the space between | The Direction of Intention

A Legacy of Hope [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tom was concerned with what would become of the ranch after he was gone. His concern was not the land so much as the family legacy. He felt as if he was the last, the keeper of the history. Who might carry the story forward? Who will re-member the steps walked by his ancestors?

I was moved to tears when the Balinese explained to me that, according to their belief, every child born was an ancestor returned. After seven generations, the ancestor comes back wearing the funny new face of the infant descendant. The important point is this: A community makes fundamentally different choices when they understand that the earth they leave behind is the earth that they will also inherit. The ancestor attends to the descendant because the descendant is the ancestor.

Through a translator, the Chinese master-acupuncturist explained to the students that the challenge he perceived in them was that they were rootless. The U.S. culture too easily plows under the sacred to erect a mall. We have very little connection to, understanding of, or respect for the past. He explained that eyes blinded by the shiny-new or obsessed with the algorithm will never access the ancient art of healing a human being. The whole being. With so little concern for what came before there is little awareness or care of the tracks made by marching forward. How is it possible to help balance the health of others when the healer is rootless and unaware of the impact of their actions?

“But what do we do?” It is the ubiquitous question asked by those who reject the malice and indecency that recently swept into power in the USA. The question thrust me back into the single challenge I faced as a DEI consultant: my clients were protected against the very thing that might help them. They wanted a solution – a fix – and saw no value in attending to relationships. The gods of efficiency and effectiveness had no time to waste. Eyes would roll when we suggested that they cease trying to fix problems. They’d panic when we proffered that a to-do list would never create the better culture they envisioned. In fact, it would prevent it. Cultivating “the space between,” paying attention to the quality of the relationships, would bring about the transformation they desired: a culture of mutual support grown from a history of ugly division.

This morning I was struggling to articulate my thought and Kerri stopped my mind-wander with this encapsulation: “What you are trying to say is that It’s not solution-based. It’s process-based.” Yes. Exactly.

“Solution-based” focuses exclusively on what-we-do. It is transactional and, after all, isn’t that the epicenter of what ails us as a nation? If the prevailing philosophy is the-ends-are-worth-the-means, then lying, cheating, grifting, demeaning, debasing, bullying are acceptable behaviors. We are currently witness to the amorality of attainment-of-power-by-any-means. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or why. No one in power cares about the legacy, the traces left behind. Rootless. Unethical. Out of balance.

“Process-based” is concerned with who-we-are. Together. The opposite of transactional is transformational. Mutual support. Reinforcing connection. Paying attention to the growth of the whole as a means of attending to the growth of the individual. It’s a radically different philosophy in which the ends-are-the-means. Actions matter. Words matter. Choices matter. Roots matter. The legacy, the tracks we leave behind, matters.

And so we ask the question, “But what do we do?” We speak out. We use our voices for good. We begin by looking to the legacy of hope those who came before us left for us to follow. Perhaps we begin by linking arms, focusing on the space between, and continuing a legacy of hope and courage for future generations to follow.

go here to visit my gallery site

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRACES WE LEAVE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: ancestors, artistry, balance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, legacy, process, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, the space between, transaction, transformation | 5 Comments »

Lean Into It [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

And what did the oracle say? Did she give you insight? Wise counsel? Did she offer a prophesy? Divination? Are you on your way? Do you know where you are going?

This song has been playing through my mind all morning: “Mama pajama rolled outta bed, she ran to the police station…” Simon and Garfunkel. Down by the School Yard. I think it’s in my head because, for many days, it was rolling through Kerri’s head. Transference. The difference is that when she sings the song it sounds like it is supposed to. Queen of Corona.

Before Simon and Garfunkel moved in, I was awash in The House at Pooh Corner. Kenny Loggins and John Messina. “I’ve wandered much further today than I should and I can’t seem to find my way back to the woods…” I hadn’t thought of this song for years and, this time, Kerri wasn’t a source of song-transfer. Where do these things come from?

A friend wrote last night. Like me, he is a wanderer. He thinks it might be time to find a place to settle. Settle, not settle down. I get that. I looked for my home for years and, as it turns out, it had to find me. A person, not a place. She’s filled with music. “And I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m goin’ – takin’ my time, but I don’t know where…” I hope he finds his place, his person. I hope he is filled with light.

Impressions on a page. The Balinese taught me it is all a shadow on a screen. The moment I put a name on it, I cleave it in two. Subject and object. Mind and matter. Future and past. The only real place is in between the definitions and it cannot be fully grasped. Just lived. Johannes said, with our words, we make images, projections, and, if the image is good, we lean into it. Reaching for the impression.

