Hello Everyone,
This month’s BLOG will begin with a chance to view my slideshow GALLERY of Books and focus on the offered Extended Book Reviews. The slideshow shows the book covers, divided into the following categories ~
AMAZING ADVENTURES
DIAGNOSIS, DOCTORS, DENIAL
SAVVY SOLUTIONS
SCHOOL ON THE SHORT BUS
Hopefully, these stories will help parents, clinicians, academics, and all people #Autism, in connecting with those who have gone before us on their Autism Journey. March's BLOGs give snippets of my Extended Book Reviews; find full reviews on website MENU; along with a LINK to purchase the eBook. You will find each Autism story to be engaging, compelling, and as different as each family's Autism journey.
From the Category – AMAZING ADVENTURES Read the full reviews, plus LINKs to eBooks, on www.sarasautismsite.com.
This month’s BLOG will begin with a chance to view my slideshow GALLERY of Books and focus on the offered Extended Book Reviews. The slideshow shows the book covers, divided into the following categories ~
AMAZING ADVENTURES
DIAGNOSIS, DOCTORS, DENIAL
SAVVY SOLUTIONS
SCHOOL ON THE SHORT BUS
Hopefully, these stories will help parents, clinicians, academics, and all people #Autism, in connecting with those who have gone before us on their Autism Journey. March's BLOGs give snippets of my Extended Book Reviews; find full reviews on website MENU; along with a LINK to purchase the eBook. You will find each Autism story to be engaging, compelling, and as different as each family's Autism journey.
From the Category – AMAZING ADVENTURES Read the full reviews, plus LINKs to eBooks, on www.sarasautismsite.com.
The Horse Boy: A Father’s Quest to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson, eBook (2009); an Extended Book Review with < My Thoughts > by Sara Luker
Excerpts from the book – (1% indicates location in the Kindle version of the book, instead of page numbers).
1% April 2004 my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism. The feeling was like being hit across the face with a baseball bat.
Grief, shame – this weird, irrational shame, as if I had somehow cursed this child by giving him my faulty genes, condemned him to a lifetime of living as an alien because of me.
…Of watching, horrified, as he began to drift away to another place, separated from me as if by thick glass, or the see-through barrier of dream.
I had to find a way into his world, into his mind. I found it, amazingly, through a horse, Betsy. But let’s start at the beginning.
3% One minute he could be happily lining up his toys or playing with the garden hose (obsessive about water too), or even asleep; the next he’d be screaming, half in rage, half in seeming agony; sometimes for hours. Why?
Something had to be wrong – but we never considered that it might be autism.
…he was so emotionally connected. He looked you in the eye. He came to us, arms outstretched, for hugs. Friends reassured us…
Until one night, when Rowan was about two and a half, Kristin went upstairs, got on the computer, and typed in “autism, early signs of.”
Rowan had good eye contact. Apart from that, he had every single sign.
< My Thoughts > “Rowan had good eye contact.”
In my travels through the literature, I’ve read that mixed in with the autism traits are strong personality traits. So, I’m thinking that if your child – without autism – would be outgoing and charming… he would likely have strong eye contact when interacting with others. ‘Thespian’ traits, so to speak. This ‘may’… just ‘may’ explain why some children with ASD naturally make eye contact and that might throw some parents and educators off the autism trail, in the beginning.
9% The first time I took Rowan to the barn to saddle Betsy up, he ran amok…
…yelling and screaming and swinging his Woody and Jessie dolls around and around in both hands…
(I kept saddling Betsy) tightening the cinch and grabbing at her lower lip as I slipped the bit into her mouth.
“Do you want to get up on Betsy?” I asked him, not expecting a response.
“Up!”
It was the first time I’d received a direct answer to a direct question. I bent down, scooped him up, and put him in the saddle.
(2009) 13% “Rupert! We have an autistic child – a child who can’t even control his bowels, let alone his tantrums! And you’re saying that somehow we’re going to fly to Mongolia, get on horses, and ride from shaman to shaman?
Note: Further information on 'animal assisted therapy' in my Free ASD Book: Know Autism, Know Your Child with < My Thoughts > by Sara Luker. Found on website MENU. Please see under UNIT 7 – 4 Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAMs); Section 4: CAMs, PART 1 – 2. animal assisted therapy c. Horse Assisted Therapy
49% (That night at camp…) “Hey, Rowan, want to go for a walk with Daddy and see the stars?” “Walk with Daddy!”
Out walking in the Mongolian night together, his small hand in mine, surrounded by stars and silence.
“A very small boy. He went on an adventure.” “Shamans,” Rowan continued, his little voice like music in the dark. “Whack, whack, whack on the back” …My son was telling a story. The story of his own shaman experience. I was stunned.
50% “You are telling me about your adventure, Rowan that’s amazing.” “He giggled, Rowan’s adventure.”
End of excerpt from this eBook by Rupert Isaacson See my full Extended Book Review on website.
