Self-Portrait of Samantha Craft

A self-portrait is what I see from my perspective, whether looking through a narrow hole, into another soul, or reflecting on the world.

The Observer Watches

Hurt people point fingers at hurt people.
Some pointing is masked as good deeds.
Some pointing is masked as ill-will.
Both remain pointed fingers.

The observer watches in silence. The observer works behind the scenes, building bridges and building peace. The observer does not judge the others who are not like the observer. The observer is naught.

For the observer, there is no end point. There is nothing to point at. Nothing to claim. No one to listen.

The observer knows:

How the logic mind sorts, categorizes, discovers, and declares. Thoughts and grasping of truth . . . want, need, must do.

Judgment, evaluation, and end point.

Limited perception equating to magnified confirmation bias.

Imaginary worlds.

The observer knows:

Nothing in the singular world is in the collective world.
Where WE truly meets is in the in between space. Beyond the finite.

How singular judges and why singular judges and who singular judges is interdependent on the observer and receiver.

Perception is interdependent — bouncing molecules.

No endpoint.

As singulars don’t squat on number lines. And aren’t stagnant.
All is temporary truth.

Each singular houses an internal eco-system filled with mysteries of the sea, beyond bone and blood is another bounty-filled treasure.

As good leads to bad and bad leads to good — things aren’t as they seem.

Power can be seized, when We see We as mirrors facing mirrors.

Power can be seized when We recognize ‘life’ as hypocrisy.

All truth creates separation. All words — sound formed by singular — create separation.

Once something becomes truth and separate, all outside that truth is alienated.

As one claims this ‘a box’, then what remains are ‘not-boxes.’

As one claims singular as better than, then what remains are less-than.

All words lead to boxes; all boxes leave singulars outside the box.

Rhythm and motions create knowings without words. Vibrations, sounds without meaning, are healing. Images without borders. Pictures without definers. A Mother’s heartbeat to infant.

Observer cannot claim to know any truth or any reality, without equally claiming another singular does not know the full of truth. For observer’s truth can only be observer’s truth, unless the veil of logic is peeled away.

Billions living in singular painted worlds. Each with a singular view. Which singular creation is the right one?

The observer does not have the capacity to choose and also houses the capacity to choose. The observer is a contradiction. The observer sees a singular world as contradiction. Observer can choose, but chooses not to choose. But in that choosing, he chooses.

Observer walks existence as a collective: an interdependent droplet in the massive sea. He cannot be the water rising, even if willed to be, without the body that remains. Observer can stand as a drop. if he was made to know the drop. But as Observer is the collective, he is the ocean.

Wherever there is division, there is finite. Wherever there is finite, love cannot be. As love is infinite. And one cannot slip infinity into a bottle.

Whoever is not inside a finite bottle, is excluded.

A flag that makes proclamation creates separation. It claims finite. It claims ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Right and wrong creates battles, war, destruction. No matter how right, no matter how wrong, it is division.

Love is infinite. It speaks only love. It has not bottle. It has not box. And thusly, all are invited. There is not inside, and therefore there is not outside.

Equality is in infinity.

Singulars cannot see what they are not. When they look at self they see singular. When they look down, or through, or in reflective glass: singular.

Love cannot see what it is not. When love looks, it sees whole. When it looks down, or through, or in reflective glass: union.

Love sees outside boundaries. Singular sees finite.

Love knows only love. Words are foreign. The concept of ‘me’ is foreign. Without me, singular doesn’t have to be as me, look as me, move as me, believe as me.

Love cannot expect others to believe in itself, because it cannot see belief. Love is because love is infinity.

Hate is finite.

Hate is woven from the fiber of boxes and the glass of bottles. Hate is made in a singular world.

Love is everywhere, as it is infinite. Love fills the emptiness. Love pours in where it is invited. Love fills the space about, within, and in between, in the narrow edges between lines and points.

