Tuesday, February 20, 2007

because it is that important

This is not the post I intended for today.
I was working on a knitting post this morning. I was uploading photos and took a break to sip tea and read some other people's blogs.
That's when I ran across something else that is going to have my head cracking wide open for quite some time. So I need to share it.

* Please watch the video clip that I will link to below.
* Please watch it ALL the way through, even if the first part seems challenging for you. In the second portion of the video, the author will offer an english translation for you, and it is a message worth waiting for.
* Please watch this if you interact with (or have wondered how to react to) people with autism or other cognitive disabilities.
*Please watch this if you engage in a psychological or spiritual practice that involves any sort of immersion method for connecting with all that is happening in the world around you.
* Please watch this if you create dance, music, art.

Thank you.
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The video: In My Language

What the creator of this work offers as a description: The first part is in my "native language," and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.

Found via: The Rolling Rains Report (click through for other thoughts and links)
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It must be the dancer/performer/artist in me, but I'd rather you guys just watch this, process it, and allow it to affect you in whatever way it does...as opposed to my offering my own conclusions.

I will say that it has moved me tremendously.
I will say that it definitely will have impact in my own dancing, and in the dancing I do with people with cognitive disabilities.
And I will say that I now want to figure out who in Radiohead is autistic ;-)

5 comments:

~Donna~ said...

Very powerful. It moved me in many ways - as a performer, as a Mom, and as an artist.

Thanks.

Carrie said...

Wow, that video was amazing. My husband and I were astounded and humbled. We know many autistic people, and will view their actions completely differently now. We've been told that they don't know what's going on around them or are over-stimulated, but I have been completely stopped in that train of thought now. Very Awesome, thank you for showing it. You have a wide variety of interests to share, which I enjoy very much.

Anonymous said...

"Please watch this if you engage in a psychological or spiritual practice that involves any sort of immersion method for connecting with all that is happening in the world around you."

Yes, thank you. That is a very good bit of advice. If I may, I will steal it and "retrofit" it into my post.

Scott

Tracy Batchelder said...

Thought provoking and eye opening.

Becky in Iowa :O) said...

I finally got a chance to use my mom's cable connection to watch the video. I sat and just bawled. I really don't think I'll look at people the same way again.