SPIRITUAL HEALERS
Parents travel world to find autism help for boy, 5
October 17, 2009
Diane Flacks
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
"I broke all the rules. I had to," Rupert Isaacson writes in his book, The Horse Boy.
It's the story of how Rupert, a Texas-based travel writer, and his wife, Kristin, a child psychologist, went to the ends of the Earth for Rowan, their autistic son.
Literally the ends of the Earth – Upper Mongolia and Siberia.
Isaacson also wrote about it and filmed it, warts and all, providing a new lens through which to view autism and parenting in general. His documentary, The Horse Boy, opens in Toronto on Oct. 23.
"It's in the mammalian genetics to do everything you can for your child," Isaacson explains via email from his whirlwind book and film tour.
When he was about 18 months old, the Rowan began slipping away. Although Rowan made eye contact and would enjoy hugs, after another 12 months the signs of autism were clear: repetitive motion, loss of words, lack of interest in other people. Rowan also had wild, "demonic" tantrums that Isaacson describes in his book as being half agony and half rage.
The Isaacsons began a journey into the world of parenting a "special needs" child. In his book, Isaacson plainly articulates their grief, fear, and nights of dread. How did this happen? Are we helping or hurting him? Who will care for Rowan when we die?
One connection Rowan made consistently was with animals. Specifically, horses. Lying on a horse's back was one of the few places the boy was at peace.
Isaacson had a crazy idea. He had heard about a place in Mongolia, where wild horses originated. Legends ascribed healing powers to these horses and the shamans who lived with them. His child was calmed by horses. What if he took Rowan to the place it all began, to the people who had a deep and ancient connection to animals? Could they help?
The hope was not to cure Rowan – "autism was a part of his essence," Isaacson writes in his book – but to relieve some of the isolating behaviours: tantrums, hyperactivity, incontinence, total disconnection from peers.
As a veteran journalist, Isaacson did his research first. "We just emailed every expert we could think of."
He met with renowned autism expert Temple Grandin, author and professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. While Grandin, an autist herself, did not endorse the healing potential of shamanic ritual, she did say that the worst thing you can do for an autistic child is nothing.
In his email, Isaacson says parents of other autistic children reinforced this view. "They told us to follow our hearts and to go where Rowan's interests led us."
Ultimately, that meant a three-week family excursion into the wilds of Mongolia on horseback. Financing for the trip came from a book advance.
Amid the indescribably beautiful landscapes, there were the inevitable dark moments of conflict within the family. Rowan, at 5, reacted to any change in environment with what Isaacson calls in his book "neurological firestorms." They coped with rickety planes, bogs, injuries and rainstorms. They met with with shamans who drummed and whipped them while chanting incantations. They drank fermented milk-based alcohol in warm teepees in the dead of night.
And camera crew captured it all.
By the end of the resulting film and Isaacson's book, Rowan briefly meets the final shaman, an enigmatic and silent old man named Ghoste who lives with reindeer herders in Siberia. He promises that Rowan will start to heal within two days and states that his parents need to continue this work with shamans every three years.
Rowan's response to this healing is as unexpected as the rest of the film and book (which I won't spoil by printing here).
Isaacson tells me that, this past year, as Ghoste insisted, they went to Namibia to work with shamans.
"Rowan loved it there....And the healings were beautiful," Isaacson writes. "He fell asleep in our arms during the trance dances."
After this experience, "math, even fractions, just started bubbling out of him."
Recently, they took Rowan to Australia to a healer of the Yalanji people in the Daintree rainforest and plan to visit First Nations healers next.
In between travels, Isaacson has started the New Trails Centre near his home in Texas (www.horseboy foundation.org) where kids with special needs can explore the world of animals, from horses to reptiles.
"We also started running camps that recreate, to some degree, the Mongolia experience – living under canvas, horses picketed nearby, something of a journey every day."
Rowan now attends regular school, makes social connections, rides daily and has a fascination for elephants.
"His interest in and zest for nature and adventure just keep growing."
And Rowan's interests have, unexpectedly, become an all-consuming passion for his father, who says, "I feel honoured to be able to spend my life exploring this unique universe."
Rowan is aware of the film, although uninterested in the hubbub surrounding it.
"He was very much a part of the editing of The Horse Boy.... He enjoyed reliving his experience. Many therapists do use video as a way to help teach children perspective and social skills."
Isaacson's epic will resonate even if you don't have special needs children and your experience of wildlife extends from your TV remote to the Discovery Channel.
As Isaacson puts it, "Most parents go to Mongolia and back in their own living rooms dealing with the stresses and challenges of daily life."
Fortunately, by taking us unflinchingly through every visceral, breathtaking and painful moment of his family's journey, Isaacson serves to bring autism into the light, burning off residual shame surrounding it.
At one point in The Horse Boy, Kristin articulates that one gift of Rowan's autism is his egoless, almost Buddhist, acceptance of and compassion for himself. Rowan experiences suffering and then moves on – instead of carrying it and weaving it into his identity through life.
Isaacson elaborates in his email: "Once the dysfunctions that accompany it can be addressed, this way of being that we call autism is tied up with so many gifts: extreme ability to focus, lack of social anxiety, lack of ego, quirky humour and massive specialist talents."
One of them may be filmmaking.
"Rowan is emerging as a storyteller. I hope the next book and film will be a collaboration with him. I'm really looking forward to that."
Diane Flacks is a writer/actor/author
living in Toronto. dianeflacks.com.
Toronto Star