writing – St GEORGIA & Boo

Gods impersonating as children

Healing looking very suspicious these days, tracking along side escalating dollar amounts almost becoming a trillion dollar industry.. If healing is thriving in a time of sickness then we ought to be careful what we name sickness.

-Bayo Akolomafe

What does it mean to be well? Functioning? Normal? Contributing? Sane?

What does it mean to be these things from the view point of an ideology that is failing, has failed and who’s very fabric is falling away at the seams?

Should we even want to be well when wellness means falling back into systematic ways of being, partaking in stories that have not served kindly on the majority of humanity as a whole. Where do we find ourselves if we refuse to follow along, refuse to indoctrinate our children and force them to define themselves by notions that only serve the small minority, but instead waver on the outskirts, on the margins, belonging somewhere but no where from the grand narratives point of view.

How do we justify a life of happiness, enough food, warm shelter, access to clean water, the ability to take what we want to believe in and leave the rest behind for someone else’s contemplation because the harsh truth of it doesn’t feel good, because we know that what is on offer, is most certainly causing another to suffer? How do we justify our phones, our clothes, the very earth we hold ourselves to, when it is to the detriment of another be it human, non-human or life force. Can we still be alright with that, if that’s what it means to be well? Are we functioning well by fitting in, showing up, and wearing the construct of the story that has been passed down, placed upon us, even when we know that the fabric of the construct is dramatically failing and falling away, that it makes no sense anymore to the children that can’t sit still in a classroom, to the children that can’t ware shoes or don’t own any, can’t read or whom carry the companionship of voices in their heads. Are we well if we know these things and still we look the other way, we medicate, force and dominate, trying to make these things fit, that were most likely never meant to fit us this way in the first place.

Maybe we are not meant to be healing, fixing these things. Maybe the children that are being born into these untameable bodies that are bursting in their own wild forces are meant to be here. Maybe they are not really children with Autism at all but Gods of some other time. They are arriving in a cataclysmic motion, with an irresistible compulsion, causing trouble, denying the normative, upsetting the grand narrative. Could it be that we haven’t yet realised it is not for us to decide how they should be in the world, that it’s not really about us shaping things differently so that they can fit better, when fitting in is no longer what is necessary. Maybe they are here to take things apart, to cause mischief in the systems, to undo things, upset things, make trouble, disturb all manner of the seemingly normality of things. What if that story we are trying so very hard to manipulate their bodies into is finished now, that the reason they arrive in such grand force, what has been assumed could be an approaching Autism epidemic is because we are not listening, we are not really paying attention. Instead we are still trying to play out a narrative centred around an androcentric normality that no longer exists.

…maybe we should be ‘considering not what gets in the way of healing, but .. what healing gets in the way of. ‘ -Bayo Akomolafe

Maybe healing and fixing these things is, to not consider what we may not be able to see. Maybe we are yet to have the language for such places. What if we are being asked to consider and trust something so vastly different from anything we have ever known or seen before and what is really happening is that we are scared. We are afraid of arriving somewhere and not knowing the answers, or worse still that there will be no answer. We are afraid to enter into these unknowable places with our children because we feel that we are the ones guiding them, that we know what is best for them, it’s what the narrative has always been. But maybe we need to step down now, from our hierarchy and thinking that we know what is best, for it is overtly obvious now that this is not the case. Possibly it has never been. Maybe we need to place our faith in something else, be it the roots of the tree, the soil of the earth, the unassuming butterfly or the invisible ones who occupy the unseen spaces or could it be in these wild Gods that are impersonating themselves as Autistic children.

..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?

wander lines

A philosophy of tracing

This TRACING / from before the sign / I will never cease to see in it / what no gaze / would it be mine / will ever see • the human is there / perhaps / quite simply / with no one in the end / without voice • those / TRACINGS / are from my hand which borrowed the manner of handling / the style of this janmari who speaking is not • and everything that I can write from this / TRACING that all the writings of the / world have no chance of drying up. (Deligny, 2007: 813; quoted and translated in Alvarez de Toledo, 2013: 5)

I am exploring wander lines. trying to move away from neurotypical thought processes to a wider less structured thought way. I am trying to not think in straight lines, like my son and my eldest daughter, they don’t think in straight lines.

