The Horse Boy

"The Horse Boy" by Rupert Isaacson

This book is a true story about a dad with an autistic son who goes to great lengths to find help and healing for him.  All the conventional therapies were not helping his son, really only making him more frustrated and reclusive.  Nature seemed to help Rowan relax the most.  One day when Rowen was taking a walk with his dad they came upon the neighbors horse and it was clear there was an instant connection.  Rupert, the dad, was a horseman himself and decided to see what would happen if Rowan was to ride with him.  It transformed Rowen.  So Rupert decided to take his son on a journey to visit the first horse people and to visit ancient shamans.  A shaman is a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, especially among certain tribal peoples.  Rupert was desperate for his son to be healed.  He took his son and literally traveled to the ends of the earth, to Siberia and Mongolia.  I certainly don't believe in spirits but I am in awe of this father's love and his willingness to do whatever it took to find healing for his son.  The story will amaze and shock you.  "Sometimes you need what's familiar to help you face what isn't."  True isn't it?  Even in an unfamiliar place if we have just one thing from home we can be ok.  "But to see a landscape that has changed not one whit from the way it looked when it came out of God's hands, that is a rare thing."  What beauty, what awe inspiring beauty.  They traveled to lands that have not been touched and it was breathtaking.  "We seemed to be pushing our planet, ourselves, further and further into ill health, unable to stop whether we wanted to or not."  I think we can stop, one small step at a time.  We can each do something, recycle, reuse, buy less, plant gardens.  We can all do something.  "All that cannot be explained by the rational is cast out as heresy.  Yet so much of our lives is governed by things we cannot hope to quantify in rational or scientific terms.  Like love, for instance.  Everybody experiences it, craves it, requires it for his or her very existence, knows it's there.  But no one can explain it, break it down into physics and chemistry."  Sometimes there just is no explanation.  Sometimes we just have to believe.