Spin With The Earth [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 26, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

adrift songbox copy

If I was stranded on a desert island and could only have two books, they would be Think On These Things by Krishnamurti and The Actor And The Target by Declan Donnellan. If I was teaching a class on leadership, a beginning or advanced class in acting, a seminar on entrepreneurship, a master class in spiritual living,… I’d only need these two books. I go to them often. They remind me to remain open and appropriately adrift.

“The fact is that truth is life, and life has no permanency. Life has to be discovered from moment to moment, from day to day; it has to be discovered…” ~ Krishnamurti

“We cannot control reality, but we can control our fantasies. Except our fantasies don’t exist; so we are not controlling anything at all. But the illusion of control is deeply reassuring. And the price we pay for this reassurance is unimaginable.” ~ Declan Donnellan

Peaking through a triangular keyhole from 1996, the woman who would someday be my wife smiles at me. Neither of us knew then where life would take us. Neither of us know today where life will take us. Some days we know for certain that this spinning globe is beyond our capacity to control. Some days we delude ourselves.

One evening, shortly after we met, I went with her to a Taize service. She was playing the service and I had no idea what a Taize was. I sat in a tiny pew just off the chancel, just behind where she was playing. Something mystical happened that night. It was and is beyond my capacity to explain. After the service we sat in the tiny pew for hours. Completely stripped of our control fantasy, we sat spinning with the earth, listening, completely content to discover the moment. Appropriately adrift. Completely alive.

ADRIFT on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about ADRIFT

 

arches shadows k&d website box copy

 

adrift/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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Study It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 25, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although this news will come as a blow to my ego, I am not a genius. My work is not opening new and exciting doors in the trajectory of western art. My boyhood fantasy of becoming the next Picasso has evolved into the happy reality of becoming the only…me. I love to paint. That is more than enough. Becoming, with no end in sight.

I rarely do studies or rough drafts. Only when a painting is giving me fits do I stop and study it. And, if I actually stop to do a study, the next step is to wipe the painting off the canvas. You might say that the act of doing a study is a warning to the elusive painting. “Last chance, dude.”

FACE THE SUN began as a study, a warning to CHASING BUBBLES. I was ready to wipe it away. In fact, I was cackling at the satisfaction a fresh start would bring. Kerri intervened. She has an uncanny sense for knowing when I am about to wipe away a painting. More than once, at the very moment my hand is reaching to annihilate the trouble-maker-painting, she rushes in to plead its case. I knit my brow. “You’re kidding, right?”

CHASING BUBBLES lived to see another day. Cleaning the studio, I saw the study that saved the painting. I liked it so I finished it and called it FACE THE SUN. Kerri came into the studio and said, “That painting makes my neck hurt.”

“What?! You’re kidding, right?”

She smiled her “gotcha” smile. Not only am I not the next Picasso but the painter that is becoming me is gullible. I am not a genius but I am an easy mark.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about FACE THE SUN

 

 

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face the sun/chasing bubbles ©️ 2019 david robinson

 

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Will Her Safe Passage [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 18, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative
MotherDaughter morsel copy

a morsel: motherdaughter

Lately I am learning about parenthood. Actually, to be more specific, I am learning about the power of motherhood. Even though her children have flown the nest and are living vibrant lives a thousand miles in either direction, Kerri senses their movements. She feels their triumphs and their pains as if they were her own. We have a game: mention Kirsten’s name in casual conversation and she will almost certainly text or call within minutes. It is uncanny. The daughter and the mother are deeply connected.

This winter, Kirsten taught snowboarding lessons in Telluride and coached a team in Aspen. It required a four and a half hour drive on Friday night to Aspen and a Sunday night return trip to Telluride. Friday and Sunday evenings, Kerri tracked Kirsten’s travel path. Snowy roads. Ice. Avalanches. The mother’s eye casting a cloak of protection over the daughter, willing her safe passage. Holding her in a mother’s sheltering embrace.

Anyone who doubts the power of sympathetic magic has never been a parent, a mother willing the universe to keep her girl safe.