I was leaving early on a Saturday morning to head to a farmers market. It’s always a big day, a big drive there and back. As i was heading our down our driveway i was stopped by fallen trees laying across my access. This was a big deal, they would have to be moved and i was annoyed that i was the one having to do it. From closer inspection it would require a chainsaw, not an easy task for this moment and for one person. I worked in slight annoyance, internally voicing my frustrations at the inconvenience, which could have been tended to yesterday. Why didn’t she say this needs to be cleared, she knew that it was mess, she knew because she walked over it to check the mail. Why didn’t she say you won’t be able get through tomorrow. I was having a self indulgent early morning rant to myself.

Nevertheless I was able to clear the path, remove the trees and branches and the nuisances that were ailing me and was on my way to the farmers market. All was well. On my drive I calmed. Breathed. And there it was. I understood the need for the early morning obstruction. The obstruction was not in the fallen trees on my path, it was in the obstruction of my thinking of how she thinks. Yes, she knew about the fallen trees, yes she mentioned them in an incidental way, but she wasn’t thinking in straight lines. She doesn’t think in straight lines.

I had been pondering on Deligny and his maps of wandering lines. I was wanting to understand this more, explore it from new spaces within my own thinking. I was wanting to see it in movement, thoughts in processes not travelling on straight lines. It seems someone was listening.

The straight line process would have been to notice the fallen trees and say we need to move them before tomorrow morning. It would have been to work together and have the driveway cleared for access again in the morning. But that’s straight line thinking, neurotypical line thinking. Its thinking- action-result kind of thinking. Its thinking that has been educated, indoctrinated, cultured into us like good manners. Its viewed as rational and necessary, as normal.

But it starting to feel false. As though by thinking in such ways we are denying something else. Perhaps something is becoming lost within us, within this process, something innate, ancestral, something that offers more to the experience we are having. We are not seperate from our experiences. My fallen trees were my lesson here. It would seem as though they were a cleverly planned obstacle placed within my path, within my thinking of things. They were my obstruction of thought and became an invitation to think of things from wandering lines.

Deligny clearly recognised this in his working beside non-verbal autistic children. What can be lost within the language of words. It reminds me of my son when he was small. He didn’t talk with words until he was four. We had to understand each other in other ways, by other means. We had to feel into these places. I had to remind myself that i can know him from here, just as a mother understands her newborn babe, words become so unnecessary from this space.

..that touches us without our knowing why, a touching that occurs not through the effects of language but beyond, where “something that cannot be seen” exists, something ineffable but nonetheless “immediately felt” (Deligny 1990).

My son thinks in wandering lines. He has his own maps of thought. They make little sense to the indoctrinated typical mind. They aren’t clear, they don’t stay in one place, they cross space-time- realities. Yet when i listen, really listen, his anarchy of thought makes way for contemplative thought, they invite possibility, maybe not always in this place, or in this time, or even this universe but what he chooses to use his voice for is stories of happenings and who am i to determine such things as real or not.

carly

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.