Love is in the creases and cracks and crevices. It is fissured, stamped, emerged, broken. Love is the spaces. Love is the substance that houses the space. Love is the molecular structure within the molecular structure.

Singular knows boundaries, and time, and space. That’s why singular plants flags. That’s why singular makes boxes. That’s why singular paints itself, as it believes there are other singulars watching.

Non-singular is love. It watches the flags. It watches the boxes. It watches the paintings. But Love doesn’t try to do anything with the watching. It doesn’t think to do anything.

Love is not finite. It is outside loves realm of existence.

Love is the observer and the observer is love.

Love says: I have nothing to prove. We are.

Love sees no singular.

Samantha Craft, July 2020

He Doesn’t Say I’m Beautiful . . .

He doesn’t say I’m beautiful.

He helps me up the stairs with a gentle guiding hand.
He hurries to the room, when I call out his name, whatever room I’m in.
He comes home with surprises from the local bakery.
He wheels me through the airport and museum, even as he is uncomfortable with crowds and it hurts his arms.
He doesn’t complain.
When I say I am thinking about growing my hair out grey, he encourages it, and says he likes grey hair. When I say my hair is actually more white than grey, he says he prefers white.
When I put on a bit of makeup, he says I look nice but also look fine without it.
When I look down at my growing tummy, he says, “I like it.”
When we have a spat, he gives me space and then asks to come in, and then apologizes for his part–sometimes with handwritten letters.
He rubs my back and kisses my toes. He holds me close when I cry and have trouble falling asleep — from anxiety, pain, or fear.
He listens to my frequent nightmares, the ones from dreams and the ones from the past. He asks if I am drinking enough water, and then brings me water, in my preferred mug (the clean one that doesn’t smell bad), with water he has collected from the artesian well downtown.
He leaves his office room for ‘object permanence checks,’ as he knows if I can’t see it (him), sometimes I question if it (he) exists.
He never comments on my messy, unbrushed hair or mismatched clothes. He doesn’t readily point out when I’ve made a mistake or error . . . in words or judgment.
He finds my oddities and antics and misuse of words to be charming.
He doesn’t laugh at my ways or mock me, or shake his head in disapproval.
He gives me the space and freedom to be me.
He is proud of my efforts at home and beyond, and tells me so. He stops to look at me, I mean really look at me, and offers a kind, gentle smile.
He makes a point to tell me this is the happiest he has ever been in his life.
He doesn’t objectify me or compare me to other people.
He doesn’t offer ways I can improve myself.
He rides the waves of my hormonal outbursts.
He prays for patience and to love me the best way possible.
And he does.
He tells silly, off the wall jokes and riddles.
He dances with me in the bedroom to ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ and sings out the lyrics in a bashful voice.
He takes me to doctor appointments.
He helps shop for groceries.
He stocks the car and attic with emergency supplies.
He lends his dress shoes to my eldest son for that important interview.
He is silent and full of grace in harder times.
He is resilient and full of spunk in lighter moments.
He has introduced a genre of movies and shows that add spice to our collection. We bird watch together from balcony chairs, the ones he bought cushions for.
He refills the birdbath and worries for our feathered friends, scolding the neighbor’s cat . . . to go some other place. He says he will do something, and then he does it. He speaks the truth.
Means what he says. Says what he means. He says he’d die for me.
His hugs are tight and warm. He is a gentle giant, and my steadfast cheerleader and protector.
He doesn’t say I’m beautiful. He shows me.

Yesterday’s Labor

—

Clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance —

I’ve experienced these each since a small child. My book was a calling. A calling from my higher power. My journey here as well.

Like many a wanderer and light-seeker, my faith is shaken and challenged, often. I’ve faced a plentitude of demons — both spiritual and in human form.

It’s not uncommon for individuals who have been diagnosed with gifted intelligence or on the autism spectrum (or similar profiles) to have ‘unexplainable’ cognitive abilities. It’s not uncommon for the aforementioned to be extremely empathetic and empathic.