 

 

read Kerri’s blog post about MOTHERDAUGHTER

 

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arches shadows k&d website box copy

 

motherdaughter ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: DR Thursday, Love, Power, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Slow Down And Join [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 17, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

just bob just leslie copy

We were in Madison at the campus. It was Friday afternoon and the party was already raging. Music thumping, horns honking, people pouring out of class, racing to feel the freedom of week’s end. The rush hour was revving. Cars swerving, cutting in and out, vying for ‘the advantage’. People all around hurrying to be some-other-place.

We went to Madison to flee the noise and mess of our life. We needed a mini-getaway. A breather from walking into our current life-headwind. We thought we’d walk a bit. Grab some dinner. I’d never actually been to Madison. We forgot it was Friday. We chose a destination without really thinking it through. In our search for peace we stepped into chaos.

So, we fled Madison. A day of double fleeing. Or, one long extended flee.

Leaving Madison we knew without doubt where to find refuge. When you walk through the doors of Cafe Carpe in Fort Atkinson you step back in time. It is a place dedicated to the simple art of slowing down. It is a place where people come to be together, to chat and laugh and linger. To join. There is a backroom with a stage no larger than the average kitchen table. Musicians passing through know that it is a good place to stop and play. People listen. And then they talk to you about making music and relevance.

We sat at the end of the bar and watched people trickle in, join their friends, enter the storytelling. A woman stepped through the door and asked if anyone knew about the poetry reading at the library.

“That was last night. I heard it was good.”

“You mean I missed it?” the woman rolled her eyes. The cafe crowd erupted in laughter. “Yep.” The woman took off her coat and sat down. People introduced themselves to her. She joined.

Screwed to the bar where we sat were two small brass plaques. Just Bob. Just Leslie. Kerri asked the bartender about the plaques. “Oh, Bob and Leslie come in every Friday night.  They have for years. They put those plaques on the bar to mark their spot. Should be here any minute.” she said.

“Let us know when they come and we’ll move,” Kerri offered.

“Oh, they won’t make you move. They wouldn’t want that. But they might want to join you and have a drink.” she smiled.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CAFE CARPE

 

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

Step In The Box [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 16, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

bcat tape box copy

Jen told Kerri about it. Make a square on the floor with blue tape. It will act like a siren call to your cat who will NEED to sit inside the square. I was a doubter. Worse, I was a loud doubter.

During one of our famous Sunday night dinners, Kerri told 20 about the blue tape square and its kitty magnetism. I remained a stalwart disbeliever. After a glass of wine we retrieved the blue tape from the studio and slapped down a rough square on the kitchen floor. We poured more wine and waited. I scoffed.

In a few minutes BabyCat (lovingly known to me as Sumo) thump-thumped into the kitchen, went directly to the tape, circumnavigated the square (counterclockwise) and like a kitty in a current, was  pulled as if by a force into the square. He sat down. Kerri roared with triumph and took a picture for proof. She knows I am capable of denying the undeniable so she was quick to get photographic proof. 20 shook his head at me and said, “I thought you’d have learned by now that she is always right.” I am, as previously reported, a slow study. Very slow.

BabyCat sat tight in his blue tape square throughout our turmoil. He seemed oblivious to our antics, He was content. And, to add further insult to my injury, he laid down. He closed his eyes. He purred. He fell asleep, safe and sound in his blue tape box.

DogDog runs in circles. Circles are in his DNA. I suppose box attraction, real or imagined, must be encoded into BabyCat. It was true. He couldn’t stop himself from stepping into the box. I imagine the defined space made him comfortable. It made him feel safe.

I found myself wishing that somewhere in my DNA was the coding for box attraction. Or, at least a balance to the chain-of -command written into my coding: box avoidance. I wondered what it must feel like to see a defined space and not want to stir it up or redefine it. To open it up. I wondered what it must feel like to see a box, step inside, and give in to contentment. To purr with confinement.

20, watching me move through my troubled thought process, laughed. He sipped his wine and said, “You’ll never learn.”

