Prologue
An early morning mist varnished
the weeping vineyards and the tops of our heads. An
orange sun crept over the hillside, drawing the first
beads of sweat from our foreheads. We were together,
Suzi and I, listening to our pounding feet tap out
their own heartbeats on the macadam road; each morning
engaged in the ritual of our six-mile run. Though
I could sense her form fading almost a quarter mile
behind, I denied my impulse to turn, compelled by
the hypnotic momentum of my legs and by my private
race with the rising sun.
As I completed the fourth mile, I
no longer had to push, merely to control the forward
glide. This was the special part of each run, when
the landscape, my breath and my body became one, when
my vision seemed to disappear though everything remained
in view, something like the long-distance driver who
steered his car expertly over one thousand miles of
road, but barely remembered the journey. Only Suzi's
presence behind me remained vivid.
I felt kind of high and silly this
morning, joyful and humble. I could hear myself thanking
the universe for the cornfields which appeared at
the crest of the road. Thank you, I mumbled, for the
leaves and the trees, for the grass and for the gravel
beneath my feet, for the lady I love, for the children
who bring joy into our lives. I didn't feel sad, yet
my eyes filled with tears and my vision blurred. The
roadway before me suddenly flooded with the familiar
faces of people I had taught and counseled.
Then the soft, smiling eyes of young
Robertito Soto fluttered before me. "Hola! Robertito,"
I whispered. I thought of him and the special family;
once a group of strangers, who came together and journeyed
to a place none of us ever quite imagined. Yet, the
sheer physical energy needed to support our pace for
the past year and a half never dulled the sunshine
in Suzi's eyes; but it took its toll. So we had taken
the time, this time, to remove ourselves from the
hustle, to breathe mountain air, to slow the motors,
to attend to our inner thoughts.
The facts had been catalogued; thousands
of pages of notes, endless hours of tape recordings,
reams of test results, sketches of the most personal
experiences, photographs of special moments -- more
in-depth preparation than for any previous book I
had written; yet, here, running down this path, I
sensed something beyond the notations, something unstated
but definite which happened to each of us in having
touched and been touched by each other and this special
child.
I inhaled deeply and held my breath.
My mind cleared, a response to my decision to work
on the book by leaving myself open, empty, receptive
to whatever thoughts filled that vacuum.
The slapping of sneakers along the
road echoed in my ears once again. The smell of freshly
cut grass sizzled in my nostrils. Suddenly, I became
aware of a crow skirting the treetops above me. He
flew just in front of my running form, about fifteen
feet above my head. The bird matched my pace exactly.
As he glided easily forward, his head cocked beneath
his body; he seemed to watch me, something strangely
purposeful about his manner.
I turned to catch a glimpse of Suzi,
still running behind, though the distance between
us had increased. I threw my hands over my head, a
gesture she mimicked. Although I couldn't see her
face, I felt her smile.
At the point where the road dead-ends,
I cut across a recently harvested hay field. The fifth
mile completed. My legs felt lighter and lighter.
Then, the gnawing feeling of being watched returned.
The fields beside me; empty. The perimeter of a pine
forest; unoccupied. Though I focused on the grass
just ahead of me, I sensed someone, some thing. My
eyes felt drawn immediately to a cluster of trees
in the distance. On a branch, silhouetted against
the sky, stood the crow. I couldn't keep my eyes off
him.
I tracked his form, craning my head,
unwilling to look away for a moment. As I moved beneath
him, passing under the tree, he cocked his head in
that same funny manner and watched me; then, effortlessly,
he glided off the branch and flew above me. I stared
at his graceful form, never seeing the root in the
path ahead, only feeling the tip of my sneaker caught,
knowing at once that I had lost my balance. Rather
than fight the fall, I let my body go limp. My shoulder
took the initial impact as my legs tumbled over my
head; my knees bouncing against the earth as my body
rolled through the grass.
I couldn't determine whether it was
from the fall or not, but I began to feel lighthearted;
not dizzy, not out of control, just released slightly
from the pull of gravity. I considered stopping the
run, but somehow I knew to continue.