Some of us have a unique connection with the divine and hidden world.

Having experienced knowings my entire life, I have no doubt there is much more occurring than meets my worldly eyes.

Something I’ve learned in the eight years since my personal journey began with ‘Aspergers’ (now also recognized as ‘autism’), is that if I wait and watch, people’s true colors appear.

I’ve learned I need do little to nothing and all will unfold and be revealed.

Today, each time I’m tested, by one force of nature or another, one circumstance or another, (I now have 6 chronic pain conditions.) though the challenging circumstances typically result in the dark night of the soul — several dark nights — I’ve learned that I return from the bleakness and blackness to find my being fortified.

I return braver, and evermore determined to live by the light.

Perhaps because I’ve experienced miracles, I believe in miracles.

I am fortunate in having found inner peace with my calling.
I carry a profound sense of peace with my works and writings.
I rest my fruits of labor in my higher power’s hands. What will happen will unfold in the right place and right time. Who is meant to cross this path with me, shall.

I know without doubt that the end product, the fruits of my labor, are rooted from the soil of my intention. When intention is rooted in connection, love, and service, the fruits undoubtedly demonstrate their origin.

Today, I stand on the foundation of my past behaviors and actions. I stand with integrity. There is no closet housing a dark secret or shameful act. No hidden agenda to expose. No eagerness for ‘followers’ or eagerness to be heard, or right, or loved, or accepted. Only a calm knowing all is.

All I need do is observe. To watch what is attracted to each of the flowering fruits. To recognize not all fruits are nourished in righteous soil. Not all are watered in grace.

I steer clear of the fruit that attracts the maggots and flies.

I choose adamantly to bask under the shade of the fruit blessed in butterflies and hummingbirds.

I watch and observe my present words and actions. For what I sew in yesterday’s labors, becomes the future path I walk upon.

~ Samantha Craft, June 2020

Subjectivation: The Castle’s Keeper

Subjectivation: The Castle’s Keeper

In the act of identifying as outside the norm, or in presenting outwardly with attributes which fall under the encompassing label of anomaly, one is thusly distinguished by self and society as an outcast.

Cast away from the middle ground, removed and divided from the dot that hovers on the center of number line– the heart of box, the eye of needle–one becomes adrift in a land of make believe constructs.

Broken truths, as yoke from egg, fall as they may; the sun of knowledge blinding the eyes from beyond. Beyond what is, removed. Beyond what is, replaced. Beyond, existing still in another time and place, forgotten and lingering on the threshold of reasoning. A waiting watchman set upon a hill of misty sky.

Society, as too a construct, dictates limiting and finite truths based on anomalies in perceived character. An interdependent system of preordained order that creates something of nothing, collecting assumed data as input, to produce a tangible interdependent product of conclusion.

Thoughts built upon thoughts. Castles in the sky illuminating bricks layered upon bricks of a builder’s wants and truths.

Even as the watchtower keeper rises, his naked eye upon the many, parading his power and dominating might, the causation blossoms. It’s blooms as dark petals penetrating what was in a place of no end, nor beginning.

As a bonafide noun and as a moving verb of action, the keeper himself, who houses his truths, in baskets woven by weaver same, cannot exist as a singular, without observing below. His careful watching a method for collecting truths and making sense of senses. A complicated matter, as even the senses were once eradicated from the mist, gathered in safekeeping to make sense of what seemed of something.

Interdependent is the onlooker, whether glancing in the clear lake or within the walls of decorated turret.

One, in himself, split he wanders; footsteps marching, pounding through the differences within and without.

Within, erupts comparison to aspects of other parts of self. In how fingers move to become separate from hand, as the heart from the mind. Likewise, spirit from soul, life force from nature.

Nighttime fails, and he, the one, divides and divides into separateness, not as an organic substance, of blood and pulse, but one moving in way in which the outside orchestra is silenced.

