..a deeply limited observation, a tiny infraction of sorts

“Where running our of words to describe things.” Tyson Yunkaporta

He is not just thinking in spaces of here, nor in places that are concrete and known by the matter of what we assume to be fact and certain. A red chair is a red chair that sits before me. He’s not just thinking with his own mind in the solitude of self, individualised and seperate as it seems, in body and space. He is not thinking alone like this. He holds access to a magnitude of worlds, of universes, of things that perhaps cannot be known about or seen or touched by us from this point of time or from this point of reference. He, at times whilst in the thoughts of all that cannot be seen or touched, moves in a systematic dance with his hands. Visually sifting and sorting out the invisible threads of creation that contain the fabric of the unseen worlds. He has no real name for this, but his look assures me it must be done. He is not really all here but neither is he all there, where ever there is. He floats in the mystery of this space not really fitting anywhere. He comes not wholly in the light nor from the depths of darkness, but sits within the equanimity of both, which he says is a shade of purple and is where he needs to be, no matter how I try to lean him futher into the light of grace. There are things he says, are not for me to know. So I let them be between him and his God. It would seem that he is here to do things that are not really of this world at all. He seems to be working from some other unknowable space or perhaps place. He seems to be doing something here, that possibly matters, that is possibly necessary, yet it remains in the unseen, it is not tangible, cannot be recognised or commended and proudly acknowledged, there’s no certification for work like this. At this point, it would be more rational to disregard, to disorganise his innate, organic organisation, to attempt to undo his unusual invisible doings, to dismiss his hand dances as repetitive self stimulatory behaviours, or so it would seem. Yet, the small voice of my own knowing says that what he does, must be done. That this is not mine to contain, name or control. It is not even mine to understand. Do you suppose that maybe nothing needs to be imposed here?

beings as wild alters

“I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment ..when we have fixed the human race the human race can no longer evolve. 

We think of ourselves as a climatic species but we are living in dynamic environments that are shifting that we will need to glitch out and become disabled in order to inhabit and so I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment at the very edges of the eco tones of what is supposed to be materially appropriate. So somebody’s body that could be fixed I wonder if it should be fixed.” -Sophie Strand

this is the space I find myself occupying now. im sitting in wander. wandering lines, that are not set with a concrete direction or goal orientated destination, i already know that there will be no real answers to the questions that i am asking here. there will be no ending or certainanty, to be looked forward to. it will not be completed with yet another DSM5 diagnosis and a full stop. no, that is not the way of the wandering lines.

when I speak of wandering lines i am thinking away from what we think we know about autism, mental health, stability, what it means to be well. i cannot tentatively hold myself completely to notions of how the world interacts and responds to these things so much anymore. i have cautious steps now. i have learned to not trust the narrative. i have ventured in my thinking of things from wilder places.

 It’s in the glitching out, its in the disability, its in the diaschronic. Its in the place that we loose eloquence that God comes in.  

Bayo Aklomofe

instead i find myself trusting something that cannot be named, that is innately inherent, and who’s guidance has never wavered over the years. my faith in these unknowable spaces have always shown me the way, where to place my next step, or they have laid before my very feet the guidance i am seeking. these Gods have always traveled beside me, even in the times when i wasn’t able to hold space for them.

The void isn’t empty. The gods are everywhere. We are swimming in dynamic, animated, tentacular territories and there is no escaping that, there is no removing ourselves from that. We are always in conversation with these bio field signals. 

Bayo Aklomofe

my son’s story is unfolding in wildish uncertain and sometimes uncomfortable ways. when he moves, it is through space time, through universes and galaxies and inconceivable notions of more than we can comprehend. i’m sure its not really new to him now, i think he has always occupied these wide places of existence. maybe what’s new is he is somewhat more aware now of this traveling self he inhibits and it is beginning to ruffle him. it has become obvious that he is not contained or limited in his thinking or do i dare assume knowing, to any preconceived ideas of how we exist in the here and now. he moves from spaces much wider than that.

i as a mother of this young human, and my ‘i’ in this is small i know, for i don’t think he has ever been a child, especially one for me to call my own, he belongs to something much greater than that. nevertheless, i wonder where i am to stand in the witnessing of this unfolding of self and other. i wonder where my place is, if it’s really relevant at all, from such expansive unknowable landscapes.

i have borrowed a notion, of’ beings as wild alters.’ Bayo Alomofe tells of a story of his beloved wife Ej and her philosophy towards caring for their son in the unknowable times of trouble. i have listened to this story many times over and it always brings me to tears, it reminds me of all the times i too have fallen to the ground to be beside my son in the face of the unknowable storm. Ej invites us to hold our children as alters, as a wild place where the subject is not to cure or to fix them into sanity, instead the object is to worship, to stay in the trouble of the yelps and screaming. this resonates in me, it makes sense to not move in these times, but rather lay down in the face of the fire. for, we can never be sure of where the fire has arrived from or where it is on its way to, we can never be certain of what it means to have such things move through and captivate the bodies of our children. there is no real language for these places, perhaps we are not meant to bring them out of the turmoil, or lead them away or quieten them down, we don’t know what they are moving in the heat of the storm.