Posted on August 11, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
When she chose them to decorate our table I remarked that they looked like plants from the sea so I was delighted to learn that Eryngium is commonly called Sea Holly. Other common names include Rattlesnake Master and Miss Wilmott’s Ghost.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you invited Ellen Wilmott to afternoon tea you’d better expect to find Eryngium popping up in your garden. My bet is that she thought every garden but her own to be poorly designed.
Tom Mck told me a story of a woman in the early part of the last century, named Sally, who was a writer. She believed the letter “e” was a government listening device. She never used the letter “e” but replaced it with something less capable of spying. If you gave her an article to read, a newspaper or a novel, she would cross out the all the offending letters before she would read it. She would caution people to be wary of the letter “e”.
There is a single rule to eccentricity: the truly eccentric person does not recognize their behavior to be eccentric. “Normal” is in the eye of the beholder.
Kerri, having just cut the stems, arranged and placed the Eryngium in a Ball jar and positioned it on our bistro table, asked, “How many other people would put this spiky purple plant all by itself on their table? I just love it!”
“Not many,” I replied, also admiring the prickly purple-blue flowers that seemed more at home under the sea than on our tiny table. For a moment I was awash in gratitude. How is it possible that in all the world I found the only other person who appreciates the stand-alone-sculptural-spiny-beauty of Miss Wilmott’s Ghost?
Posted on August 10, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative
“It’s been on my mind a lot lately,” she said. “The word veritas.”
Veritas.
Veritas is the Latin word for truth though it is more precise than the blanket word, “truth”. It denotes an alignment of words and actions with facts and yet it reaches beyond the hard science of fact into the metaphysics of morality . It is meant to be a core lived-value. One of The Four Agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz is “to be impeccable to your word,” say what you mean and mean what you say. Impeccability to your word is veritas.
Veritas is a Roman goddess “…often depicted as nuda veritas (naked truth), holding a hand mirror to show self-reflection and how things truly are without disguise.” (Wikipedia)
It goes without saying that Veritas is not high on the list of aspirations in these un-United States. We are awash in misinformation, propaganda, deception and lie. In Latin, our current value set is more Falsitas (untruth) than Veritas. In recent history we eschew the hand-mirror and bury ourselves in disguises.
Another yummy Latin word, Simulatio, meaning hypocrisy and deceit, brought a smile to me when I thought it could be the new name of GOP Elephant. It’s either Simulatio or a more considerate moniker: Mentis Morbum (mental illness).
We are in the midst of primary season, choosing the candidates that will run in the November midterm election. Veritas must be on the minds of millions of people. More than once I’ve heard a candidate say something like, “This is not a progressive or conservative issue. It is a human issue.” Hearing this phrase gives me some small measure of hope. It transcends partisan divides. Perhaps we-the-people are finally sick to death of Falsitas and are trying to find our way to common ground. Our shared values. Perhaps the distance between who-we say-we-are and how-we-act has become too vast. Perhaps the weight of the disguise has become to heavy to bear.
Perhaps our only route to survival – and health – as a democracy is by dropping the Falsitas and taking up the hand-mirror of Veritas and having a good long look at our naked truth. Perhaps we will have the courage to open our eyes see our full reflection. Perhaps we will deal honestly with our manufactured divide. Perhaps we will once-and-for-all put to rest the ugly white nationalism, the root of our Falsitas, the seed of our racial inequality, and at long last live without apology the Veritas at the heart of our foundational aspiration: a nation that believes to its core that all people – all people – are created equal.
Equality is not a conservative or progressive issue. It is a human issue.
We generally keep a few sweet potatoes in the basket so we have the necessary ingredients for a spontaneous batch of our fave sweet potato black bean chili. Last summer one of our sweet potatoes sprouted so rather than toss it we planted it. The resulting vine was gorgeous and threatened to wrap the deck. We loved it so much that this summer we purposefully let one of the sweet potatoes send out alien tendrils. “It’s ready!” we exclaimed and then we dashed outside and planted it.
Someday we will start earlier in the season, planting a sweet potato or two so that we might grow sweet potatoes. There isn’t enough time between now and snowfall for a harvest. This year, like last year, the effort is purely aesthetic. It gives us yet another reason to rush outside in the morning and exclaim, “Lookit!” It is an intentional spirit-lift.
More so than any other time in my life I am aware of how responsible I am for the care and tending of my own spirit uplift. We planted the sweet potato with the express purpose of giving ourselves a reason to marvel. The more I claim my capacity to cultivate joy, the more opportunities I see. The opportunities are never grand. They are, in fact, the formerly mundane, the easily missed. We grow rosemary so we can crush the leaves between our fingers, for the pure delight of the scent. I tend the birdbath for the giggle it gives me when I spy a robin or sparrow splashing around, a kiddie in a kiddie pool. We literally take time to smell the coffee; every day.