Excerpts from the book – (1% indicates location in the Kindle version of the book, instead of page numbers).
1% April 2004 my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism. The feeling was like being hit across the face with a baseball bat.
Grief, shame – this weird, irrational shame, as if I had somehow cursed this child by giving him my faulty genes, condemned him to a lifetime of living as an alien because of me.
…Of watching, horrified, as he began to drift away to another place, separated from me as if by thick glass, or the see-through barrier of dream.
I had to find a way into his world, into his mind. I found it, amazingly, through a horse, Betsy. But let’s start at the beginning.
3% One minute he could be happily lining up his toys or playing with the garden hose (obsessive about water too), or even asleep; the next he’d be screaming, half in rage, half in seeming agony; sometimes for hours. Why?
Something had to be wrong – but we never considered that it might be autism.
…he was so emotionally connected. He looked you in the eye. He came to us, arms outstretched, for hugs. Friends reassured us…
Until one night, when Rowan was about two and a half, Kristin went upstairs, got on the computer, and typed in “autism, early signs of.”
Rowan had good eye contact. Apart from that, he had every single sign.
< My Thoughts > “Rowan had good eye contact.”
In my travels through the literature, I’ve read that mixed in with the autism traits are strong personality traits. So, I’m thinking that if your child – without autism – would be outgoing and charming… he would likely have strong eye contact when interacting with others. ‘Thespian’ traits, so to speak. This ‘may’… just ‘may’ explain why some children with ASD naturally make eye contact and that might throw some parents and educators off the autism trail, in the beginning.
9% The first time I took Rowan to the barn to saddle Betsy up, he ran amok…
…yelling and screaming and swinging his Woody and Jessie dolls around and around in both hands…
(I kept saddling Betsy) tightening the cinch and grabbing at her lower lip as I slipped the bit into her mouth.
“Do you want to get up on Betsy?” I asked him, not expecting a response.
“Up!”
It was the first time I’d received a direct answer to a direct question. I bent down, scooped him up, and put him in the saddle.
(2009) 13% “Rupert! We have an autistic child – a child who can’t even control his bowels, let alone his tantrums! And you’re saying that somehow we’re going to fly to Mongolia, get on horses, and ride from shaman to shaman?
Note: Further information on 'animal assisted therapy' in my Free ASD Book: Know Autism, Know Your Child with < My Thoughts > by Sara Luker. Found on website MENU. Please see under UNIT 7 – 4 Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAMs); Section 4: CAMs, PART 1 – 2. animal assisted therapy c. Horse Assisted Therapy
49% (That night at camp…) “Hey, Rowan, want to go for a walk with Daddy and see the stars?” “Walk with Daddy!”
Out walking in the Mongolian night together, his small hand in mine, surrounded by stars and silence.
“A very small boy. He went on an adventure.” “Shamans,” Rowan continued, his little voice like music in the dark. “Whack, whack, whack on the back” …My son was telling a story. The story of his own shaman experience. I was stunned.
50% “You are telling me about your adventure, Rowan that’s amazing.” “He giggled, Rowan’s adventure.”
End of excerpt from this eBook by Rupert Isaacson See my full Extended Book Review on website.
The Long Ride Home: The Extraordinary Journey of Healing That Changed a Child’s Life, by Rupert Isaacson; eBook (2015), an Extended Book Review with < My Thoughts > by Sara Luker
1% The shaman Ghoste once told me, “Rowan will become gradually less autistic until his ninth year. Then, if you follow instructions, his autism will get less and less, and gradually disappear. But the stuff that’s been driving you crazy, the incontinence, the tantrums, these things will end now. From today.”
39% According to Winkelman, M. (2009), the origins of ‘shamanisms’ takes us across the time and space of spiritual healing practices; both in a biological and social evolutionary way. He goes on to say that shaman healers and mediums are associated with hunter-gather societies and derived from the need to interact with spirits on behalf of the social community.
28% Here among the Bushmen, despite the fact that this was clearly a hard healing, the feeling was blissful. All the suffering was being done by the professionals on our behalf. And I was grateful to sit here and just let the healing come, even with the healers shrieking, screaming, and occasionally scolding unseen figures in the spirit world, was oddly restful.
69% As the great orb of the sun rose at last in splendor over the eastern horizon, the final part of the healing, the end of the quest of three long years – four if you counted Mongolia – was done. We had carried out the directives given Ghoste by the Lords of the Mountain, the Lords of the Forest, to the very letter. Diligent pilgrims, we had done as we were bid. And now the quest was done.
71% That autumn, after we got back from Blue Horse, with this new, fully conversational Rowan, I began to think. What was the method we used exactly? How was it that so frequently, on the Horse Boy Camps, kids started communicating? Was there a teachable method here – something that could be systemized? We realized that there was.