"Do you believe in miracles?"
a voice suddenly asked. My eyes darted quickly across
the fields, searching for some hidden ventriloquist.
The words were so clear, so very clear, yet not quite
spoken. "Miracles," the voiceless voice
said again, and then I knew the words had come from
within my head. I'm talking to myself again, I chuckled,
though this pronouncement sounded very third person,
rather than me speaking to me. The question hung there
... no answer, just the wind.
Little Robertito's face floated before
me again, his-blissful enigmatic visage confronting
me. "Hola!, Bears Kaufman," he said in that
wonderful, peculiar, whispering voice of his. "Hola!,
Tito," I found myself mouthing. I love that little
boy, once so inaccessible, so lost, so hidden behind
an invisible wall, Robertito tilted his head and stared
at me out of the comer of his eyes. I wanted everything
for him, everything I had ever wanted for my own son.
For all of us who worked with him, he had become a
magnet, the human forum through which we searched
and found more of our own humanity, He became a reaffirmation
of the loving and accepting lifestyle we taught-more
than a vision with specific therapeutic and educational
applications, but a trusting way to embrace ourselves
and those around us.
As I continued to run, the question
about miracles lingered. Did I, indeed, believe in
them? No. Of course not. I'm too pragmatic, too grounded.
But then I stopped myself. I reconsidered this story
and the journey of our extended family. Different
realities, oftentimes peculiar and inexplicable, punctuated
this experience. Miracles? Suzi and I had worked with
so many other supposedly "hopeless" cases;
our son, Joanna, Kevin, Teresa. Each time, the progress
defied the prognosis. I heard the word "miracle"
in regard to them and now, again, in reference to
Robertito. Was that a way for others to dismiss the
experience, minimize the evidence and deny the relevance?
Miracles happen over there, to other people. Or, as
one university professor once said, "If you cant
substantiate it by scientific factors, then it doesn't
exist" ... or, he smiled sardonically, "you
have a 'miracle' on your hands."
But we could explain it, not necessarily
in terms of logic and science, but in terms of logic
and love. We presented one human being with the most
caring, stimulating, exciting, accepting and loving
environment we could create. We tickled him, teased
him, invited him to join us. In the process, twelve
of us changed our lives, emphatically, irrevocably
in order to set the stage for ourselves and for Robertito
... and then we lived the lessons of accepting, really
accepting and trusting what this child chose to do
with our offering and what we chose to do with the
mysteries we uncovered within ourselves.
Suddenly, I felt closer to understanding
what I hadn't written in my notes. Running had always
been a special time; I felt myself letting go, high
on the rhythm of my moving limbs. I thought of Robertito's
incredible parents, Francisca and Roby, crazy and
wonderful Laura, intense and dedicated Carol, giving
and giggly Jeannie, Chella, Patti, Charlotte, Ginny
Lea; remembering when Suzi and I first created the
program, how our children became part of it; Thea
helping, Bryn, at twelve, assuming a role as teacher,
Raun, at five, leading another child out of the darkness
which had once enveloped him. We didn't just work
together, we made a special universe for ourselves,
a special extended family. While others stopped with
what was, we attempted to pursue what could be.
My eyes refocused, like a motorized
camera, whipped across the landscape; momentarily
holding freeze-frame images before my mind; scrutinizing
the components of each picture; searching. The bird
was gone.
Again I felt lighthearted, freed
from gravity. That same question blared in my ears.
"Do you believe in miracles?" I knew I hadn't
put it to rest. I initiated another conversation with
myself. If a miracle meant trying to make the impossible
possible, if it meant trusting yourself despite all
contrary evidence and trusting an experience before
you could rationally explain it ... then, yes, I guess
I did believe in miracles. The dreams, the telepathic-type
exchanges, the reversal of a physical illness and
the words from the lips of a little boy that went
beyond anything he could have possibly known defied
explanation; but those events were as much a part
of this story as a kiss or a flower. From such everyday
miracles, we, perhaps, had learned our greatest lessons.