untainted paths

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

-Toni Morrison

More and more I’m leaning towards leaving my children alone. I am no longer standing in the way of their freedom. They are free to develop, discover, learn and interact at their own will. I’m trusting my children in their natural instincts and better judgements in knowing what it is they are wanting. My parenting is radically different now compared to what it may have looked like fifteen years or so ago. I too, are radically different now. The more I allow myself to flow into the ease of life, the easier life is becoming. There is no longer any one story i am endeavouring to fit into or trying to make my children fit into whether they are wanting or not. There is no direction that has been set before us that we are wanting to follow, that feels right anymore. This story we are creating is new. The way we are moving is new. We are walking a path that few are walking, and we are alright with that. We are unafraid, and faithful to ourselves and to our journey. Maybe there in lies the answer to contented happiness. More of trusting life to happen and allowing it to flow, welcoming whatever arises rather than pushing against and struggling in what comes about. Even the seemingly negative experiences can be blessings if we open to their messages. My children were not born to conform in this world as it is before us now, that i am certain of. I too have resisted for most of my life to agree and go along quietly with ideas and ways that innately have not felt like the right way. Maybe that is why they chose me to be their mother. But ultimately, it has been the determination of my children’s Will to not bend themselves towards people or experiences that they innately know will not serve them well, that has bought us to where we are standing now. I find myself questioning everything, especially things that rise resistance in us or simply just don’t feel right. I am listening to them in their no’s as it holds as much power as what they are saying yes to. And i want them to know from the beginning of their lives what they say yes and no to in life, matters. They are not here to simple follow those who went before them around in their ways. They have their own way, most of the time they are leading it and most of the time its going against everything that has gone before us. Still, we go forth fearlessly trusting ourselves and unafraid of laying new paths that have yet to be walked by the many.

trusting our own outrage

The freedom to be angry on purpose holds as much importance as does the freedom to be happy. One cannot exist without the other. There cannot be one feeling that circles around again and again, never realising anything other than itself. How would we ever possibly know what does not serve us well, if we were to only ever experience one single feeling without the contrast? Why are we taught to be so afraid of what this emotion entails? Our outrages can signify what doesn’t sit well with us, what truths maybe stirring beneath the surface of what we are yet to see. It could be what guides us in the process of recognising what is not in our best interest or what we should not be willing to settle for. Why have we been raised to be afraid of the contrast? To avoid the conflict at all costs, as if no positive outcomes or realisations could come from such experiences? We have been raised to not fight for ourselves. For some, the confrontation is so uncomfortable, that they are willing to hold themselves in untruths for the sake of peace, usually a peace that cannot and will not last or serve them well. I have had the freedom in my life to experience the contrast in such ways that i am now unafraid when it presents itself. I have learnt to pay careful attention when it rises, especially in the moments it catches me off guard. I am in a place now where i have learnt to deeply trust my own outrages. I have experienced the battle enough in life now to know that sometimes it’s necessary and required for things to move forward in the desirable direction. I have experienced it enough to no longer be afraid of what it entails. I am comfortable in the knowing that what drives my battle is a passionate truth. My own. I realise what serves as my truth can only ever be that. Not everyone is going to have the desire to live the same, they can only ever have their own truths to follow. I’m thankful for their contrast as it keeps me clear and heading in the direction to which I am wanting to go. And as hard as it maybe to fathom, it really is insignificant where others are standing in their lives. It only ever really matters and can become hazardous when you find yourself too focused on trying to change their truths rather than staying clear about where you are standing in your own. The story always only ever belongs to you. As soon as you can bring yourself into the realisation that you are always only ever creating the story, the sooner you can get on with paying attention to what it is you are wanting to look like. And becoming comfortable in all the shades we carry that take us along that journey.

Life on the Möbius Strip- Palmer Parker

my Möbius Strip

“If you take your index finger and trace what seems to be the outside surface, you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the inside surface. Continue along what seems to be the inside surface, and you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the outside surface. ” Parker Palmer

