MAKING SENSE - REMARKABLE INSIGHTS FROM PROFESSOR MARTIN STANTON

Those of you who follow my blogposts will know that my journey - my odyssey through my lifetime - has been enriched by discovering the writings of Richard Rohr (Silent Compassion, 2014/2022) and Hugh McGregor Ross's analysis of George Fox as a mystic (George Fox - A Christian Mystic, 1991/2008). I have also found Ross's studies of the Gospel of Thomas a deep source of wisdom, but as yet have not read enough to create a post on these matters. Here are the relevant links:

For Ross: https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2024/01/fruits-of-marazion-quaker-library-hugh.html

For Rohr: https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2023/11/fruits-of-marazion-quaker-library_21.html

I can now add the ideas and writings of Martin Stanton to my list of guides to a deeper understanding of how best to make sense of the odyssey we all make by virtue of being alive. 

Martin Stanton - circa the 1980s

Making Sense (2020) is Martin Stanton's remarkable critique of mainstream psychoanalysis in its academic and clinical ideology and practice. Martin is the child declaring that the emperor's clothes are only imagined. Professor Judith E. Vida in Los Angeles hits the spot when she writes:

'Making Sense  is a radical proposal that the real life complexity of thought, emotion, and experience will always resist closure, resolution, fixing, getting over it, interpretation, diagnosis, and so-called 'normality'. Martin Stanton generates poetic new metaphors for living that are as supportive as they are expansive, providing morsels of practical wisdom, each at once juicy, sweet, and savoury - and full of new nourishment.'

I should also say at this point that I did not find Making Sense an easy book to read. Martin has more learning than I do. My grasp of Greek mythology is only basic; Martin moves with ease and fruitfully

EXPLORING NEW WORLDS - OUTI PIESKI AT TATE ST IVES - AND REDEFINING BOUNDARIES

The boundaries of our world shrank during the Covid pandemic, as did those of the rest of the world. Much of the world has now forgotten those self-protecting days of isolation - but there are still many, including Louise and myself, whose boundaries are more limited than they used to be. [The official Covid-19 Inquiry is now taking place and will eventually issue its Report; reading my work 'Dying to Know' (2022) will give you access to the bits that the official report will gloss over or leave out altogether. Press this link here if you are interested in buying a copy.]  

We no longer have the desire to cross the continent of Europe in an aircraft to reach Athens and then take a ship to cruise the Aegean to reach the holy island of Patmos, a journey we first undertook in 1988 and then repeated in eighteen of the thirty years before SARS-CoV-2 struck. These pilgrimages brought rest, rehabilitation, and a touch of wisdom - but we have moved on. The memories remain - and the inspirations.

If the motivation to travel distances has declined, the love of discovery has remined intact. It was therefore a joy to accompany our friend, Stephen Vranch, on a visit to the new exhibition at Tate St Ives, featuring the work of Outi Pieski, in March this year.  

Outi Pieski 

Outi Pieski is a Sámi visual artist based in Ohcejohka (Utsjoki), Finland. 

Pieski's paintings and installations explore several themes, including the culture and identity of the Sámi people – who live in the region of Sápmi, which now includes the