72% Now, at New Trails, the siblings found their own wishes being fulfilled precisely because of, rather than in spite of, their brother or sister’s autism. The family dynamic changed, their relationship to the autism itself changed. And the parents could finally relax, be in a place where everyone understood, no one judged. And for their kids there was no whiff of therapy, just fun – but fun with structure, a purpose. So that was the human environment. The right environment, and everything that contributed to it, was therefore the most important factor: the foundation upon which everything else sat.
Learn more about Rupert Isaacson’s New Trails, in Elgin, TX on their website for Equine Therapy: The Horse Boy Method on https://ntls.co/equine-therapy
Reference:
Winkelman, M. (2009). Shamanism & the Origins of Spirituality & Ritual Healing; Equinox Publishing, Ltd. London SW3 5SR; V3.4, p 458-489.
End of excerpt from this eBook by Rupert Isaacson See my full Extended Book Review on website.
Thank you for reading and sharing my BLOGs. Comments are welcomed, to be viewed and answered privately. My goal is to assist families, clinicians, educators, and all people ‘autism’, to continue their journey on the Autism Highway. At the end of each website Extended Book Review, please find a source to have the whole book to read.
Regards,
Sara Luker
Paid Link Disclosure -
These Extended Book Reviews have an Amazon Link for actual book purchases. Please read this Paid Link Disclosure AKA Affiliate Links Disclosure:
Sometimes there are paid links, also known as affiliate links, used on this site. My website, www.sarasautismsite.com, is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
I may earn or receive a small paid commission from referrals for book purchases made through posts, pages, and links on this site. But I try to remain unbiased and I do not accept paid reviews. All opinions expressed here are my own.
There is no extra cost to you when purchases are made using the provided links. By using the links I provide you agree that you’ve read this paid link disclosure statement.
Thank you!
Sara Luker
1% The shaman Ghoste once told me, “Rowan will become gradually less autistic until his ninth year. Then, if you follow instructions, his autism will get less and less, and gradually disappear. But the stuff that’s been driving you crazy, the incontinence, the tantrums, these things will end now. From today.”
39% According to Winkelman, M. (2009), the origins of ‘shamanisms’ takes us across the time and space of spiritual healing practices; both in a biological and social evolutionary way. He goes on to say that shaman healers and mediums are associated with hunter-gather societies and derived from the need to interact with spirits on behalf of the social community.
28% Here among the Bushmen, despite the fact that this was clearly a hard healing, the feeling was blissful. All the suffering was being done by the professionals on our behalf. And I was grateful to sit here and just let the healing come, even with the healers shrieking, screaming, and occasionally scolding unseen figures in the spirit world, was oddly restful.
69% As the great orb of the sun rose at last in splendor over the eastern horizon, the final part of the healing, the end of the quest of three long years – four if you counted Mongolia – was done. We had carried out the directives given Ghoste by the Lords of the Mountain, the Lords of the Forest, to the very letter. Diligent pilgrims, we had done as we were bid. And now the quest was done.
71% That autumn, after we got back from Blue Horse, with this new, fully conversational Rowan, I began to think. What was the method we used exactly? How was it that so frequently, on the Horse Boy Camps, kids started communicating? Was there a teachable method here – something that could be systemized? We realized that there was.
72% Now, at New Trails, the siblings found their own wishes being fulfilled precisely because of, rather than in spite of, their brother or sister’s autism. The family dynamic changed, their relationship to the autism itself changed. And the parents could finally relax, be in a place where everyone understood, no one judged. And for their kids there was no whiff of therapy, just fun – but fun with structure, a purpose. So that was the human environment. The right environment, and everything that contributed to it, was therefore the most important factor: the foundation upon which everything else sat.
Learn more about Rupert Isaacson’s New Trails, in Elgin, TX on their website for Equine Therapy: The Horse Boy Method on https://ntls.co/equine-therapy
Reference:
Winkelman, M. (2009). Shamanism & the Origins of Spirituality & Ritual Healing; Equinox Publishing, Ltd. London SW3 5SR; V3.4, p 458-489.
End of excerpt from this eBook by Rupert Isaacson See my full Extended Book Review on website.
Thank you for reading and sharing my BLOGs. Comments are welcomed, to be viewed and answered privately. My goal is to assist families, clinicians, educators, and all people ‘autism’, to continue their journey on the Autism Highway. At the end of each website Extended Book Review, please find a source to have the whole book to read.
Regards,
Sara Luker
Paid Link Disclosure -
These Extended Book Reviews have an Amazon Link for actual book purchases. Please read this Paid Link Disclosure AKA Affiliate Links Disclosure:
Sometimes there are paid links, also known as affiliate links, used on this site. My website, www.sarasautismsite.com, is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
I may earn or receive a small paid commission from referrals for book purchases made through posts, pages, and links on this site. But I try to remain unbiased and I do not accept paid reviews. All opinions expressed here are my own.
There is no extra cost to you when purchases are made using the provided links. By using the links I provide you agree that you’ve read this paid link disclosure statement.
Thank you!
Sara Luker
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