The moment that thought occurred,
I had the sensation of being airborne, though I could
see my feet touch the ground. I kept running, only
moments away from completing the sixth mile. And then
these words danced in my head as if spoken by someone
other than me:
"Miracles happen to those who
believe in them."
A hot sensation enveloped my entire
body, then evaporated, leaving my skin and muscles
incredibly subtle and relaxed.
Within seconds, the crow reappeared,
angled in a wide, graceful curve; then pivoting to
his left on a different air current, he dove toward
me. I kept running those last years, willing to meet
him head-on; no fear, no sense of confrontation, just
respect for the flow of nature and the events that
greeted me. As he soared at me, I found myself lowering
my head. When a loud cry bellowed from the bird's
throat, I veered to the left, narrowly missing a metal
animal trap partially hidden in the grass. A second
later, only five feet in front of me, the crow changed
directions and disappeared amid the trees across a
distant field.
Separator
It used to be so hard -- to open
my door, to love each hour, to celebrate each activity,
to freely embrace those who crossed my path. It used
to be so hard to smile easily at a stranger or thank
someone for extending his hand. It used to be so hard
to see myself as powerful and powerless at the same
time.
The grueling years of psychoanalysis,
the endless graduate courses in psychology, Eastern
philosophy, Zen, the experiential seminars in Freudian,
Gestalt, Rogerian, Primal and Humanistic therapy,
the dives into hypnosis and meditation gave me some
answers, but never satisfied my appetite for wanting
more communion with myself, with the people around
me.
Later, after encountering a wonderfully
lucid and loving teacher, Suzi and I began to learn
and live what we came to call the Option Process;
this book being a classic example of the possibilities
of an Option experience. We discarded years of self-defeating
beliefs and behavior through joyfully simple direct
and illuminating dialogues -- dialogues devoid of
judgments, expectations and conditions.
From that endeavor evolved a very
special and accepting attitude: to love is to be happy
with. A friend of mine protested immediately that
such acceptance, such unconditional acceptance, breeds
impotence and an unwillingness to change what we see.
Our experience has been quite the contrary.
As we tried to live these themes
more and more each day, we felt inclined to share
them with others by teaching in small groups and on
a one-to-one basis. We continued to learn and explore.
Yet, it was only after the birth of our third child
that we realized fully that the loving and accepting
attitude we lived and taught was more than the basis
of a therapeutic approach and an educational technique,
more than even a lifestyle vision, but a gift for
us and for those we loved.
Our son, Raun Kahlil, the third little
person to be born into our lives, becomes a haunting
undercurrent in this book, not only because of his
active involvement and enigmatic insights, but also
because his own journey had become a demonstration
of possibility which affected our lives and Robertito's
life as well as others who have been confronted with
situations viewed as "depressing," "tragic"
and "hopeless." When Raun was formally diagnosed
as having a condition., considered to be the most
irreversible of the profoundly disturbed; severely
impaired developmentally, neurologically and cognitively,
Suzi and I waded through the quicksand, trying to
extract the secrets beneath the complex terms which
damned our child.
Why us? We had finally moved through
the turmoil of our first years of marriage, we had
grappled with some of the miseries and confusions
and put them to rest. We had finally begun to experience
our lives as an easy, mellow movement. Why? It was
almost as if the universe shouted out to us: "Ah
ha, so you think you have it all together, you think
you know-well, well, my friends, try this situation
on for size." Eventually, we would come to know,
through our journey with Raun and others who would
follow, that this little boy came into our midst as
an opportunity to be either diminished, saddened and
defeated by our own unhappiness or to thrive, explore
and be enriched by our encounter with this very special
human being.
By Raun's first birthday, we noticed
his growing insensitivity to sounds and voice; he
no longer responded to his name. During the following
months, this behavior became compounded by his tendency
to stare and be passive. He preferred solitary play
rather than interaction with his family. In our arms,
he dangled limply, like a rag doll, never attempting
to hold or hug. Tests, coupled by visits to doctors
and hospitals, produced no definite answers except
vague reassurance that he would outgrow his peculiar
mannerisms.