True. Too true.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about the BLUE TAPE SQUARE

 

babycatContemplating website copy

 

Filed under: Pattern, Random, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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

 

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Circle Back To Change [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 9, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

wheels of change copy

A long time ago, in addition to naming my posts, I used to number them, too. Today, as I considered what to write, I realized that I had an old post sitting on my desk top because I’m slowly (very slowly) working on a maybe-someday-book called For Art Sake. I opened the old post and laughed aloud when I read it. It is  from a younger version of me writing about the wheels of change [I’ve made a few edits]:

1174. MEET THE FIRE

In order for the phoenix to rise it must first burst into flames and be reduced to ash. Every rebirth requires a death. I imagine the phoenix does not relish the flame but after a few cycles it recognizes the necessity of the fire.

The same image (metaphor) is everywhere: the caterpillar must first cocoon and then be reduced to mush before the impossible happens. The leaves must fall from the tree before the root can replenish, revitalize, and do the impossible: bring forth new life.

The healers in Bali assured me that a wound is necessary to open the door to the gift – each of them had suffered a devastating wound or loss en route to fulfilling their healing power. The journey through the wound was necessary to realize and fulfill their gift. The heroes cycle, the belly of the whale, the quest through the wasteland, finding joyful participation in the sorrows of the world; change is a fiery, difficult business.

In my life I’ve worked with many, many people in all manner of change and transformation processes. It is surprisingly common for people to want their phoenix without experiencing the flame. It took me a while to realize that people (organizations and otherwise) were hiring me under the guise of helping them transform but in truth they really wanted me to help them circumvent the fire.

People go to great lengths to avoid the flame. No one willingly seeks the wound and no one transforms without it. No one in their right mind jumps out of bed in the morning ready to jump into the abyss and yet the adventure is impossible without it. If a full rich experience of living is the aim of our limited time on this earth, then the fire is necessary. The fire is part of the ride.

Fire avoidance is what dulls an otherwise vital life. Comfort is certainly a worthy aspiration but as the only aspiration it deadens, it limits the life-color-palette to taupe. The trick, as all the stories teach us, is never to avoid the fire (you can’t) but, once there, to be alive in it.

After ashes comes honesty. With ashes comes a deeper knowing, call it faith, that  somewhere deep inside, the phoenix-in-you will someday rise just as spring will always return.

[Kerri took these photos. They are the treads of the massive tires on the enormous earth moving equipment that is transforming our beloved Bristol Wood into a high ropes course. We grieve it daily, watching the woods reduced to ashes]

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WHEELS OF CHANGE

 

archeswebsitead copy

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Identity, Power, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listen To Them [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

cleared the path bridge copy

Saul taught me to look beyond anything I understood as an obstacle and, instead,  place my focus on the field of all possibilities. “Place your focus on the obstacle and you will deal with the obstacle. Place your focus on the possibilities and you will deal with possibilities.”

Tom taught me to choose my battles and to fight only those worth fighting. “You don’t want to die on every hill,” he said. “In life there are really only one or two hills worth dying on.”

Ironically, Quinn, one the best storytellers I’ve ever known, taught me not to make up stories. Pointing to the big tall bank building he said, “See those people up there on the top floor? They don’t know what they are doing, either. They’re just making it up, too.” Or, maybe, he was attempting to teach me to tell a better story about myself.

It is not an understatement to say that I am rich in guides, teachers and mentors.

Doug, a Vietnam vet and one of the best teachers I’ve known, one day called me into his office and showed me a tattered, ruined book of poetry. “I bought it in the airport on the way to the war,” he said. “It saved my life.” He told me the story and it made me weep. Doug taught me the power of art. So did Paul and Roger. My two MM’s (Master Marsh and Master Miller) continue to teach me this lesson. Dawson, too.

Kerri and I are in a period of change that is simmering with unknowns. It is not the first time in my life that the dense fog has come in. She asked, “What do you think will happen?” I said, “Well, ultimately we’ll die.” She punched me. “That’s not what I mean!” she groused, adding a second punch. “Geez.”

Later, after the double punch, we took a walk on the Des Plaines river trail. An elderly man came around the bend and said with great jest and enthusiasm, “I cleared the path for you! It’s all clear.”