For us, the road to fulfillment does not run through a palace or a yacht – a thing. It is the taste of mint-from-the-garden and lemon slices in the sun tea, a warm baguette and sip of wine, the orange line of day lilies, a long slow walk at sunset. Paying attention. Understanding that no day is ever the same, no moment is ever unremarkable. A sprouted sweet potato can be a source of happiness, if only we give it a chance.
I added an addendum to my post yesterday. I’d purposely avoided the news of the day. I was in overwhelm with the corruption and blatant disregard for human life by the current administration. I was tired of asking myself and others, ‘How is this possible?” And then, right before I scheduled my post for publication, I saw a news report of the fires in Spokane and around the world. And, as fate and the algorithm would have it, right next to the news of the fires burning across the globe, was an article about Shell Oil’s massive surge in profits. I wanted to vomit. This was my addendum from yesterday:
This is not a challenge without a solution. We-the-people and the people of the world have the capacity and the technology to slow the warming if not turn it around. Our challenge is not will. Our challenge is the profit of special interests. Rampant greed. It fuels the cries that climate change is a “hoax,” it is the driver behind the current attempt of authoritarian take-down of our democracy.
In the era of the emergence of the corporate monster from the swamp, Teddy Roosevelt – a Republican – warned that the only protection a citizenry had against exploitation by the monster was a strong government willing to regulate its actions. Our current situation is not a new challenge in the USA:
“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will…Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt, The “New Nationalism” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, 1910
The difference between now and then is the scope of the existential crisis. Teddy Roosevelt cited the Civil War which was a very real threat to the existence of our nation. Our warming globe threatens the very existence of humanity. This is not hyperbole. The water wars are on the horizon. Crop failures, the collapse of the food supply, are a reality today. This is data. Information. It is knowledge that somehow has not landed as understanding in the corporate boardroom or the republican congress.
Wisdom is nowhere to be found.
Last night we had a discussion with 20 about a man who has made his home a bunker. His basement is filled with canned food. He hoards ammunition because he believes in the coming world bullets will be currency. His is a cowboy fantasy. It is the same fantasy as those entertained in the boardroom and strutted by the maga-republican-madhatters. This man thinks that he will somehow be able to go it alone in a societal collapse. His strategy is built entirely upon the labor and support of others. It has yet to occur to him that his cans of food did not manifest themselves. They represent the labor and service of hundreds of people, people that he pretends that he does not need or depend upon. The same is true of his guns and bullets. He did not forge or construct any of his many weapons. He has yet to consider that his cans and bullets will only go so far. And then what?
Penny wise and pound foolish. And arrogant. And blind.
We’ve only walked our loop twice since June. The storms, heat and humidity have made it impossible. While snapping his photo of the black-eyed-Susans, Kerri said, “I miss our loop. When do you think this gross weather is going to change?” I shook my head, not wanting to say what I was thinking because my thought was cynical: When the people stoking the fire in the world realize that their massive profit will not spare them from the flames.
If, like me, your were born without a green thumb and are adept at withering even the hardiest of plants, I offer this handy solution: grow basil and mint. Basil and mint are intrepid and prolific. They will grow beyond their borders even in the bumbling care of the below-average gardener. They will make any thumb feel green, green, green!
There are rippling benefits to the illusion of green-thumb-success brought about by basil and mint. They incite belief that I, too, might someday be a better gardener than I previously understood. Basil and mint help assail the idea that green plants are a mystery never to be solved. If I can grow basil, maybe I can grow tomatoes, too! Or jalapeno peppers! And, if I am successful with a vegetable or two, maybe I will green-thumb my way into flowers! I might bring forth some color and beauty into the world!
What if this is not a one way street? What if, as I tend basil, mint, peppers and tomatoes, they tend me, too?! (Let’s face it, some questions deserve double punctuation even if Ms. Hardesty would have circled my double-punctuation and drawn a frowny-face next to it.) Maybe basil and mint are like the kindergarten teachers of the garden. Maybe their whole job is to instill the thought, “Yes I can!” – in every thumb. “You can do it!” chirp my basil and my mint.
“Maybe I can do this,” I think as we harvest the basil and tomatoes for our pizza, the mint for our sun tea.
It occurs to me, as I rub a basil leaf and savor the scent, that all of those years directing young actors new to the stage, that my job in life might have been the same as basil and mint. How many times did I say, “You can do it.” How many times did I watch the vibrant blooming of a “Yes I can!”
“It’s all a laboratory,” I used to say. “Try it and see what happens.”
And isn’t it lovely that this wise old universe tossed me into a garden and suggested I take my own advice? Isn’t it profound that, as a first step to address my dedicated-disbelief-in-my-capability, some wise soul suggested that I start this life-experiment with basil and mint?
The complete life cycle of the sowthistle captured in a single image. It’s akin to a family photo with 4 generations; the new baby sits on great grandma’s lap.
“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
The Balinese believe that they are an ancestor reborn. In seven generations they will be reborn again. Consequently, they are more thoughtful of the world they create for future generations. They carefully consider the world they themselves will someday inhabit.
“The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain.” ~ Robert Pirsig
Veneration is available when all things are understood as interconnected.
