us to the special town in the high mountains.

Breck did not like its first spot where we planted it in the yard. The top branches died. When we moved it last fall, we were afraid that Breck would not make it through the winter. We talked to it. We cheered for it. “You can do it!” we chirped. Imagine our relief and celebration a few weeks ago when we went out back and found Breck budding. Lots of buds. More sun. Better soil. New Growth!

A reminder of a special place. A symbol of resilience and a hearty can-do. This spring it feels as if Breck is speaking to us, too. More sun! Better soil! You can do it. New growth. Art-life budding.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Know The Poem [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.” ~Rainier Maria Rilke

“First robin!” she said.

“What?”

“First robin. That means spring is here!” she looked at me with “duh” eyes. I was new to Wisconsin so the rituals were not yet known to me. I did not yet understand that in this strange land a water cooler is called a “bubbler” and that cheese curds are sacred food. Before the week was out, I’d heard it three times from strangers. “First robin!”

Years ago, during my first winter in Seattle, after months of gray, the sun came out for an hour and all the people working downtown poured out of the tall buildings and stood facing the sun. They moaned with satisfaction. “What’s this!” I exclaimed. Weird behavior. The next year, after months of dreary gray, the moment the sun peeked from behind the drab curtain, I ran out of my apartment to revel in the return. Leaning against a brick wall, eyes closed, feeling the warmth on my face and the heat reaching my bones, I knew this was my passage to becoming a “local”. I moaned with satisfaction.

Poetry is visceral. It has it roots in the moans of sun drinkers and robin-seers. The green pushing up from dark soil. The smell of spring or the first hint of warmth on the winter wind. Words cannot capture feelings but isn’t it glorious that we try?

We were walking the neighborhood on a cold afternoon. She squeezed my hand and pointed. “First robin,” I said and she smiled. “Spring.”

Now, doesn’t “First robin. Spring!” sound like a grand start to a poem of renewal? Ahhhhhh, yes. A hint of warmth on the wind, harbinger of green shoots reaching. Someday soon, sun will call me out of hiding and color my pale face.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FIRST ROBIN

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

baby steps/right now © 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Creativity, Emergence, Gratitude, KS Friday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See The Signs [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Religions around the world and across time have personified this moment. The return of the green. From one day to the next buds appear on trees. The signs of life’s vibrant enthusiasm returning (again) from long winter, barren earth, metaphoric death. Persephone’s homecoming from the underworld and Demeter, her mother, goddess of the earth, allows the return of life.

It’s a very, very old story told in many, many different ways. Human beings, storytellers all, making sense of death and life, generalized across the real experience of cycles and seasons, all pressed through the lens of this-causes-that. Reduce us to an essential oil and we are makers of metaphor and seers of pattern.

I told Kerri that I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. An idiom. Imagine the power in brains that utilize idioms! The meaning cannot possibly be carried by a literal interpretation of the individual words. We pull the meaning out of or inject it into the collection of words. We know what it means because the meaning has a long history. The Romans, I’ve read, believed there was a correct side of the bed. Arising on the correct side of the bed would ensure good luck. The right side of the bed was positive, the left side was dubious. Jump out of bed on the left side and the day was ruined!

Superstition: making sense of the happenings of a day or a life, pressed through the lens of this-causes-that.

Mostly, I am restless. It snowed all day yesterday. I yearn for the moment when I can, for the first time of the returning (pattern) spring, lean against the wall and feel the warm sun on my face. I will, like I did last spring, enjoy the moment to the point of non-thinking. I will drink it in with no need to wrap a story around it or make sense of what I am feeling. I will appreciate it to my bones and revel in the return of warmth, new growth, and light.

read Kerri’s blog post on GREEN

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor, Pattern | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See The Signs [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although it is not quite here, I know spring is coming. How do I know? The blinds are open on one side of the room. They are closed on the other side.

During the winter, the blinds are closed on both sides of the room. During the winter, we turn in. We close out the world. All of the energy goes to the root, beneath the soil, to recharge our lives. Hibernation. And then, one day, though it is still cold, the birds return, we wake to their song, the sun plays hide-and-seek. In the morning, well rested, we open the blinds to the east.

We’re watching the squirrels. They gather the fallen leaves in their mouths and adeptly climb the maples and oaks to high notches, deposit their load, and return to the ground to gather more. Up and down. Over and over. Preparing their nests. The birds are courting. It looks like a hearty game of chase but we know the females are dodging the insistent pesky males.

Life is returning from the deep. Preparation for Persephone’s homecoming. Restless buds appear on branches. It’s close, but not quite yet.

Not quite yet. The third covid springtime. We are not yet past it and are fidgety.

