Koan:  “A paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment.”

What I have come to realize from my experiences with Jacob, my godson, is that with a profoundly autistic child, there are no maps.  Jacob is a paradox.  He is my koan – a puzzle to be meditated upon, and one that is teaching me to abandon my dependence upon any system of analysis or interpretation or reason – any efforting or trying to figure things out.

That does not mean that I have given up trying to connect with him.  Just that looking at Jacob through any single lens, or any configuration of systems  -Laban Movement Analysis, Kestenberg movement profiling, Body-Mind Centering, somatic or dance movement therapy does very little to solve the riddle.  They are like maps that I try to lay over an essentially unknowable terrain.

What I have discovered is the beauty of simple witnessing.  Not because Jacob found it delightful or even meaningful in any way, but because the practice of witnessing shifted me out of my problem solving mind into an expansive, soft, presence  – witnessing him and at the same time aware of my own inner witness.  In my heart, I believe that Jacob feels that expansive allowing.  However, even as I say that, I release that belief or hope.  Because I truly do not know what he feels, what he understands, what has meaning for him and what does not.

I do know that my love for him and my joy in simply being with him are constant.  That I know.