“When I take hold of your son’s body and brain, it is best that you remain calm. It can be unnerving, even scary, to see the effects of my tempest: eyeballs rolled upwards, arms and legs shaking violently, drool running down the side of his mouth. You have described my sudden arrival, as if someone has hit David from behind, thrusting him to the ground head first. Bumps, bruises and stitches are evidence of my attacks, scarring his otherwise perfectly chiseled features. But can you consider that my repeated assaults are benevolent?
I know you’d like nothing more than to get rid of me and never see my presence ever again. I watched as you brought David to specialists and healers across the globe; as you experimented on his body with drugs, diets, herbs, energy work, and allowed his brain to be opened, sliced, studied and resected in the hopes of cutting me out. Have you ever thought that maybe I don’t reside in his brain? Have you ever considered that I am a visitor from beyond, bringing with me something more than the physical trauma you see?
I come bearing a message: There is more to the experience of life than can be comprehended solely from your human perspective. You see, it’s not that you just haven’t found the right intervention to stop my assaults. It’s not that neuroscience researchers just haven’t figured out my mechanisms and how to stop them. In fact, those things might come to pass one day.
What David and you are experiencing is a much bigger story, one that is playing out in ripples that extend so far you’ll never know the full effects. You live in a sea of interactions, just like the underwater life of the oceans. You float on and are affected by currents you cannot see. I am merely an instigator, stirring up the waters. Your role in this ocean-like story is to ride the waves with the purest of intentions, responding to the moment as needed, while trusting in the evolving flow of life.
There is omniscient intelligence weaving through the progression of birth, death, and all the experiences between and beyond. You cannot fully know its wisdom with your mind, yet you can see and sense it by opening your heart and expanding your awareness. It is guiding the evolution of your soul toward greater expressions of love, compassion and joy. Each time I grab hold of your son’s body, you are being given an opportunity for such growth.
I have witnessed you react to me with fear, frustration, even rage. These emotions are not bad or wrong, indeed they are natural. Yet when I take hold of your son again and again, year after year, you have the choice to continue reacting in this way, sending ripples of distress into the sea of interactions, or you can choose another response. My appearances are an invitation for you to be present with your son without judgment of what is occurring; to let go of good or bad, right or wrong, and instead simply be present with what is. They are opportunities to open your heart and trust the intelligence I speak of.
I am not suggesting you do not take action when it is needed. When I am pulsing through your son, use the strength of your body to support him, the tenderness of your heart to hold him in loving presence, and the discernment of your mind to know what measures might need to be taken. Act with the passion of a mother, the strength of a warrior, and the calm of a Buddha.
Know that my fury will end, that everything changes and settles with time. Know that life is a process of challenges and opportunities, constrictions and expansions. Know that you are enriched by having this young man as your son; that your part in his experience is a gateway to a more profound engagement with life itself.
You have wanted to know the reason why I continue to be a force in David’s life and yours. Did you ever consider that each encounter with me is David’s way of waking you up over and over again? Don’t you see that he is preventing you from living a life that is on autopilot, a life that doesn’t ask the big questions and seek the big answers? David’s incessant experiences with me and the resulting demands on your time and energy have forced you to pay attention to your own need for self-care, self-love and compassion. Twenty-eight years of this has led you to find joy in the most mundane of acts of getting your son dressed, cleaning his body, and simply sitting with him when there is nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Perhaps you could see my fierceness as a powerful reminder that life can be confusing, exhausting, frustrating, and challenging; and yet, all that comes to a lull, again and again, just as I do, and then there is calm. The next time I pay a visit, remember all I’ve come to share with you. Remember the love, the joy and the calm that will inevitably appear, as if they were always present. Because they are."