Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Play and Spontaneity
Drawing the Best Forward
I want to help in integrating the best creative developments of the creative arts therapies. Indeed, it’s not just for therapy. Normal people need encouragement to use the creative arts, to improvise. The conventional school system says in effect, "I don’t care about your creativity. Learn what we know. That ought to be sufficient." But […]
Dream!
Dare to dream new dreams! This is not in the sense of the night-dreams that come to you, but rather in the sense of daring to envision possibilities for your life, even if only fantasy. At the end of the Muppet Movie around 1979, Kermit sings, “Life’s like a movie, write your own ending! […]
Education of the Heart
I like this phrase. It’s a chapter heading if not a book title I’ll use. The Dalai Lama used it in a recent book, just noted on another blog post today. But his book—really, quite good—reminds me that there is a pedagogy, an art of education, a way to bring minds forward towards the achievement […]
Eeksplanations (and other Confabulations)
Sometimes my spirit guide, one of a couple dozen or so, channels inspirational messages and pictures. If this seems too far out, ignore it, consider that I just made this stuff up. Or contemplate these words on their own merits. As a psychiatrist colleague who was a consultant to our program when I was in […]
Ego, Memory, and Forgetfulness
I have been contemplating the sheer vulnerability of my memories, and the innate elusiveness of so many of the experiences that part of me wants to cling to. I want to have these experiences whenever I want to access them, as if they were kept possessions, treasures. Well, that’s one of the things ego does. […]
Elementary Arts Education
So much of arts education seems to be targeted at an audience as an act of impressing people: See how good I am. Okay, there’s a place for that. But what occurs to me is that doing expressive arts may involve several levels of competence and talent, and only the upper levels—the ones requiring talent […]
Elf-Origins
In a story told by Cyrano de Bergerac titled “Voyage to the Moon”,” illustrated by P. Craig Russell in 1991—I found it in a new age comic book among a number of rather painfully dark other stories—Cyrano relates his visit to the moon and adventures there. One element was a meeting with a being from […]
Enhanced Simulations
I’ve been that rare breed of psychiatrist who did psychotherapy, but I’m growing away from that role. As I’ve done so, it recently became more clear to me that psychotherapy is really a lesser application of a broad field that I call "Enhanced Simulations"—although I may not put that phrase in the title of my […]
Enhanced Simulations
Our increasingly rapidly changing world needs techniques that are of sufficient complexity so that they can meet current needs. No longer can standard exams do this; what’s needed are simulated challenges. Simulations are now being used in training for space, for military purposes, in surgery and medicine, and an increasing number of other applications. What […]
Enhanced Simulations
The German language “Zeitschrift fur Psychodrama” (Zeitschrift translated literally is time-writing, that is, a Journal). The latest issue deals with general sociological concerns from many standpoints. The problem this poses is that it opens wide the implications of Moreno’s vision and throws into question the narrow bounds of professionalism monitored by the Board of Examiners. […]
Evolving Consciousness Through Drama
One set of tools for evolving consciousness involves the integration of elements of drama—not the kind where people memorize lines written by someone else and repeatedly rehearse those lines and scenes—that’s what has come to dominate theatre arts, alas—but rather improvisational and interactive types of drama. I think that the unfolding field of applied theatre […]
Extra-Terrestrial Elves
You’re aware by now that the more they look the more they find, and this applies to stars that have planets. So it’s become very clear—well, some don’t believe it now—that there are billions upon billions of stars with planets and very conservatively millions of intelligent life forms, some far more intelligent than your own, […]
Faeries: Resonant Energy Fields
Faeries are not real in an ordinary materialist sense, but then again, neither is love. They are expressions of mind, and mind transcends a mere materialism-based metaphysical philosophy. You are really reading this, though all bets are off as to how you interpret it. More importantly, that leads to the realization that if you think […]
Folk Dance Sprites
Life as we know it is infused with vital energies from the cosmic ground of being, and humans tend to anthropomorphize, to personify, to imagine these as gods and angels, faeries and sprites. Of late (the last 300 years) we have moved towards de-animating life, making it more a machine, blind forces that have no […]
Folk Dancing as Soul Celebration
One of my goals is to encourage people to re-own their participation in the arts, in drama, singing, the visual arts, poetry, various kinds of dancing and movement, all in a spirit of play. These are powerful vehicles for vitality and authentic self-expression. Ballroom dancing (learning cool steps!), square dancing (also called “friendship put to […]
For Halloween: Introducing “Nyaghrorwr”
There is indeed a species of not-too-scarey monsters called “m’nonsters” and this is one of them. They like to play boo, and scare, but don’t really want to scare-scare, just play-scare. They love all the Halloween spooky stuff that’s been coming out. They love the Pixar-Disney 2003 movie, Monsters, Inc., and want more play adventure. […]
For the Heaven of It
Play is fun, and creativity as play is fun, is heaven. It’s not done “for the hell of it.” That was from a time when the Protestant Ethic ruled, and if it was fun, there must be something wrong with it. Duty and work were unpleasant in the old days, at least in the minds […]
Freedom to Create
You may enjoy more or less foolin’ around, creativity, making-stuff-up, as you grow older. The important thing is that you feel free to do so, that you are not inhibited by phony residuals. Tradition says that all the great stuff is made up by great men. Rarely women. Myths, beliefs, laws, stuff like that. It […]
Fruit of the Soul
I like mandalas, and this one by Leslie Kell titled “Fruit of the Soul” appeared on the cover of a little magazine titled Austin All Natural in August, 2012. The lower figure shows an enlarged view of the center of this piece. Lovely, and I want to acknowledge Ms? Kell as one of many who […]
Gary Larson, Cartoonist
This is the non-anniversary of Gary Larson’s retirement, which was around December 1994. Gee, it occurs to me that many people have grown quite up without knowing about this wonderful cartoonist. He introduced a madcap style of cartooning that has been followed by others. When he left I felt bereft, but I just found two […]
God-Playing: Can you DO that?
Well, you can’t pretend to yourself that you really are God. It’s taboo! Don’t even think of doing that! Indeed, there is a whole category of things you may not do. It’s all mixed in with what we don’t know how to do and what we believe that there’s no way of doing. "Whoa! Can […]
Growing Up in Paradise
Well, there were a number of elements in my childhood that were not paradisiacal, but on the other hand, there were some. The location of my home in my early years was one, the subject of this blog. I grew up in Los Angeles about half-way between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, in an area bounded […]
Hallowe’en Thoughts
When did scarey become cute? The many pressures of commercialization, mixed with the candy and snack industry, the greeting card and costume industries, the specialty Halloween shops and the many Goodwill and other charity stores, commercial Haunted Houses, scary movies, and much more all contribute to the mass celebration of what really is the “shadow” […]
Halloween Contemplation 2013
Fear is an amazingly primal instinct, and you can see it in birds and deer and squirrels—they look around, their ears (if you can see them) prick up: What’s that strange sound? Babies get waves of strangeness and they startle and cry. Or for other reasons they become uncomfortable. At some point they enjoy quieting […]
Hollow Weenies
Hollow-weenie -eeeeee is coming! Let’s all pretend to be scared: Eeee! Now let’s all pretend to be scary: Booooo! Unless you’re suffering from PTSD, both are sort-of fun, lifting us out of our humdrum civilized life, jolting us back with a mild energizing thrill into a simulacrum of what it might have been like for […]