sue aikens | The Direction of Intention

Our Moment [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

At the top of the stairs on the second floor of our house is a bulletin board of photographs. We assembled it in 2019 when we took a job on Washington Island. We would be far away from family and friends and hoped the photo-board would help us stay connected to home. It’s funny to me now, I rarely looked at the bulletin board when we were on the island but five years later, firmly ensconced back at home, I pause on the stairs every single day and study it.

It’s the photos of my dad that stop me. In order to function on island we needed a second vehicle. My dad was no longer able to drive so he gave us his truck. The photos were taken when we flew to Colorado to get the truck. We call it Big Red. It was a blue-blue-sky day. Kerri and I were just about to begin the long drive back to Wisconsin. Kerri took some pictures of my dad and me standing next to Big Red.

He died in 2021. Those few photos are among the last I have of him. They are certainly among the last taken when he knew who I was; he was far down the road of dementia on that blue-sky Colorado day.

I stop on the stairs and study the photographs because I knew on that day that I might never see him again. I knew that his time on earth was short. I was fully and completely present with him when Kerri took the photographs. It was sublime and painful. And, I can access the fullness of his presence the moment I look at the photograph. It never fades.

I stop at the top of the stairs to hang out a few minutes with my dad but there is a greater gift in that blue-blue-sky photograph: it is a reminder that those moments happen every day. It is a reminder not to miss it, that these moments are also fleeting. Cooking meals together. The way the Dogga parading with his candy-cane-toy every time we dial the phone. Our slow cleaning out of the basement, playing Rummikube with 20, sitting under the quilt writing blog posts on a cold Wisconsin day, the chimes calling us back to this, our moment. It’s what we have. It’s precious. It’s all we have.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE NOW

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Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, awareness, dad, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moments, paying attention, presence, story, studio melange, sue aikens, the melange, the now | Leave a comment »

See Two [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nature of life box copy

“Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

I am fond of symbols. A horizontal line bisecting a vertical line. Two triangles interlocked to create a star. A black and a white swirl, coupled to form a circle and each containing a dot of the other. All symbols of opposing forces interconnected and counterbalancing.

It is a story of two. Spirit and body. Male and female. Inhale and exhale. The pull of the moon rolling the tide in and out. Birth and death.

Most of us live our lives in abstraction, that is, generally removed from the push-pull of nature. Electric light. Hot and cold running water. Food picked from a grocery store shelf. Our trash easily goes to the curb and disappears.

We do not see that life eats life. We rise with the alarm rather than the sun. Perhaps that is why we engage in the ridiculous debate over whether or not we the have impact on the environment. We somehow have deluded ourselves into thinking we are not part of nature or worse, that we are above it. Our actions do not matter. Isolated, we somehow have come to live in a disembodied story of one.

Kerri and I walk almost every day. We often walk the same trails through Bristol woods or the Des Plaines river trail. We walk them through every season. The barren snowy winter, the budding spring, the full leaf of summer, the color and fall of autumn. As we cycled through the seasons on our trails, I am reminded that these symbols were always meant to help us live and understand life here and now, to engage fully in the dance between the natural forces, the story of the two. Interconnected. Counterbalanced. A part of. The middle way.

It is only when these symbols are mis-taken within the story of one that they become warring emblems. Self-righteous. Inert and other-wordly. Out of balance. Domineering.

Tornadoes are impersonal. Forest fires are not discerning. The tsunami does not pick its direction. The sun melts the snow without ire. Judgment has not place in a story of two. Building up. Tearing down. Sunrise. Sunset.

read Kerri’s blog post about BUILDING UP & TEARING DOWN

Filed under: Energy, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: balance, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, force, interconnected, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, pema chodron, spirit, story, storying, studio melange, sue aikens, symbols, yin and yang | Leave a comment »

Reach The Other Side [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 29, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

lifebelowzeroquotesueaikens copy

Nope. This is not a political comment. Though it could be. Context is everything though I couldn’t blame you for assuming this is a statement of ideological division. Simple statements are rarely friendly in divided environments. They are meant to reinforce the division, to broaden the divide. We are inundated with divisive simplicity. We are drowning in out-of-context sound bytes.

No, this saw concerns the simplicity of survival. It’s quote from an episode of Life Below Zero. Sue lives above the arctic circle. She measures and ties guide ropes on to her buildings so she can find her way around her compound in white-out conditions. If she reaches the knot in the rope – a knot that marks the exact distance to the door she seeks – and hasn’t yet reached the door – she knows she must hang onto the rope and scribe an arc. Left is always left. Right is always right. The door will be there. If it’s not, if things go awry and she can’t find the door, she can follow the rope back to the safety of the place she just left.

Sue is a font of simple maxims born of the harsh necessities of her environment. Her rope is a statement of preparation. Her rope ups her odds of survival. No rope, she dies. Her simplicity is not ideological. It is necessary. It is meant to cross divides, to help her reach the other side.

On second thought, maybe this is a political statement after all. Or, perhaps an appeal in our harsh environment. Maybe Sue will come down to the lower 48 and teach us how to use a rope and give us a few simple suggestions for how to reach the other side.

read Kerri’s blog post about LEFT AND RIGHT