Thomas Merton | The Direction of Intention

A Closer Look [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 6, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

A closer look at the dandelion reveals a fractal. Each level a repeat of the same or similar pattern at a progressively smaller scale.

Listen to your inner monologue. It is the story that you tell yourself about yourself. Listen to the stories in the news or racing across your social media screen. They are the stories that society is telling itself about itself. Any good novelist or playwright will tell you that conflict is the motor of story. Note: conflict need not be violent. Longing is a conflict. Unrequited love is a conflict. A search for meaning is a conflict. A closer look at humanity reveals a fractal. Each level a repeat of the same or similar pattern at a progressively smaller scale.

Robert Olen Butler defined story this way: “When a yearning meets an obstacle.” I believe words matter. I have always appreciated Robert Olen Butler’s definition of story because it does not use the word “conflict”. It is the fractal of the human experience.

The Buddhists teach that desire is the cause of suffering. I giggle every time I consider that marketing is essentially the creation of desire so it follows that it is the engine of suffering. The peace found in possession is fleeting. My Buddhist cartoon: retail therapy is but a single stop on a continuous cycle of suffering. If I was a teacher of story-writing I’d send my students to the outlet mall to study shoppers. My bet is that they’d eventually recognize themselves in the shoppers; then they’d have something essential to write about.

Picasso said, “Every painting is a self-portrait.” His sentiment is a fractal. We watch movies to see ourselves. We attend concerts to transcend ourselves – to lose and then find ourselves in the music.

A closer look at us reveals a fractal. We are both the yearning and the obstacle. A repeat of the same or similar pattern no matter the level or the scale.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE DANDELION

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Story | Tagged: art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fistful of dandelions, fractal, heart's desire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, longing, pablo picasso, pattern, Robert Olen Butller, story, studio melange, suffering, the melange, Thomas Merton, yearning | 8 Comments »

Barnacles And All [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

If you visited our house you’d immediately notice that Kerri’s design style is “well-worn and well-loved.” Rather than mask the wear-and-tear of age, she revels in it. Our dining room is a wonder, made beautiful by the marks left when she removed wallpaper. Rather than paint over the marks she recognized their unique beauty and showcased them. A happy accident. I stopped in my tracks the first time I walked into the dining room, asking, “How did you do that?”

I love our backdoor. The pressure of our hands on the door has overtime peeled and revealed the white underlayer beneath the black paint. It’s the story of our comings-and-goings. It is the mark of our human hands pressing on an old door that swells with the humidity and shrinks with the cold. It is our personal hand-print-petroglyph.

The beauty of age. The patterns of rust. The celebration of the flaw. Most people would scramble to cover the cracks or repair the damage. I have occasionally earned her Irish ire by repairing something she thought was aesthetically interesting. I have learned to ask.

Standing on our deck, Columbus was concerned that the exposed unsealed wood was disintegrating. “You oughta’ stain this,” he said. “It needs protecting.” I told him of the time Kerri pressure washed the deck, removing the patina of age. Even though with time the rough hewn look returned, she has yet to forgive herself for her pressure-washing-indiscretion.

“Kerri likes it this way,” I replied. “She doesn’t like the way it looks when it’s neat and stained.”

“Well I guess that’s the way it’s gotta be!” he smiled, knowingly.

Our house is an ever evolving work of art. A perfect home for two artists. Nothing matches yet everything goes together. It’s filled with visual and repurposed surprises. It is warm, sometimes a cocoon where we shut out the world and sometimes a place for our community to gather. It is the sanctuary where we have come to discover and appreciate ourselves, barnacles and all, while steadily growing into something we could never have imaged.

(I love this piece by Kerri)

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about RUST

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: age, appreciation, art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton, two artists, worn | 4 Comments »

In Friendship [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Where self-interest is the bond, the friendship is dissolved when calamity comes. Where Tao is the bond, friendship is made perfect by calamity.” ~ Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

The basket of grasses has moved several times since I first set foot in this house, now my home. Our home. Kerri has a designer’s eye and the basket of grasses migrate according to her latest conception. Of late, they traveled to our bedroom and rest between the gingham chair and her jewelry box.

I know what you are thinking. As a dedicated wearer of black, a lover of earth tones, it is surprising that she has a gingham chair. Do not be fooled by her limited clothing color palette, she is eclectic. I am particularly fond of this unexpected chair since it was where she was sitting when we had our first phone call so many years ago. It all began in a the gingham chair.

I am not unusual in that the great changes of my life have been punctuated by the culling of friends. The forces of change topple the rootless relationships. Yet, while many drop away, a precious few transcend the moment. Not only do they endure, sinking deeper roots, but they grow in strength and fondness.

It is an understatement to suggest that, for us, these past few years have been rife with calamity. It is also not an understatement to say that we are emerging from the hot fire with a band of fast friends. Forged and polished. Beautiful.

