Wow, thanks for putting in all the time and effort for such an informative and eloquent post!
I really love this bit that you wrote:
Some of these children have been mistakenly labeled as prodigies, as our society leans towards a more mainstream idea of 'genius'...a 'fluke', rather than a purposeful & intentional example of what we are all capable of...as soon as we open our minds enough to remember it.
The video links were very interesting (thank you for sharing them!). The last one doesn't work for some reason.
And though I've told my personal story with my son and autism several times, I'll say some more about it again. The moment I saw him after birth, the intelligence in his eyes totally freaked me out. His dark almond-shaped eyes scanned me with intensity, studying me (and they say children don't have clear vision on birth
). I felt he was thinking, "Who are you?!" And to be honest, I was thinking the same thing about him because he didn't look in "life" like he did in my inner vision. In my "vision" he had blonde hair and bright blue eyes, but when he was born he had black hair and dark eyes (that eventually turned brown). My husband later said to me, Well why did you expect blonde hair when we both have dark hair? I was like
, but I did. That I thought he'd have fair hair and bright blue eyes makes me think of the many references to the blue eyes of certain indigo and crystal children, and of my encounters with while wolf and her topaz blue eyes. Perhaps our spirit, or certain aspects of our spirit, doesn't always show through in our physical body.
Anyway, as he grew and his speech regressed, my anxiety became intense, particularly in trying to integrate him with the world of people so different to him at the time. I finally had to succumb to a professional examination and diagnosis for him, but the whole time I resented it bitterly. He received a really dire label, too, of "moderate global delay". I asked the attending physician, "Oh, a delay...so when will he catch up?" And she looked at me with pity and began drawing a diagram showing me a line in a trajectory of progression for normal children and my son's line becoming more and more divergent compared to the norm.
I was just stunned. A box of tissues was pushed toward me. But I didn't cry. I was just utterly confused. I knew my son was scarily intelligent at some level, but that it wasn't coming out in the way we are all used to seeing it. And that was perplexing and worrying because I had no idea how to proceed or what the future held. And how could I explain this to a doctor who knows "all". And, would I want them to agree and then my child gets no label and no funding and also can't go to a mainstream school so will be basically "stuck".
Anyway fast forward to now and he is 10 years old. He still has language delays, but he continues to progress. He doesn't understand some simple things, but irony and other complex issues are second nature to him and give him a giggle. He has a few cool skills (he is our little GPS and seems to know where he is all the time and maps in his mind everywhere we've ever been on the globe). And he has an astonishing memory for details. I do believe he remembers almost everything that has ever happened to him and he memorizes verbatim books and videos. But the best thing about him is the love that radiates from him. He is just so dang likeable. So non-judgemental, open, eager and sparkly. The hardest thing to manage is his strong will. He can tend to be a bit heavy-handed and/or relentless when he wants something. For example the dogs are sometimes scared of him because he holds them down to cuddle them and doesn't seem to understand the importance of the animal having its own boundaries and free-will. His relentlessness for a toy or bobble he's seen and wants or owns and has misplaced can be highly annoying. Regardless, he is a keeper! And he is definitely a channel of great spirit in my life. He reminds me of a big powerful spirit confined in a little human body, where the spirit is used to getting what it wants instantly by wishing it and has to learn patience and effort, much to his sometimes horror.
Oh, and that reminds me, his greatest joys are often the simple things. He likes water, fountains, swimming pools, hoses. He loves dropping pebbles into the water, or down vents
never tiring of the thrill of gravity and viscosity. He just got a simple science kit from family friends for Christmas. He is so into it, putting water in beakers and using salt to make the water more buoyant. Though he struggles to truly understand the meaning of some experiments, he loves mixing things, filling things and putting in things. It utterly delights him!