I’ve spent 30 days nurturing the inside, gently saying no to most things on the outside and intern saying yes to myself. It’s necessary every now and again to reassess all that is going on in life and sort through all that’s not flowing in the same direction, if we are to keep ourselves wide open and remain steady on the path of our truth. It is finding ways of bringing the outside world into aliment with what we are seeking for ourselves on the inside. The space was easy to be in and flowed more naturally than i expected it would. It was easier to say no from this space. A space where i compassionately gave myself permission to matter more than any other for this moment. And before giving anyone my yes, i foremost required a yes from my inner world first. More often, it was a no, which helped me to realise just how much of my inner world i have been compromising for the outer worlds wanting. Finding the balance is essential in keeping the two worlds flowing harmoniously. For now, I have become my highest priority in my story. My well-being is the one that’s vitality matters most if i am to continue to carry the weight of my tribe and also stay on the path of living faithfully within my truth. And i am understanding ever so clearly now, that it must be for the sake of my children that i remain it to stay this way. For me to be my highest idea of myself as a mother, daughter, friend or anything on the outside world, i must foremost be the highest idea of myself in my inner world first. It’s the only way to keep moving forward. I’m not interested in standing still or bending myself in ways that i know are going against the inner flow. I’m only interested in keeping myself wide open and in the certainty that what ever path I am to embark on from here on in, will be one closer to a truth of who i am now, and will perhaps have little resemblance to any i have travelled before. I am reawakening the dreams that have been with me forever that i had some time ago decided could never be, and I have decided that they could be once again, for this Is my life. I’m focusing less on the intricate details of how and when things will come about and spending more time in the knowing of they just will. My children are on this journey with me, and they flow closer to their own rhythms of truth the closer i flow to mine. So it is as much for them as it is for me that i endeavour to stay on this journey of compassionately tending to myself, endeavouring to close the gap between my outside and inside worlds.

here and now

I have come to a point where stopping or turning back is no longer an option anymore. I realise too much now. Have seen, felt, and intimately know a truth that flows way beyond the depths of any of the stories we are telling ourselves in the here, and now. This understanding comes with a responsibility to myself, to my children and to you, as a part of our world. I can no longer walk this life asleep. The way i move must be in alignment with the what i believe, even if the path is the ‘one less travelled’. I know i will come up against some resistance, i know that interrogation is apparent, i know that not everyone is willing to go against the greater story that has been created, i know not everyone is willing to wake up. It’s a difficult path, it’s a path that won’t follow a dictation that doesn’t serve the highest self, it’s a path that won’t buy into being told what to do and how it must be done for acceptance from a social system that is clearly no longer working. A system that keeps us motionless in the evolution of our true selves. It’s a path that flows from love not fear, it’s a path of doing whats right, moving in a way that serves each other free from hinderance, because once you know better you have a responsibility to do better. I can no longer make my choices based on theories that don’t resonate truth for me, theories that have been determining the outcomes for the people of this world for, forever now. I am not willing to fall back into beliefs and ways that cause devastation and effect everything, when i know how deeply and with great certainty that the way i move, matters. We share the air we breathe, the sky and stars i see, you see. We are all intrinsically connected to each other, there is no you there and me here. Our children are going to walk this earth long after we have moved on, and that matters. Our children must be given the grace to walk in a new direction. They already have the awareness, they already know how it should be, they are born knowing. We change their story so very young, we dictate their lives, put them into systems that don’t work and demand they comply. We do this so they will grow to become good, complying, sociably acceptable adults that will refrain from questioning anything greater or different. We do this so that they will continue to abide in this world that is driven by fear, power and money, rather than love and faith. We do this so that they will fall into the deep sleep, and forget all they know to be true for themselves and each other and hope that they’ll take on enough of the illusion to get them through their lives in what we perceive to be some ideal happiness. It really begins and ends here, eventually they grow and realise that life rarely works that out that way, and it is then that they too will begin the journey of unlearning all they were told to be true for themselves. Change is emanate. Our children must be allowed to lead the way, to flow to new rhythms, to advance and surpass the outmoded ways of thinking without being sanctioned. We must give up the idea that we know better, and stop telling them what we believe that they need to know. They already have the wisdom, all we need do is refrain from pulling them so far away from themselves that they inevitably forget.