Over time I’ve learned to read the movement of the basket of grasses. They are my personal Farmer’s Almanac, my home-decor-tarot. Kerri moves them after a life-storm has passed. She rearranges to re-ground. With every movement of the basket of grasses, I know we’ve come through the latest chaos. And, I know without doubt who stands with us, who we stand with, who will be with us no matter the circumstance or calamity.

In friendship, in our friends, we are the wealthiest people alive.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GRASSES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Gratitude, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, calamity, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fondness, friends, friendship, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, roots, story, strength, studio melange, tao, the melange, The Way of Chuang Tzu, Thomas Merton, transactional, transcend | 2 Comments »

Weather Beautifully [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…happiness, when pushed to an extreme, becomes calamity. Beauty, when overdone, becomes ugliness.” ~ Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

I am early in my slow-read of The Way of Chuang Tzu. I already love it. This morning I read these words by Thomas Merton slowly, again and again, tasting them like poetry: “…a system constructed on a theoretical and abstract principle of love ignores certain fundamental and mysterious realities, of which we cannot be fully conscious, and the price we pay for this inattention is that our ‘love’ in fact becomes hate.”

The abstract ideal contorts us. The “what is” always loses in a comparison to the “should be”. Thus, a world of nature’s beauty swirls down the drain.

Marketing ideals and mirrors reflect theoretical and abstract principles. Constructed systems. They readily twist our natural love of self into a hatred of our bodies and faces. Is beauty really the exclusive province of the young? Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn grew more and more beautiful, more and more brilliant with age. Aging is among the “fundamental and mysterious realities” of which Thomas Merton wrote. There is profound beauty in aging, a mysterious reality that is not accessible to the young.

On Saturday we published a Smack-Dab cartoon about aging. We poked fun at my discovery of new wrinkles when looking in the mirror. Poking fun at ourselves is a good strategy for embracing the “fundamental and mysterious reality” of this beautiful life. There’s so much pressure to do otherwise, to resist, to deny, to pretend. Laughter is a great eye-cleanser.

We live in a society slathered with memes and messages of self-love while, at the same moment, we drown in messages to be other-than-what-we-are. Is it any wonder we are conflicted and seem incapable of sorting out what is real and what is not?

I know with certainty, like every other human that walked before me, I will disappear into time. Why spend another moment of my precious limited time on this earth resisting the gorgeous life that I enjoy? Why try to hide my age to match a manufactured ideal?

There is a reason the clothes I wore a decade ago no longer fit. There is a reason my beard is grey and the light in my eyes is less fierce than it was twenty years ago. I am different now. No more or less beautiful.

I said, squeezing her hand, “Let’s become apple-dolls together.” Her eyes welled with tears. What could possibly be more beautiful?

read Kerri’s blogpost about WEATHERED BEAUTY

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Seeing | Tagged: abstractions, age, aging, artistry, beauty, comparison, consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ideals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, mystery, natural beauty, self love, story, studio melange, the melange, The Way of Chuang Tzu, Thomas Merton | 3 Comments »

Steep! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” ~ Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

After I finish reading my latest book, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, I have decided to steep myself in life-affirming reading, the likes of John O’Donohue, Philip Gulley, Pema Chödrön, Mary Oliver, Krishnamurti, Rilke, Rumi, Thomas Merton…I meditate on what I read -whether I want to or not – and in our angry chaotic times I’m feeling the need to wrap myself in the warmth of poets and other lovers of life. People who’ve transcended their small lives and looked into deeper space. I will begin my steeping with Thomas Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu – a Catholic Monk translating the voice of the Tao.

I read the quote above and wanted to alter it slightly: “The beginning of self-love is the will to let ourselves be perfectly who we are, the resolution not to twist ourselves to fit into another’s image of who we are supposed-to-be.”

The real challenge in letting ourselves be perfectly who we are is that most of us have no idea who we are. Few of us fit into a box called “me.” Who we are is dynamic and ever-changing. Self-discovery is a life-long affair and we are most fortunate if it is a life-long love affair.

Kerri says that we don’t really-really change as we move through life, we just become more of who we are. The outer layers of illusion and social concoction drop off until the core is revealed. I don’t know if I agree but I love the image. And, I confess that these past few years have felt like a ferocious layer-stripping. If she is right then I have to be…we have to be…close to the core.

In the wake of the layer-stripping I’m finding that the simple things in this life bring me great satisfaction. We found the old sun-tea jug in the cupboard. With the mint growing in the yard and slice or two of lemon, each day we smile and drink the summer sun from a jelly jar. We tell stories of sun-tea from the past.

It’s the sensual things, like the taste of tea brewed from the sun. On a hot humid day, the sudden shift of cool wind off the lake. The sound of cicadas. Fireflies. Laughter at dinner. The taste of good wine. The stuff of poets. The witnesses of “the eternal now.”