The current republican party is the Achilles’ Heel of The United States of America. Their primary driver is short-term gain. They view any form of regulation against their short-term gain as an infringement on their individual rights. There is no life-cycle in their calculation. There is no long view or regard for impact on the community. There is only exploitation for immediate personal gain. Future generations will deal with the mess. As Kerri has rightly identified, “They have no reverence.”
One could ask – one should ask- how did the soul of these men and women become a barren desert?
The infant on great grandma’s lap will one day be a mother and will treasure the photo of her ancestor. And, soon, she will be a grandmother and, if lucky, a great grandmother. She will adore the child on her lap, her descendant. In the child, she will see herself in the full cycle of life. She will have reverence for her life and the life of the child.
“A society without reverence for its past has no future.” ~ Confucius
This past week I’ve been revisiting a well-worn simile: It’s like trying to change the tire while the car is still moving. Life doesn’t stop until, well, it stops, so in reality, all of life’s required tire changes happen while the car is still moving. Or, to hammer the point, life is what’s happening while changing the tire. Or, to ask a perfectly reasonable question: why not pull over and attend to what needs fixing? That just might extend your life.
These thoughts are the main reason I am seldom invited to parties. Mostly people simply want commiseration and cocktails when complaining about the difficulty of changing their life-tire or wishing that life would stop long enough to get out the jack. They do not want to be questioned about their refusal to pull over or to be reminded that life never stops (until it stops).
On the upside, I have learned to listen to my own unwelcome party advice. Last week we had “a hell of a week.” The inclement weather met hard deadlines, high emotion and a Dogga health scare. We are now old enough not to resist pulling over when the tire wobbles. We have become adept at resting or, more to the point, not fighting the car when it needs some attention. And, when needed, we can do repairs on the fly. We travel with a big roll of Gorilla tape and the faith that there will be a mechanic just-round-the-bend.
The trick is to suspend all thought or expectation of a distant destination. Sometimes recovery is the route. Sometimes recovery is the destination. Sometimes the expectation of driving while attempting to change the tire is the very thing that needs fixing.
It is tempting in times like these to just-try-and-get-through-it. I daily remind myself to not throw away my limited time on this earth. Rather than just-get-through I want to be fully-in-it.
No matter what devastation, what havoc and chaos the current administration wreaks on the nation, the ugliness of ICE, the incessant assault on our rights, the sunrise is not to be missed. Dogga wakes us each morning at first light. We hear his gentle clackity-clack, paws on the hardwood floor when he is awake and ready for his old-dog breakfast.
The smell of coffee brewing. The sun on my face. The taste of a tomato plucked from our vine. Fresh cut basil leaves. An evening walk through the marina. A day that I will never ever live again. I do not want to get through it. I want to immerse in it, all of it.
I want to feel enraged at the corruption and abuse. I want to feel shocked at the hypocrisy. I do not want to delude myself that it cannot touch me. Other people’s pain.
I want to fully appreciate the person who reached the top shelf in the grocery store for the elderly woman in the scooter. I want to savor the music in the park and my community that gathers to enjoy it. The extraordinary in the ordinary. The message, a reminder, chalked on the path adjacent to a bench, “Sit down and enjoy the view.” Don’t fall into the trap of just getting through. Sit down. Feel the cool breeze coming off the lake. Allow yourself to marvel at the color of the sails glowing orange and pink in the sunset.
If you’ve not yet seen Cooking with Carter on Instagram, youtube…, I suggest you drop everything and find him, this young boy who delights in cooking. His enthusiasm is balm for the weary soul. As Tyler Merritt said in his lovely rant about Carter, in this dark time, this small boy reminds us that there is still joy, “There’s still softness in the world.”
Carter not only reminds us of our better angels, he inspires us reach for them. And my favorite part? Carter is a child. He’s not trying to rack up followers or look good on camera. He loves food. He loves to cook. He is having fun with his dad and mom.
In our mad, mad, mad selfie-and-sound-byte driven world, where everything is a performance, Carter does what he loves to do because he loves to do it. He is not at all concerned about controlling what other people see or think. He’s too young to be lost in his image.
His joy is pure. His purity melts our hard armor and helps us, even for a moment, open our hearts and become softer in the world.
Assess the damage. Begin the slow process of clearing the wreckage. Learn the forever-altered-landscape anew. Soon, the storm will be knit into a greater story. It will become the line between before and after.
After the storm there is clarity. Perhaps that is the gift of the storm? Standing amidst the wreckage it is common to hear the clarity: “No one was hurt and that’s all the matters. The stuff can be replaced but not the people.”
Neighbors who’ve rarely shared a word come out to help each other. The storm facilitates what countless sermons and public meetings could not. The fences are down. The politics erased. The devastation is owned by all. Helping hands are suddenly ubiquitous. Together, all share resources under the same narrative umbrella.
And why does it take a storm to bring us to clarity? To remember the simple basics of our shared humanity? The stuff can be replaced. Not the people.
The Direction of Intention 