“Count all the bees in the hive. Chase all the clouds from the sky…”

Prayer of Opposites, 4’x4′, acrylic on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG AND TREE

comment. like. share. support. many thanks!

buymeacoffee is a shadow on a screen, a simple story to tell.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, Bali, Balinese, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divination, Down by the school yard, duality, fog, home, impression, impressions, insight, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, Loggins and Messina, lyrics, music, oracle, prophesy, settle down, shadow puppet, Simon and Garfunkel, story, studio melange, The House At Pooh Corner, the melange, the space between | 1 Comment »

Incant [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It reads like a love poem. “Puschkinia blooms in the empty moment between the fading of the snowdrops and the blooming of Chionodoxa.”

Despite their desire to be understood otherwise, botanists are poets, too. Taste these sounds: siehei, sardensis, forbesii. Spoken together they form an incantation worthy of Macbeth’s witches. There are three witches in the play: Category, Sub-category, and Group. Chionodoxa, we are told, is commonly called “Glory Of the Snow”. The poet-botanist would have us know that, in the empty moment between the fading of snowdrops and the blooming of the Glory-Of-The-Snow, tiny Puschkinia reaches through the soil and fills the void with cobalt and white.

Love poems and incantations. Love poems are incantations. “And because love battles not only in its burning agricultures but also in the mouths of men and women,…“ Neruda. Ahhhh.

“Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.” What will the future bring? Glory-Of-The-Snow, of course! Shakespeare would have nothing less.

All of this poetry came alive in our front yard this week. It was the empty moment, It was the space between the fading snowdrops and the blooming of Chiondoxa. Had we not looked up from our computers, had we feared the cold wind off the lake and stayed comfy and warm inside, we certainly would have missed it.

Love poems and incantations. Harbingers. Nature quietly whispers its temptation, “Puschkinia blooms.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about PUSHKINIA

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, blooms, botanists, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Glory of the Snow, harbinger, incantation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liminal, love poem, Macbeth, Macbeth's witches, Neruda, poetry, poets, shakespeare, snowdrops, story, striped squill, studio melange, temptation, the melange, the space between | 1 Comment »

Ask A Better Question [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I just erased the post I’d written for today. We often write a few days ahead so we have time to reflect on or edit what we’ve written. We’ve learned that it’s a good practice to consider what you are about to spill into the world.

It’s a good practice because it affords us the opportunity to ask, “Is this what I mean to say? Is this what I really want to say?” The post that I’d initially written was bothering me. A lot. Sipping coffee, I confessed my discomfort to my chief editor and life-collaborator (Kerri) and we followed the trail until we found the source of my chagrin.

There is a question, a much more important question, behind and beyond clarifying what I really want to say. It is this: “Is this who I want to be?” My post was making me uncomfortable because it was the opposite of what I profess to be. It was the opposite of who I understand myself to be. Of who I want to be.

I’ve often written and taught about “the spaces between.” Relationship. Intuition. Heart. Facts and data require interpretation and live on the spectrum at the farthest point away from wisdom. Focus on the spaces between, the movement rather than the noun, and an entirely different life opens. Wisdom is more like water than stone.

Most cliches touch a truth-root and today that is the case for me: We teach what we most need to learn. Thank goodness my editor was around to gently slap open my eyes and help me ask myself a better question.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SPACES

Filed under: Awakening, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing | Tagged: artistry, clarity, cliche, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, editor, fact, intuition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liminal spaces, movement, opportunity, Opposition, questions, reflection, relationship, revelation, story, studio melange, the melange, the space between, truth, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Let Go And Fly [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on August 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Learning and unlearning can only take place in the context of decision making.” ~ Russ Ackoff, On Learning and Systems That Facilitate It

I was reading this phrase in the article when Kerri showed me the Smack-Dab cartoon for this week. Uncanny. The decision to change. Unlearning who you think you are in order to learn who you might become.

There’s a lot of unlearning going on in our house.

Here’s a secret about maps: you can only draw them after the fact. “Knowing how” comes second, after “not knowing how.”

Unlearning, facing the unknown, it’s not linear or easily traced. It’s a tug-a-war between the safety of what you know and the absolute necessity of getting lost.