The children rise slowly now, and only begin when they are ready here. There is no where we need to be anymore, most of the time preferring to not venture out at all. Days fill quickly with imaginary play, day dreaming and exploring our new sanctum. The peace is animate. We are all breathing freely now, not answerable to anything or anyone, except ourselves. I imagine in a perfect world its the way it should always be, and we are all the more the happier for it. I am watching the children unfold in their own uniqueness, in a space without life’s constrictions, its allowing them to be all of who they perfectly are. As i move closer towards what is true for myself, the more settled they are becoming within the truth of themselves. I have withdrawn on purpose, with purpose. Choosing to let go rather than fill unnecessarily our lives and time with things that don’t matter. I am growing stronger, quieter, surer and feeling my way through what i am wanting to remain, quickly giving myself permission to let go of what no longer needs to, without apologising. I’m seeking within, moving in the direction of having, doing and needing less and the more i enter this space, the clearer things are becoming, with a sense absolute. This is my life, the story i am creating on the pages are mine to own and live by, and all that’s really seeming to matter now is that i stay faithful to myself. I understand that my truth will not always be what serves the truth of others and only with love, can i say, that I am alright with things being that way. It is within the certainty of this space, I have let go of any need to please or pretend or play any roles anymore. I am moving from a different place now, and everything in life seems to be aligning itself along side it, including the children. So much of life seems to be directed for us, set on a path whether we are willing to follow it or not. I realise it is a courageous path to take choosing to follow your own wild heart, and in doing so be fearless with your choices, and i know it’s not for everyone, but it is where i want to be, that is something i know for sure.

rational, irrational?

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

When is it acceptable to raise a voice? Be assertive, aggressive in passion, view, thought, idea, belief? Perhaps behind closed doors? Perhaps in the safe confinements of a home? Is there a time and suitable place that such emotions would ever be deemed justifiable and acceptable? Is everyone not made of the same stuff? Is anger never to be expressed? Or is it that some fall into the ambivalent class where expressions as such are permissible. Must we shut down, be equable, behave only in ways others can suffice? Is it appropriate to condemn and belittle when expressions are not kept in the rigidity of nice, or pleasant, or more importantly agreeable? Why must one’s very persona come under attack simply for being angry? Yes, I am not pretty all of the time. I am not going to be pretty in the moment if the moment calls for something other. I will not be told to settle down, or not to raise my voice, i will shout from rooftops without permission, now. It will not serve well to belittle my integrity. I am a pillar of strength, and will not whimper to manoeuvring ways.

takings from T.S. Eliot’s, Little Gidding

chère douce Paris, je reviendrai un jour

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

For last words belong to last years language

And next years words await another voice.

But the passage now presents no hindrance

To the spirit unappeased and peregrine.

Between two worlds become much like each other.

So i find words i never thought to speak.

Miller Williams, compassion

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

-Miller Williams, Compassion

a prayer -RUMI

I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you into my heart.

I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.

If no one recognises you, i do because you are my life and soul.

Don’t run away, accept your wounds and let bravery be your shield.

It takes a thousand stages for the perfect being to evolve.

Every step of the way i will walk with you and never leave you stranded.

-RUMI

circling up

it circles around again for her now, this time with a simple intention. She has decided with extraordinary conviction she is worth fighting for, and she will fight hard. She knows from where she is standing that this story is complete now. She understands deeply that she has been the creator of her world all along, that the only one who has ever really let her down here, is herself. She knows with great certainty that from where she stands now, that she has been through enough of the not wanting that she is clearly ready now to decide how things will look for her from here. She understands that the beginning of this new story is hers to create, and hers alone. The difference is, she is unconcerned with the details, or how the things she is wanting now, will come about. She knows that all she need do is decide, and keep herself open to the faithful truth of her instinctual knowing that it will happen. Most importantly she knows now to nurture her own worth, and she won’t ever again need to settle, for anything less than. She has spent enough time there now, from here, she walks only towards her wanting. Now, when she looks, she looks not at how the world around her can bestow upon her, the dreams she envisions, instead she understands that the real magic can only ever really begin and come from within. It is here in the stillness, when she quietens herself down long enough to hear her own voice and feel her way towards what she is asking for now, that the magic happens. The rest is only details.