by Shelley Mathews (Lilipoh Autumn/Winter 2000). |
Anne is standing inside the threshold of the door, her arms straight against her thighs; she's moving her fingers at a rapid pace and mumbling incoherently. We know she is reciting dates of past events in her life. Alain sits on his rocking chair and rocks with incredible vigor. Anne closes the door and he imitates the sound without skipping a beat. Zoé counts everything with a staccato voice; when we want to gather wood we ask her to bring us ten logs. If there are eleven pieces in the pile she won't bring the last piece because we said ten; and if we ask her to bring all the wood in the pile without saying how many pieces, she'll get angry and yell and start throwing pieces of wood until she's exhausted her frustation. Jérôme is altogether different; he speaks five languages. Conversations with him tend to be sessions in which he can question seemingly without end. He sculpts wood, knits socks, and paints; he also has talent for theatrical productions.
What do these four people have in common? They are all people with Autism.
At the Waldorf Institute I learned that tendencies are in every human being, when extreme, develop into illness, or what we could call handicaps. The austitic person demonstrates very particular tendencies: the distinction between "I" and "you" is uncertain; emotional security is manifest in relationships with things rather than with people; and social interaction is difficult. What is the relation between thinking, feeling, and willing in autism? How can we work therapeutically with these individuals so that they can meet their destiny?
The autistic person is often absorbed in a self-centered activity. The inability to interact socially, the display of repetitive, seemingly meaningless behaviour and language - all serve to discourage human contact and warmth. And yet, my experience with my four friends who live with autism has taught me how to look differently. I catch myself thinking about autism and how it's also a seed within me, within humanity. An autistic person has "tics"; little, repetitive gestures that seem to go on all by themselves. It can take the form of flapping fingers, rocking motions, wagging arms, or just looking at the movement of a branch in the wind. The person seems obsessed and loses consciousness of time, others around them, and even their own basic needs. Or, the person wants everything placed "just so"; and continues to open the door of their bedroom exactly halfway, push the wastebasket to the far left corner of the bathroom, or set a book on a shelf at a particular angle with the window. This can seem like a compulsive disorder unless we try to look deeper into the soul of the autistic person and discover what it is that they are trying to offer us as a gift. Have you ever been so caught up in a project that you couldn't tear yourself away from? Do you have little gestures that you catch yourself doing when you're nervous; like twirling your hair, biting your pencil, rubbing your temple? Do you find comfort in the west corner of your living room because that's where you take your coffee in the morning and watch the sunrise in your favorite chair?
I believe these are the things we do that have somehow become exaggerated in the soul of the autistic individual. In her book Thinking in Pictures, Temple Grandin describes her different thinking patterns as those of a mnemonist, one who upon hearing or reading a word, converts it into a visual image that corresponds with the object the word signifies. She is able to replay her imagination like we can replay a film, seeing things exactly as she experienced them but unable to create an abstract or generic concept easily. The autistic people we work with here at L'Amitient are for the most part unable to create these symbols for themselves and therefore need us to help them find the missing link between their experiences and their sense perceptions, which act as a bridge between the outer world of matter and the inner world of the soul. After undergoing many tests, Temple Grandin understood that she had a defect in her corpus callosum, the bundle of neurons that allows the two halfes of the brain to communicate. This causes sensory mixing which manifests as auditory problems for her. For other autistic people it could create visual distorsions, extreme sensations in smell or taste, and for many an annoying sensitivity to touch. Many autistic people have to fight constantly to get meaning from their senses. Sometimes they give up the fight, let go and just wander into the fractured patterns of their sense perceptions which then are entertaining, hypnotic and secure. This can explain the fascination with water, the uncanny ability for puzzles or placing things in order, and an obsessive love for mechanical sounds like ticking clocks, vacuum cleaners, the static sound of radios. I believe these sensations create links with the feeling soul that then enable the autistic person to create a relationship to the outside world.
An even more subtle handicap can develop; one in which the relationship between the"I" and everything outside the "I" is ensconced in the sensations created by the physical surroundings. A feeling of belonging is found in objects; something normal people would establish through their contact with other human beings. This form, however, prevents the heart from penetrating the thinking, because things are unable to convey emotion and so respond with feeling.
We can imbue these qualities with human warmth by bringing a breathing quality to the experiences in the daily rhythm, moving through the day with activities of waking, sleeping, eating, working, and leisure; a structured routine, that enables meaning to permeate the atmosphere and allows symbols to surface in the consciouness of each individual. The people with autism have a proficiency for thinking in pictures - imaginations that are significant and meaningful. Their facility for feeling is through sensations given by the physical world, which enable the development of true reassuring and objective intuitions unimpeded by astral judgement criticism. They have a capacity to move with a will of incredible stamina that is a real inspiration for the rest of us. With these images of archetypal humanity buried within difficult behaviour and trying communications, these souls bestow on us offerings of incredible perception. We are merely asked to seek out these gifts and cultivate them. |