We sat in the car staring at the door to the store. “I’m so goddamn tired of putting on this mask, ” I said as I put it on. We know we’ll be among the few wearing masks as we shop. No matter. It’s not over yet, this long winter of pandemic. As much as we want it to be spring, as much as we can see the signs, it’s not here yet. Not yet. Blinds open on one side of the room. Blinds closed on the other side.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about BLINDS

that morning someday/blueprint for my soul © 1997 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See The Dance [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 15, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.” ~Lao Tzu

We had a hard time choosing the prompt for this day. Traditionally, on Monday, we use a quote, something we’ve heard or come across in the week prior. We had plenty of thought-provoking quotes and appropriate images from which to choose. A few would have inspired rants. We also had a few ready to go that would have required more time than we have this morning to do the thought justice. They were heart-thoughts. And, so, we sat and stared at our screens. We pulled the original choice just before we published our picks for the week. “Let’s wait on this one,” Kerri said, “I feel like I want to give it more time.”

More time. Yes. In a few weeks time, we will cross the four year mark of our Melange. Five days a week. Four years. It’s a significant body of writing. At least to us.

When Kerri offered this image as an option, she said, “Maybe we should write about silence.” The mums bow their head. It is the end of their season. The flower drops and dies but the plant lives on, readying itself through the cold winter for a blossom resurrection in the spring. The buds will appear to be new life and we will celebrate them as a new beginning. The plant will smile at our surface-worship. Life did not disappear with the drooping blossom.

The phone rang last night in the early evening. It was my mom calling, just to chat. We talked of our disbelief that my dad, Columbus, was gone. We talked of her exhaustion and need to be still, like the mum in winter. We talked of the emergence of new friends and, someday, the discovery of a new purpose. All in good time. Good time. She is heroic walking through this chapter of her good time. When energy turns to the root, when it moves to an internal focus, it necessarily feels lonely.

Some things cannot be rushed. Most things, those with the greatest import, cannot be pushed. They must be lived. Experienced. The blossom droops and drops. The plant knows just what to do. It is winter and energy must go to the root – that is precisely why the blossom dropped. The plant is not separate from the season. It’s a dance that only seems to be a movement with two but, in truth, is the motion of one, a push-me-pull-you. The inner focus, hibernation, once recharged, will, someday soon, feel the sun and turn its attention outward. New buds are certain to answer the call.

read Kerri’s blog post about MUMS

Filed under: Energy, Family, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Take The Time [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

To see takes time.

Desi has been teaching us to see. She sits on the table in a clay pot. We join her at the table every evening to sip a glass of wine, watch the light wane, the robins and cardinals dart across the yard, debrief the day. We’ve been watching Desi all winter, spending time with her. Watching.

Truth be told, I did not expect Desi to live long in her pot. She’s seemingly so fragile, her “trunk” no wider than a sewing needle. And yet, throughout the winter, her robust green needles never yellowed. She thrived, verdant in her unlikely home.

Kerri talks to Desi more than I do. I’m the silent male but I regularly send her my good thoughts. She regularly reciprocates. Kerri and Desi can carry on for quite awhile about nothing in particular. Soil. Water. Warm days. Pine-tree-talk. Hope.

Hope. A few weeks ago, Desi stood taller. New tender sprouts pressed from nowhere , tiny arms reaching for the sun. We celebrated Desi’s new heights. We encourage her to keep going – and she does! Now, each evening, first thing when we sit at the table, we spend time ‘seeing’ Desi.

In a hard pandemic time she lightens our spirits. She cares nothing for the news cycle or the ridiculous foibles of bipeds and we find that refreshing. Most of all, if, for a moment, we forget that we are surrounded by hope – it’s everywhere – we take a moment or two and have a sit-down-visit with Desi. We take the time to see what is always right in front of our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog post about DESI

Filed under: Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Wiggle And Be Warm [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!” ~ Thomas Nashe, Spring, Sweet Spring

“It’s not possible,” we said in unison. For weeks, the temperatures were bitter cold. The mound of snow at the end of our driveway was as tall as I am. The sun finally emerged. We pulled on our snow pants, our heavy boots, and walked into the snow-shocked world. Rounding the corner by the dentist’s office, at the base of the south facing wall, through a patch of cold wet earth surrounded by mounds of ice and snow, tender shoots of green were breaking through, reaching for the warmth. Daffodils. Spring.

We stood staring as if slapped. It was as if we had rounded the corner and come face-to-face with alien hope, something we thought existed only in some distant future, a Hallmark promise of light in the darkest of winters. Yet, there it was, tenacious and tender, a harbinger of Persephone’s return to the sweet surface of the earth. “I have to take a picture,” Kerri whispered, as I broke into a spontaneous sun dance. Passing motorists stared at the lady climbing into the bushes and the wiggling crazy man.

I felt as if I suddenly held a precious secret. I did a slow 360 degree turn and saw only winter, winter, winter. Cold, frozen, frigid, freezing, ice damming, black ice, snow plow, sand and salt world with people puffed out and covered in too many layers to please-god-stay-warm. And, in the middle of it all, a tiny patch of promise. A force greater than despair or depression or pandemic fatigue. Life.

We stayed just long enough to make sure it wasn’t a mirage, linked arms and set course for home. Cold fingers but warm in our core.

As we trudged home, breaking trail in snow, I thought of a small piece by Ellsworth Kelly. He pasted a chunk of warm yellow on a postcard image, a Japanese print. He called it “Spring (Yellow curve).” A shock of yellow completely out of place yet transforming the entire world. I imagine, one day, he took a walk in the bitter cold and saw a shock of yellow blowing through the soil. So out of character yet so welcome. Spring. Yellow curve. “Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!”

read Kerri’s blog post about SPRING?

