An amazing work of photographic and poetic artistryDavid Charles Rowan MA MSc has three diagnosed autistic conditions; Asperger's Syndrome, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia and a suspected fourth, Echopraxia. For every copy of this sold, 1 will be donated to NAS - the National Autistic Society .The considered wisdom is that people with Asperger's are dissociated from emotion; Spock-like and dispassionate. One of the 'narrow interests', David is 'fixated' with, is understanding the human condition; its joys and passions, clarity and confusions. This entails exploring one's own vulnerability and emotional sensitivity; which lends itself to developing a sympathetic understanding of how life is for other people. David has an articulate mind and his writings on being an adult with Asperger's Syndrome has illuminated the experience of the condition for those who also live within the spectrum, enabling parents to also have a deeper understanding and clarity. The opening poem, An Asperger's Heart, moved one parent to write; 'I have a 3 year old with Asperger's and so this touched me deeply. I can see it in his eyes how much he wants to communicate effectively and cant. your poem made me feel like I was listening to his soul speak. thank you !!!!'Carolyn Palmer writes in the foreword: 'There is so much here to ponder and to absorb. This is a collection of pieces taking us through life, love, longing, desire, loss, joy, wonder, beauty, in fact the whole gamut of life lived on earth, among the stars, through time, and eons of birth and rebirth. It is about being different, but also the same, in that David has plumbed the depths, desires, longings, pain, wonder and joy, that so many of us feel, though few of us are able to articulate so eloquently and with such beauty.But there is more yet again ... The photographs that accompany this wonderful collection are not only completely in tune with the words they accompany, but are works of beauty in themselves.In some ways, David's work is a love song. It is a love song, to life ...'
David Charles Rowan MA MSc has three diagnosed autistic conditions; Asperger's Syndrome, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia and a suspected fourth, Echopraxia. David was not diagnosed with any Autistic Spectrum conditions until he was forty, which meant his young life, growing up as a child carer with a disabled mother, unable to understand himself or the world around him, was bewildering and often frightening. Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a need to understand life, he took his first steps into reading psychology at the age of thirteen but found it rather dry and took a Pagan path instead; studying esoteric philosophies and finding a model of human understanding in the ancient art of Astrology. Being an undiagnosed autistic child carer was a challenge made lighter by a love of music. The 'do it yourself' philosophy of the Punk explosion in the 1970s created a cultural sense of permission and David taught himself to play guitar, spending his early twenties in bands that were fun, if not successful. By the time he was thirty David had grasped the complexity of Astrology and how to use the map of symbols as a means to understanding the dynamics of a person's psyche. Realising he also needed a therapeutic skill, David trained in a second discipline MAP: Modern Applied Psychology, a synthesis of Hypnotherapy, NLP and Psychobiology in 1993. He began teaching Astrology in 1991, and also teaching MAP in 1994. In 2002 he was among the first six people in the world to be awarded the Master of Arts in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and took a second masters degree in 2008 in Psycho-Social Studies, for which he was awarded Master of Science with distinction. David continues to practice and teach Astrology online and MAP, and music continues to flow from him. For a quarter of a century David has explored the human condition with students and clients and since 2008 has shared some of these insights in the social media realm of Facebook, often in the forms of poetry and photography. This book is a collection of poems reaching back to the early 1980s to the present day and illustrated by David's photography. In both words and images it is life viewed through one autistic lens.