By seventeen months of age, Raun
withdrew from all human contact and slipped behind
an invisible, impenetrable wall. He spent endless
hours immersed in self-stimulating rituals; rocking,
fluttering his fingers in front of his eyes, spinning
every object he could find, finally spinning himself.
No language development. No words, no pointing gestures.
No expression of wants. He never cried for food, never
indicated he wanted to be changed or lifted from his
crib. Sometimes he appeared blind; other times, deaf.
Silent and aloof, frozen in his own aloneness.
Eventually, he was diagnosed as being
a classic case of infantile autism, traditionally
considered to be a sub-category of childhood schizophrenia,
though more recently viewed as a brain-damage situation
of indeterminate cause with profound, lifelong cognitive
and communication disabilities "Hopeless."
"Incurable." These were the underlying messages
of the literature and the professionals we consulted
throughout the country. One physician suggested institutionalization
for Raun, then barely one and a half years old.
Most of the programs we viewed were
little more than experiments. Whether based on psychoanalysis,
sensory conditioning or behavior management techniques,
the ratio of children reached was dismal, perhaps
only a few in each hundred; those successes being
defined as the child who learned to perform minimal
tasks on a primitive level.
We encountered doctors who administered
electric shock treatments with cattle prods on children
under five because some professional, teacher or parent
deemed their behavior unacceptable. Other boys and
girls were locked in portable closets without windows
as part of aversion therapy. Still others murmured
weakly, their hands and legs bound to chairs to prevent
them from rocking and flapping. Even in the most "humanistic"
programs, the therapists, despite their avowed sensitivity,
approached these children with disapproval.
We turned away, refusing to relinquish
our good feelings, refusing to extinguish the life
of this delicate and different child by placing him
behind the stone walls of some nameless institution.
We decided to create our own program based on the
philosophy of Option, grounded in a loving and accepting
attitude. Our movement would respect his dignity instead
of forcing him to conform to our ideals or behaviors.
Our awareness suggested that in terms of his present
abilities, Raun, like all of us, was doing the best
he could.
After observing him for endless hours,
cataloguing all his actions and reactions, we decided
to join our son in his world with love and acceptance,
to understand and know his universe by participating.
Our major thrust began with imitating him, not just
as a tactic or strategy, but sincerely being with
him; rocking when he rocked, spinning when he spun,
flapping when he flapped. Several physicians labeled
our efforts as tragic since we supposedly supported
our son's bad behavior. Yet for us, good and bad had
no useful meaning in our endeavor to reach this very
different little boy. We just wanted to somehow find
a way to say: "Hey, Raunchy, it's okay wherever
you are. Hey, Raun, we love you."
Both our daughters, Bryn, then seven
years old, and Thea, then four years old, participated
as loving teachers for their brother. We trained others
to help, using the principles and attitude of Option
as our tool. Piece by piece, bolt by bolt, we began
to build bridges.
Although we worked with our son for
three years, a total of almost ten thousand hours
on a one-to-one basis, within the first year, this
totally withdrawn, mute, self-stimulating, functionally
retarded, autistic and "hopeless" little
boy became a social, highly verbal, affectionate and
loving human being displaying capabilities far beyond
his years. Today, at just seven years old, he attends
a regular second grade in a regular school. More socially
and verbally sophisticated than many of his peers
and exhibiting no traces of his earlier disability,
Raun Kahlil loves life and life loves him back. In
many ways, he has been a great teacher and mover of
us all. What our son came to learn, respect and trust
in himself, we seem to have to relearn continually.
In entering our lives, Robertito Soto not only challenged
his parents and each member of the group we forged
together, but became an inscrutable mirror from which
none of us could hide. Helping him meant loving and
accepting him for who he was, not for who he might
become. But before we could accept him, we had to
first learn to face and accept ourselves ... perhaps
the most crucial yet least visible part of our journey,
without which we could not have hoped to reach this
little boy and trust his choices ... or dare to trust
our own.
Prologue
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