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Invite The Humor [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

The sun at last. We pulled on our snow boots and walked the neighborhood, arriving at a place sacred to us, the Southport Beachhouse. It’s the site of our wedding reception and candlelight anniversary dinners on the beach.

Kerri packed a snow ball and another and another. She made a tiny snowman. We scrounged the snow for sticks, small cones for eyes. “He’s so cute!” she said. And then, “Do you think he knows the world is off its axis?”

“No.”

“Lucky snowman!” she sighed.

Horatio had me laughing during our call. He told me that the story of Job was meant to be a comedy and, in his telling, it was hysterically funny. He has me convinced. Grim circumstance is fodder for good humor. It’s why the classic slip-on-the-banana-peel is so funny. I told him that Kerri and I are waiting for the whale to burp. Despite what it seems, our time in the belly of the whale is temporary. Sooner or later, every good comedy comes to a happy ending.

The trick, I suppose, is to recognize that you are living in a comedy and it is better to laugh than shake your fist at the sky.

Sand paintings, like snowmen, are temporary. They are meant to invoke healing. They are meant to provide protection. “Do you think he’ll be here tomorrow?” Kerri asked as we walked away.

“No. He’ll enjoy his day in the sun and that will be it,” I said. She looked at me sideways.

Impermanence. A day in the sun. A snowman made for fun and not forever. In making it, we found an ounce of perspective, some tiny snowman healing.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE SNOWMAN

Filed under: Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Face The Sun [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

clover copy

Walking the river trail I couldn’t help but whirl in the contradiction: everything has changed and nothing has changed. While the world of people is awash in pattern disruption, the rest of creation is following the script exactly.

Spring. The muddy season. The world pops green just as we knew it would. Just as it did last year and the year before and the year before. I believe our backyard ferns are growing 6 inches a day. Even the daily Dog-Dog assault cannot deter their reach for the sun. Life returns from darkness. Demeter sings at Persephone’s return.

If you seek an affirmation of life come sit in our backyard. The bird song will lift your spirits, these flying shocks of color will make you giggle with delight. Vibrant yellow, a cardinal more salmon than red. My eyebrows cartoon-pop in disbelief. We sit facing the sun in our broken Adirondack chairs and drink in the warmth.  “This doesn’t suck.” I say, eyes closed, basking in appreciation of the sun as it reaches to my bones. I’m certain I said the exact same thing last year and the year before that. Rituals of renewal need not always be solemn.

Sometimes I think this game of life is really an exercise in focus placement. I can choose to see the world as the work of Hieronymous Bosch– and sometimes I do. Beautifully horrific. Or, I can swivel my lens to Georgia O’Keefe and look at the wondrous small things, the miracle of nuance and the close-up. Sometimes, when I am at my best, I turn my eyes to see as Ellsworth Kelly did, when he imagined his chapel of light. “I think people need some kind of spiritual thing,” he said.

And so, with the vibrant greens popping, the screaming yellows flying, the blue-blue of a cloudless sky, tender lettuce leaves breaking through topsoil, I find myself surrounded by a Hieronymous Bosch narrative cycle but with just a little refocus, I am stunned by the grander cycle of marvel and mystery in this Ellsworth Kelly world.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CLOVER

 

lastlittlehousefeet website box copy

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Emergence, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

First, Enjoy [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 29, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

first dandelion copy

This is the season of firsts. The first glimpse of new shoots of green poking their heads out of crusty soil. The first robin. The first morning we are awakened by the woodpecker bending its beak on our neighbors old metal aerial antenna. Walking the muddy trails in Bristol Wood, Kerri gasped, jumped, pulling her camera from her pocket. I thought it might be a fox or possum. “What is it?” I whispered.

“It’s the first dandelion!” she exclaimed.

Our neighbors to the east wage a seasonal war on dandelions. Most of the folks in our neighborhood shudder at the sight of the yellow invader. One of our favorite summer rituals is walking around the corner to see if the retired man is standing sentry in his yard, armed with the latest in dandelion weeding tools. Old coffee cans strategically placed on his walkway hold the remains of the brazen few that dared show their yellow faces.

In our house, dandelions are not invaders. They’ve inspired songs. They are little yellow memory bringers. Flowers and food. Ray Bradbury. They are heralds of bare feet, hammock chats, cold wine and water balloon fights.

Each year, we enact a dandelion ritual. I am a fairly new suburbanite so I’m often uncertain of what to do and lapse into momentary paranoia. Standing in the abundance of dandelions that pop up in our yard, I fear that I should be more like my neighbors and declare a war. “Do you think we need to pull these?” I ask Kerri.

“Why?” she responds without looking at me.

“Everyone else is,” I say meekly.

“Now, there’s a good reason to do something!” she mocks me. “You? Conforming. Now, that would be a first!”

 

read Kerri’s blog post about FIRST DANDELION

 

 

yetitumbler website box copy

 

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Next Page »

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com