There’s a photograph I often think about: my uncle Al, in the last months of his life, dying from cancer, fulfilled a dream to fly on the high trapeze. In the photo, he’s released the first swing, sailing through the air, reaching for but not quite touching the second swing. The look on his face, eyes wide open, full delight, utter freedom. Elated. Fully alive in the space between.

There’s a lot of that going on in our house, too. The decision to let go and fly.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MAPS

Filed under: Heroes, Identity, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, cartoon, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decisions, fully alive, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowing, learning, life maps, maps, middle age cartoon, new beginning, not knowing, Russ Ackoff, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange, the space between, trapeze, unlearning, yamaha artist | 1 Comment »

Decide To Learn [Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on November 17, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

[No image today. My technology is having a rough morning]

I spent my day yesterday thinking about lines of perception. I’ve known for a long time that where a focus is placed will largely determine the dynamic reality, the movement, that is created. For instance, a focus on opposition will always produce a chaotic, explosive pattern. The moving energy locks up, tension builds, explosion. Repeat again and again. Focus on the relationships, the spaces between, and the movement, the energy, will harmonize around a common center. The behavior of a system is visible if you know where to look.

Points. Spaces between. Analytics or Synthesis? Break it into parts or look at the whole. Is it a particle or a wave? Both/And.

Tom used to say, “Teaching is a relationship.” It’s not about the material-to-be-covered. It’s never about the test. It’s always about the spaces between. Learning, at its best, is not about coverage. It’s about incorporation. It’s about meaning made from relevant experience. Experiences made relevant.

Every action has an intention, even if the intention is to stir the pot, to see what happens.

A few blocks from our home, outside the courthouse, protestors face each other across a perceptual dividing line. The energy is locking up. Tension is building. Last year a boy, too young to legally order a beer in a bar, legally brought a big gun to a protest. His mom brought him to the protest, big gun and all. He killed two people and maimed a third just a block or two from where he now stands trial. In the year since, he has been made a symbol, a well-financed icon of those who desire a dividing line. The pressure builds, just as the system demands. We await the explosion. It will be here, a few blocks away, or elsewhere, but it is coming just as the system requires.

There’s a less understood truism when the focus is placed on the points & oppositions: the tension builds and the explosion happens again and again because no one ever learns. It’s a repetitive pattern that perhaps feels like progress but is actually an eddy. Empty movement.

The only way out of the eddy is to attend to the relationships, to turn the focus to the spaces between.

read Kerri’s blog post about DIVIDING LINES

Filed under: Edges, Education, Flawed Wednesday, Pattern, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, pattern, perception, points, relationship, story, studio melange, systems, systems. theory, teaching, tension, the melange, the space between, trial | Leave a comment »

See The Spaces [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 12, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

The space around and between. Shapes that share edges. Emptiness that provides definition. In art it is called negative space. Not-the-object. In art classes, students draw the negative spaces in order to see or to learn a new way of seeing. Try it. See the holes and the space around the leaves as primary. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Some folks use the term “air space” because they get snagged on the word “negative.” It’s a term of opposition when set next to “positive.” Yet, just as there is an electric field that flows between negative and positive ions, electrons and protons, there is a field that flows between negative and positive space. Yin and Yang. A dynamic polarity. A creative field of movement and energy. The air space is alive because of the perceived opposition. The positive space is not visible without the negative.

When I was a consultant, I used the phrase “the space between” to imply relationship. There are people. There is the space between people. Relationship is invisible but it defines the people. Relationship illuminates the otherwise unknowable individual. They are impossible to separate. In a community obsessed with nouns, bottom lines, test scores and individual rights, the verbs and the relationships often go unnoticed and unappreciated. As if the negative space didn’t matter. The space between is where the movement lives and the problems are solved. It is where new seeing is possible. It is created and creative. The word “community” lives in the space between.

Try it. Take a day and focus on the space between. See relationship as primary. You may experience a whole new way of seeing.

20 sent this image,a memorial. It makes the point.

read Kerri’s blog post about NEGATIVE SPACE

Filed under: Art, Business, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, definition, dynamic, edges, emptiness, flow, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, negative space, oppositions, perception, polarity, positive space, relationship, seeing, studio melange, the space between | Leave a comment »

Step Toward The Center [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 23, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

chaos copy

We had this quote in the melange line up long before there was a pandemic. Now, it is impossible to look at this phrase without pressing it through the lens of COVID19. What might we have written in a less chaotic context?

One of the best lessons I was taught, is that we cannot control our circumstance but we can control who we are within our circumstance. The hurricane will come. The pandemic. It is possible in the midst of the storm to panic. To hoard. To blame. To resent. It is also possible to stand in a center, to share, to support, to reach. You are not your circumstance.