“Clear.”  It’s a poetic term. It means ‘possibility.’ And I heard them, my chorus of teachers and guides. All of them. Loud and clear.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CLEAR PATH

 

muddy boots blue website box copy

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Possibility, Seeing, Story, The Direction of Intention, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Chase The Bubbles [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

morsel bubble chasers copy

Some paintings don’t make it to the finish line and I suspect that this painting, Chasing Bubbles, will be one of those. I’ve been working on and off with it for weeks and that’s the problem. I’m not paying enough consistent attention to the painting to actually develop it into something good. Like an absent father I return to it every once in a while and wonder why the relationship isn’t progressing.

The playwright John Guare said that writers need to write ten bad pages to get one good page. Remove failure from the equation. Place the emphasis on the process and not on the product. Experiment. Play. Make strong offers.

The same principle is the reason why actors rehearse or artists do drawing exercises and rough drafts. A photographer for National Geographic (whose name escapes me) said that he shoots a thousand shots to get one really good photograph.

For an artist, silly notions like perfection interrupt the necessity of flow.

Kerri just thumped me. She looked over my shoulder and read what I was writing. “I like this painting!” she declared. She wants a stay of execution. She rapidly listed all of the reasons why I shouldn’t paint over it. “At least consider it,” she said, glaring at me.

I will consider it. After all, that is exactly what I have been doing. Considering whether or not to keep working it or start anew. Trying to find a way, given my spotty attention, to bring life to this Frankenstein. In either case, I am certain of one thing: this bad page will eventually lead to something good.

 

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Chasing Bubbles in process or perhaps in its last hours (thump).

read Kerri’s blog post about CHASING BUBBLES

 

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chasing bubbles (for better or worse) ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Walk Off The Path [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nurselog in woods copy

This is a tale of two quotes. Both are from Jiddu Krishnamurti who is currently sourcing my start-of-the-day reading.

“To be religious is to be sensitive to reality.”

Kerri and I love to walk. In our first few years together we’d walk the streets and parks of our neighborhood, morning evening, midnight, sunrise. Each day, regardless of weather, we’d walk. Lately, we’ve gravitated to a few local trails. More nature. Less concrete. More quiet. Less noise.

When we walk we very intentionally leave behind all of the mind chatter, all the fearmongering of the day, the battles with abstractions. It’s as if we shift a gear and easily pay attention to the actual world around us. We look. We listen. We sense. We point out beautiful things. We stop and close our eyes and listen. “Did you hear it?” Kerri takes pictures of the extraordinary marvels that surround us. They are everywhere. Brilliant red berries in a winter landscape. A nurse log. The astounding color and texture of a strip of bark. Deer prints, like ballroom dance patterns, in the mud. A distant owl.

Our walks are my church.

“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion or sect.”

I am living a life that is not going according to the plan. Some of my best decisions turned out to be my worst. Some of my worst decisions have turned out to be my best. Lately, I’ve been looking for jobs. This is new to me as I’ve been fortunate and capable most of my adult life of creating work. The gift of looking for work is the necessity of making a list of past experience. A life review called a resume.

I’m finding my work-life-review to be like our walks in the woods. Quiet. Sensitive to the realities. At this age-and-stage I am no longer what Kerri calls a strider. I am not climbing over bodies to get to the top office suite. My sword shattered some time ago. My armor is off and most likely by now covered in moss. Saving the world, becoming the next Picasso, finding the Northwest passage and all of the other battles of abstraction are no longer drivers for me. I have no desire to summit Everest. I have an endless desire to stand in this moment just as I am.

I have (for better or worse) walked a pathless path. And, I suspect that is true of all of us despite what topography we scribble on our resume maps. Truth is a personal path, the face behind the mask.

Master Marsh once asked me, “Why do you need to run at every edge and jump off?” When he asked the question I had witty replies but no real answer. Now, this is what I know: On my quest I’ve read a lot of books and had many, many brilliant mentors and guides. At the end of the day, they were/are pointers at best. The direction they pointed – always – was to the unknown. To the edges. The news from my life-review: It’s never found in a book or well worn path. It’s always found in a moment, in an experience, in a walk in the woods, holding hands.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about NURSE LOGS

 

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Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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