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I just finished reading an amazing book, The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson.  The book is the telling of the real life experience of one family’s journey to Mongolia, across the steppe on horseback, up mountains into the forests of Siberia, to find healing.

This family, Rupert, Kristen and their soon to be 5 year old autistic son, Rowan took the journey of a lifetime…together.  The outward journey in and of itself is a mystery to behold.

For me, the real journey lies in the commitment Rupert had to his inner guidance and the commitment Kristen had to believing in Rupert’s seeming insanity around making this trip to Mongolia with their very young, very autistic child.  Kristen’s knowing was that trusting her beloved husband’s knowing was enough…the rest would work itself out.

Are you saying YES! to your journey?

The story wraps itself around the travels on horseback in extreme conditions, meeting shamans, and eventually *the* shaman who brings healing to Rowan’s continuous bouts of tantrum, incontinence (imagine the worst), and seeming inability to relate with the world of humanity around him.  All of this birthed from Rupert’s desire to connect with his son and his observations of Rowan’s clear, deep connection with horses.  Rupert, having grown up with horses, knows the power of their presence and the deep wisdom that abides there.  On a whim, he introduces Rowan to horses, first Betsy…and in that introduction their lives would be forever changed, the journey of their lifetime was born…and so it unfolded.

Rupert’s telling of the story reads like a brilliant adventure novel.  At many points it’s hard to imagine that this telling is truth–reality experience, and not fiction.  I don’t know many people who’ve lived a story like this.  And yet, this family has.

As the father of an autistic child, Rupert’s heart is huge.  He wants what any parent wants.

• He wants the very best life for his son.
• He wants his son to know love, to experience life and all it’s blessings.
• He wants to know his son.
• He wants his son to know him.

These very things that many of us fleetingly take for granted; Rupert can’t.  He needs a bridge to Rowan’s world; he’s seemingly separated from his son’s experience…and he wants a road in.  With horses and his intuition he finds the road and follows it.

For me, the most important pieces of this story that changed the course of this family’s life forever were not the ones that took them journeying to far-reaching corners of the earth, through challenging adversities that most would never even fathom, much less say realistically consider.  Instead, I believe the most important pieces of were the ones that let them know that listening to their inner guidance, their inner-most truths and following *that* journey of discovery with themselves and each other is what created the ‘healing’ that Rupert lovingly sought for his son.

The Road to Our Joy of Brilliance

And was it healing?  Or was it the continuous path to heightened awareness and alignment that drew them all into the space of coherence and understanding.  The place where they met their autistic son Rowan for the first time and where Rowan could comfortably and brilliantly present the wholeness of himself to his parents and the world.

When we commit to our deepest knowing and allow that to set the course for the unfolding of our JOY of Brilliance, the most immensely beautiful expression of that which we are born to be, we are FREE.  In this space, the world opens up to us and not only anything is possible…EVERYthing is possible.

Did Rupert, Kristen and Rowan need to take the physical journey across the world to meet their destiny?  Maybe.  Because for them, it was the (their) way.  And it was perfect.  For them, in their timing…in the brilliance of their being-ness.

Rupert is a human rights activist/journalist.  Kristen, a psychology professor.  Rowan, a child of autism…whose world becomes open to all when he is in nature, with animals he loves.  In this world, he experiences relationships that are untethered, in grace and ease, filled with mutual knowing, trust, respect and connection.  In this world, he is set free and his world makes sense in relationship to the world around him.

Does this mean we all need to physically journey in this way to find our true nature, our Joy of Brilliance?  Of course not.  …only if our hearts are calling us to do so.

When something calls us, from the inside…calls us so strong that our hearts leap in anticipation, wonder and joy, that’s when we do best to respond with a resounding YES! and allow life to show us the magnificence it has in store.

Riding on horseback across the steppe in Mongolia is one way.  There are many.  The path to our Joy of Brilliance is unique to each of us.  It’s not hard to find.  The map is well laid within us.  The key is easy to read.  Our only challenge may be to step up and say YES!

• Do you have a sense that there’s more to life, more to your life, than you’re currently living?

• Do you know that it may be as easy as choosing JOY in as many moments as possible?

• What would it look like if you really listened, gave attention to, honored your heart’s desires?

• What would it look like if you said YES! to one deep burning desire each day that you’ve been turning a deaf ear or a blind eye to?

• What kind of a difference might that make in your experience?

• What would that difference, a difference that feels really, really good, be worth?

YOU ARE WORTH IT!

If there’s one thing Rupert and Kristen know now, at the end of their journey (which is never an end…only another new beginning) it’s that they wouldn’t trade it for the world.  Their journey gave them the fullness of their lives.  It gave them their son, in a way they didn’t know was possible.
It gave each of them a more brilliant, JOYful, awake, aware, alive version of themselves.  Who could ask for more?

What aspect of your journey will you say YES! to today?

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