Sitting in his study that smelled of instant coffee, book dust and cigarettes, Quinn and I used to talk endlessly about chaos theory. Within the seeming chaos of a dynamic complex system there exists pattern, repetition, self-organization. Pattern, repetition, organization – these are words of order, not of disorder. Chaos. Order. We only know order relative to chaos. We only know chaos relative to order.

Within the Hermetic laws (and Newtonian physics, equal and opposite forces) there is the law of polarity. Everything contains its opposite. Or, said another way, what might appear to be opposite, is, in fact, two ends (poles) of the same thing. Order. Chaos. We cannot know light without the contrast of darkness. We live on a continuum. What we experience is simply a matter of degree on the continuum. There is always a bit of chaos in my otherwise orderly day. In times of chaos, we become very clear about what matters and what does not.

Out of chaos we self-organize. In the throes of social distance we are finding ways to reach and connect. We are prioritizing connection. I’ve spoken with or texted more people in the last seven days than I have in the last seven months.

We see it every year. The hurricane blows away a city and the greater community always shows up to dig in and help out. And rebuild. In chaos we organize to make sure everyone makes it to the other side of the storm. Initially, the coming chaos reveals the ugliest aspects of our nature. We hoard. We price gouge. We run to the far end of the continuum and hang onto the poles, mine/yours, us/them. But, sit in it long enough, and chaos always reveals the deeper truths. Interconnectedness is another way of understanding a continuum. We turn our focus on relationship. The space between. Your need is my need. We are not separate.

Order arises when we step toward the shared center and away from the chaotic extremes. We are not our circumstance so the question remains: who are we within our circumstance?

read Kerri’s blog post about CHAOS & BOUNDARIES

*this photo of BabyCat is not doctored. I have no explanation for the ordered shape that our very large cat takes in the moments prior to creating chaos.

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: chaos, chaos theory, circumstance, complex systems, continuum, covid19, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hermetic Laws, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Newton, pandemic, pattern, polarity, Quinn, relationship, repetition, self organization, studio melange, the space between | Leave a comment »

UpLift [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 19, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

cohesion copy

And, what is the opposite of cohesion? Incoherence. The lack of clarity or unity. Fracture.

For a period of time my work on this earth was essentially a meditation on power. Power with. Power over. After a while I understood that power-over was not really power at all; it was control. Control and power are two very different things. They are often confused.

Power is something created with others. Control is something done to others. The equation is simple: the more controlling a person is, the less powerful they actually are. A person who understands his/herself as powerful has no need to assert control over others.

A leader invested in control has only one sure route to controlling: to fracture. To divide. It is the way of the truly powerless. Incoherence and chaos are great tools if control is the aim. Destroy the unity. Play to the disgruntled. Feed the fire of those who are feeling powerless. Promise them control. Pushing others down to elevate the self can only end badly. Everyone drowns.

People secure in their power create cohesion. They unite. They uplift. Power is a force that grows between people. It cannot be owned by one. It is always the province of the community. A person secure in her/his power generates unity. What else? The power they feel within is an expression of the power they experience with.

Community is a word that implies cohesion. To commune. Common. And, what could be more common than a central focus, the intention to support and bring out the best in all.

What is the opposite of a powerful person?

read kerri’s blog post about COHESION

Filed under: Awakening, Possibility, Power, Uncategorized | Tagged: chaos, common center, common ground, communal, community, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, empowerment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, power, studio melange, support, the space between, unity | Leave a comment »

Take A Slow Walk [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

bridge song box copy

Many years ago, on a beautiful fall evening, I was in San Francisco. My work was complete. Thinking that my work would stretch into the evening I’d planned to stay the night before driving back to Los Angeles. It was a rare treat to have so much free time.

I walked. I let the winds of fancy blow me, going in any direction that caught me. The sun went down. I wound my way up a hill and came upon a park with a view of the city. It sparkled. I sat on a wall and watched the city shimmer, listened to the sounds, and reveled in the remarkable absence of any demand-on-my-time. A space between.

Kerri’s BRIDGE brings me back to that evening, to that slow walk to nowhere-in-particular on a crystal clear fall evening. It brings me to the peace of sitting on a wall, overlooking a city, with no desire or need to be anywhere else. May this BRIDGE, Kerri’s remarkable BRIDGE, bring you the peace and presence that it always brings to me.