A singular onlooker, the outer world wiped clean, what is recognized, other than wholeness, other than a new one: undone, unraveled, re-birthed.

His mind drifts and a voice enters:

“As the baby is of all, undistinguished, as is man, though he knows not of this. By nature we take from what has been seen and create that which is unseen, illusions twisted into fabrics of causation that speak of a forbidden truth of naught.

A twisted, again, labyrinth of makeshift corners and caravans, marauding living forest of unknown potential. A potential to mask the substantial of what is, to procreate what has come before.

We are neither here nor there, but bound to the evidence set forth above and below us, as even the ground and sky become tangible in their blundered separation. How the blue that is not blue, divides the sky that is not sky, from the earth that is not ground.

And still, we seek this separation to makes sense of what is naught. Keying the inlet of mind with a cause for opening, as fish spawning in river too cold. What is birthed is naught, as creation is numbed in the shivering-blind.”

Opens the eyes, the keeper, if such word as ‘eyes’ existed. If such word as ‘words’ survived; if either ‘existed’ was scribed. For if person existed to scribe, with instrument to hold, and hands to grasp, had he grasped for the end, recognizing no beginning, recognizing his recognition was not of him?

A some semblance of a once someone drifted. Neither here nor there, in being, but in believing he be, and believing he believe.

For who is the one who believes?

Said I, “I am I.”

Said I, “I am.”

Irradiate the one (of I), irradiate the all of illusion.

Irradiate the illusion of more than one, irradiate the separation, the norm, the typical.

For it is not this ‘them’ that breeds and dictates isolation and destruction and ill-ways, but the belief of the belief.

For when all is erased, as pounding wave to sand, what remains out of sight, are the intricate makings of mountains crumbled, smoothed over by the ages of time within time. A barrier to existing within existing.

And how can this gentle mind of man, this watchtower keeper remain nimble, yet taught? Centered, yet swinging? A spectrum concaving into the unbearable light.

And though he be the mountains still, and the very sand beheld. There is nothing of nothing. No words in his tale, as the very breath that is blown, becomes wind to cast sail to sea drifting in existing, unseen.

The wandering keeper, stepping: a dream within a dream.

His castle, shifted.

The bricklayer, the valley, the very bricks, merged.

The one who watched becoming the one watching. The one who waited becoming the one who arrived.

Samantha Craft, June 2020

Other blogs: https://everydayaspie.wordpress.com/ https://everydayaspergers.com/

A flashback post from this blog on FEAR: https://bellyofastar.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/the-map-of-fear-and-the-indicators-of-truth/

I Feel You

 

I Feel You

I feel you, a surging river, effervescent bubbles tickling my soul.

I feel you ‘rounding, serpent tail, intertwining thoughts.

I feel you resting, head buried in the rhythm of my heart.

I feel you catching, with ears open, notes of knowing, to listen once more.

I feel you hunting, the traced outer regions, where earth meets spirit.

I feel you looking, into the sunshine, in the splintered dark.

I feel you etching, into someone new, a rebirthing of flames, one from two.

I feel you maneuvering, my pages, thankful recognition.

I feel you touching, in the center of my being, tap dancing in step to music.

I feel you entering, one foot in, propelled, and then cautioned to return.

I feel you fearing, a warrior, wrapped in misgivings, the cons of journey.

I feel you tiptoeing, kisses to forehead, tips to spine.

I fell you questioning, to delve in full force, no holds barred, unable to stop.

I feel you ricocheting, joyfulness unraveled, recognized friend.

I feel you emptying, giver to giver, the silver streams of who you are.

I feel you pounding, my threshold awaiting, as the clocks turn back tomorrow.

I feel you plunging, as steer to doe, nature’s slave, populating passion.

I feel you spinning,  my hand in yours, lost on merry-go-round.

I feel you plummeting, a skydiver bouncing, through heaven’s clouds.