It’s as simple as sun tea, this desire to steep my thoughts in the awe-of-life (as opposed to the awful). And, as the ancient saying goes, as I continue the quest to discover myself: where I place my thoughts my life-energy will follow.

read Kerri’s blog about SUN TEA

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Filed under: Awakening, Energy, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor | Tagged: affirmation, artistry, awe, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, Ernest Becker, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, krishnamurti, love, Mary Oliver, pema chodron, Philip Gulley, poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, self-love, sensual, story, studio melange, The Denial of Death, the melange, Thomas Merton, thought | 3 Comments »

Melt And Hammer [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are easily entertained. Once, we nearly crashed the car laughing-so-hard at the names we gave to our alter-egos. Who drives around naming their alternative selves? We do. Sit us in a corner and we’re pretty good at finding something to do.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

Igneous is volcanic. Fiery. A few weeks ago we painted rocks to put on the trail. Since we’re both cycling through an artistic-growth-crisis, we painted and fantasized about our new career intentions. When Kerri suggested we call ourselves “igneous artists” I howled. The layers of meaning are too vast to count. Plus, I thought it sounded suspiciously close to “ignorant artists” and I liked that, too. “We should hang out a shingle,” she said, “For Hire!”

Igneous artists.

“Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.” ~ Albert Einstein

Because we tend to riff on everything, while painting rocks, we rolled around our new art-moniker until we had an appropriate clever (to us) sub-phrase. “It sounds like a lyric,” I announced, mostly as enticement for my lyricist wife to spin out a theme song. She did not take the bait.

Igneous artists with sedimentary souls.

‘Layers of soul’ is a yummy image. Especially if the layers are born of elements like fire. Like all artists, we’ve been forged, melted in a hot furnace and hammered into shape. The smith hammers out the impurities. “People don’t change,” Kerri often quips, “They become more of who they already are.”

I could stand to lose a few impurities. I look forward to becoming what I am already.

“To draw you must close your eyes and sing.” ~ Pablo Picasso

read Kerri’s blogpost about IGNEOUS ARTISTS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: albert einstein, alter ego, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fiery, fire, foreged, forge, furnace, igneous, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, layers, musician, painter, Picasso, rock painting, soul, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton, two artists, writer, writers | 1 Comment »

Attend [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” ~Thomas Merton, Love and Living

I had an odd-thought-revelation as we drove into the parking lot of the Hospice Alliance. We were there to make a donation. In cleaning out the house, Kerri found several throw-blankets. She washed and freshened them, preparing them for donation. In a past life she was a volunteer at the Alliance and wanted the blankets to go where they would be the most useful, provide the most comfort.

My mom tells me that my dad’s last days were lovingly tended by amazing hospice caregivers. His passage was eased by their guidance and attention. In some small way, the blanket donation felt like a thank-you-note. I was not present in his final weeks and it brought me comfort knowing he was in the care of such extraordinary people.

And that was the seed of my odd-thought-revelation. As we pulled into the parking lot, on the first bright sunny day in weeks, I stepped out of the car and turned my face to the sun.

In the warmth I understood that we are all in hospice care. Our time is limited. Every single moment is precious. Every single moment is shared. We’d do better if we realized it. We’d do better if we attended to each other, to relieve pain and suffering, to pay attention to the quality of each and every life in our passing moment. In our tender and oh-so-temporary lives.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLANKETS

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, attend, attention, caregiving, caring, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, donation, hospice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, Love and Living, meaning, meaning making, meaning of life, moments, passage, passing, presence, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton | Leave a comment »

Become Whole [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 31, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

barney spring 2020 copy

When Barney came to live in our backyard, he’d been long forgotten in the dank dark basement boiler room. His soundboard was shot. He was headed for the junkyard when Kerri intervened and asked if Barney might come live out his days with us. It has been five years since Barney arrived in the junk man’s pick up truck. He has aged beautifully.

The first day in his new home Barney spoke when Kerri played his keys. He let go of his voice one key at a time. Within a week he was silent, no longer what he once was but not yet sure of what he was becoming.

We adorned him with flowers in pots for a few summer seasons. Certainly, he was content to support the flowers – like a crossword puzzle, it was something to do – but it never rose to the level of purpose. We realized he was doing it for us so when the third season arrived we let go our desire to give him meaning. He heaved a sigh at our revelation, and, at last, purpose-free, he enjoyed the sun for no other reason than it felt good. That season, wild geraniums grew around his baseboard and embraced him, the chipmunks used him as their hiding spot. The little critters made him laugh as they stood on his blistering lid and taunted the rowdy dog.

Initially, we tried to slow his inevitable peel, slathering him with marine oil, but his skin wrinkled and bubbled anyway. The white veneer of his keys was the first to go. We realized that Barney was becoming another kind of beautiful. He was, as Rilke wrote, living his way into the answer to all of his questions.

Jen and Brad suggested in our stay-at-home-seclusion that we exchange images of spring. I stepped onto the back deck and recorded the birds singing. And then I saw the wild geraniums were showing up and gathering around Barney. He was absolutely gorgeous in the morning light, sculptural and at peace. I’d just read something Thomas Merton wrote and it perfectly described Barney on this early spring morning: There is in all visible things…a hidden wholeness.

read Kerri’s blog post about BARNEY IN SPRING

Barney copy