Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

February, 2013

Square Dancing as Spiritual Practice

I went square dancing last night and it is a particularly wholesome experience. It occurred to me that square dancing is also a spiritual activity. On the surface, the dancers, groups of four couples (eight people), are teams that are just trying to follow directions. They’ve learned the calls, but they’re just complex enough so […]

Posted in Play and Spontaneity, Psychological Literacy, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

Making Stuff Up

I’m afraid I’m profligate—er, no… promiscuous? wrong word. Un, precocious, preternatural, portly? No. I do expressive myself a lot, though, through many channels. Check out my website and especially the section on confabulations. The latest one is relevant to current events, I think. To confabulate is to make stuff up. One then may or may […]

Posted in Foolin Around, My Favorite Things, Play and Spontaneity, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

Junior Assistant

In some realms I’m big and important but in other realms  I’m not, and on one of the cosmic levels I am very proud to report that I have been informed that I have been promoted to the rank of Junior Assistant! Yay!  That means I get to help. My duties as yet are unclear. […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Foolin Around | No Comments »

Celebrating Your Diversity

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself! I am great! I contain multitudes!” wrote the American poet, Walt Whitman, in the mid-19th century (in a poem, “Song of Myself”). This blog post is a re-affirmation of the glory and necessity of individuality. The notion that we have to bring it all together […]

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Confabulations 23

More Low-Down on the Higher-Ups Well, of course I can’t begin to begin to know a zillionth of what it’s all about, but I have managed to glimpse a peek: We all have a platoon of angels. Each person has a bunch. They are not completely like humans with clear boundaries. Using my special dimension-oscope, […]

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The Gestalt Function

There’s a function of the mind called “Gestalt” that’s not “Gestalt therapy” but rather the innate tendency to see meaningful patterns in what is perceived. The mind tends to see things as wholes. Shown a series of still pictures quickly enough, it generates the illusion of motion (and from this, movies and television). The Gestalt […]

Posted in Follies, Psychological Literacy, Psychology | No Comments »

The Dingle-Derry Complex: Unrealistic Expectations

Reading Jean Houston’s mythic take on the classical Wizard of Oz 1939 movie, I was reminded of my own take on a tiny element in that great epic, the wistful song sung by the Scarecrow, “If I Only Had a Brain.” The Lyrics: I would while away the hours / Conferin’ with the flowers   […]

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Afterlife Letter from Freud to Jung

The following is a fantasized letter from Sigmund Freud to Carl Jung about the nature of a more holistic psychology: Dear Carl,         Now that I’m dead to the living, I’ve discovered that as part of my purgatory, my purification process, on this post-death plane I’m encouraged to do a life review. I have come […]

Posted in Foolin Around, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

The Resonance of the “Wow!”

The title of this post is a bit of paradoxical apophatic musing. Apophatic refers to the stance that we—human consciousness—cannot begin to begin to know Divine essence. A degree of surrender is needed. Yet we can in our foolish innocence speculate. So also a three-year-old can talk about “my mommy” and know deeply that of […]

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Making Meta-Cognition Explicit

One of the trends in the last century—still not apparent to most people, though—is the increasing interest in how we think. It’s an extension of the interest not in the content but the spirit of psychoanalysis. In other words, let’s wonder about the possibility that what is true in astronomy and microbiology is also true […]

Posted in Essays and Papers, Follies, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | 1 Comment »

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