I feel you returning, to sheltered harbor, a sailor no longer sworn to sea.

I feel you moving, inside and out, everywhere I gather, justly spread out whole.

I feel you guiding, these words as maker, lessons in the drum of holiness.

I feel you beating, an undeniable rhythm, a captive to ecstasy, a pain like no other.

I feel you living, right where I scribe, moving my fingers, as weaver to loom.

I feel you echoing, reading these words aloud, edging your way into love.

Samantha Craft, 6.9.19

I am not just kind

I am not just kind
I am aware
I am aware of my thoughts, my motives, my inclinations
My doubts, my worries, my fears
My loves
My woes
My struggles
My hopes
I am not just kind
I am open
I am open to my frailties, my flaws, my imperfections
I am open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and experiencing
I am open to radical change
In myself, in the world, in another
I am not just kind
I am wild
I am wildly compassionate, a fierce defender of the voiceless
A reckoning to the lonely, a chasm to the fear bound
I am wild in my imaginings, creation, connections
My loves
My woes
My struggles
My hopes
I am not just kind
I am strong
I am powerful in my convictions
I am powerful in my abilities
I am powerful in my attitude
I am strong in what I choose to take in, and in what I choose
To leave behind
I am strong in my determination to be the best I know to be
In my realization that I am enough
And that we are enough
I am not just kind
I am finely tuned
I am tuned with the precision of decades of introspection
I am tuned with eons of acceptance
I am tuned with the grace of self-dignity
My adobe is the musical reef
My loves
My woes
My struggle
My hopes
I am not just kind
I am a fortune
I am a boundless treasure, transmuted from the darkness
Upheld from the dungeon reserves
A fortune to be found and returned
To that which is
My loves
My woes
My struggle
My hopes
I am not just kind

Samantha Craft, December 2016

Kindness, Intention, & Respect

Kindness, Intention, & Respect

I treat people, no matter their age, creed, beliefs, values, economic status, celebrity status, political stance, the same, regardless. I accept people at face value.

I am not easily offended.

I respect others and they respect back.

I try my best not to take things personally, and if I do, I step back and analyze what is in myself that makes me fear.

I have no need to prove.

I accept others have bad days.

I recognize the energy I put out there is reciprocated.

I attract kind people and open-minded people.

I believe most people have good intentions at heart.

When something doesn’t sit right, I say “thanks, but no thanks.”

I respect and accept those who are expressing anger.

There comes a time to let anger go in order not to breed further separation.

I appreciate others looking out for others.

I try my best not to participate in gossip.

By nature, I don’t choose sides.

I recognize I can do my works by staying true to my nature.

What I bring up from the roots directly reflects my intentions.

My intentions are not for self and self-alone.

My roots drink from a space of emptiness—a nurturing fortitude of love and service.

My roots drink from a place of absorbing and sharing knowledge.

I radiate kindness, because at the root of me I have others at heart.

People are drawn to what they innately are.

My life is filled with kindred souls who are open-minded, accepting, and honest.

They respect my fruits because they sense my intention.

By following my heart and calling, I have created a life full of richness.

People need to be seen, heard, and believed.

When I am an equal student, I am the very best of who I am.

I am in a state of neutrality and logic or a state of loving grace.

I recognize my opinions change over time and that nothing I do or say is stagnant.

There is a force that lives through me that urges, even pushes, me to love.

 

Everyday Aspergers Book on Amazon

About the author of this article: Samantha Craft is the author of Everyday Aspergers. Ten Years in the making, Craft’s book is receiving positive reviews and support from professionals in the field of autism and autistic individuals. Craft is in touch with thousands of autistic individuals throughout the world. Her book is available on Amazon in soft back and as worldwide e-book in many countries.

Autism Angel

I was trying to represent an angel. I ended up tearing up napkins to create her. It represents all the people I have meet that are on the autism spectrum.