Musings from the Towpath: An Autistic Journey of Spiritual Awakening

By David Allan

This is about my journey navigating through life masking childhood trauma and addiction as well as the

challenges of being on the spectrum

I was struck by lightening in 1968 aged 7 and feel sure that had some impact on my neurology contributing to who I

am

Following my path that attempts to face my issues and looking for ways to return to health through various healing

modalities and spiritual search to discover who I truly am

After a decade of living and working in different communities working and traveling doing a wide range of occupations

including voluntary work and care work amongst many others

My search took me to the Findhorn Community in the Northeast of Scotland after a series of difficult personal events in

my mid 20s that changed my life and began my search

I took up running age 46 then Ultramarathon running as a therapeutic response to my addictions and competed in the

UKs longest Ultramarathons

The journey takes us through my own health challenges exploring ways of healing my deep rooted ancestral

patterns and allowing my creative expression in a wide range of craft and music and physical pursuits like yoga and

Ultra running

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press UK
• Release date: Jun 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9781982288730

Book preview

Copyright © 2024 David Allan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-8874-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-8873-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024909032

Balboa Press rev. date: 06/04/2024

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Introduction

This book can be like a meditation

This is my gift to you

Hello

My name is David Allan

Letter to the wise

I am passionate about health and well being

To get the sticky bits out the way first to create spaciousness

Deep breath

This has been a long time coming

I am not into labels unless helpful for diagnostic purposes which can contribute

towards people getting the help they need

I have a type of Autism or as is more commonly called neurodiversity

I understand there are many of us on the spectrum to varying degrees

I say this not to engender a sympathy response

and truth be told I have struggled many times for many reasons due to the challenges of

being human many of which we share

Somehow I have picked myself up

dusted down and carried on

Again and again and again

On the contrary for me it is a gift

I have a story to tell about many things

One significant event that I am convinced is a major contribution to my neurology

happened when I was 7 years old in 1968

I was caught in a storm running home from school

Lightning hit my school satchel which I was using to cover my head to protect myself

from the rain

I saw a massive flash of light which I felt on my head and the impact of that I can

still feel in my head and body today

Breathe

In a way there is no beginning and no end

I seek only to express my journey so that it may help others

It is difficult for any human to manage in the world

All of us go into someone training

To become someone or somebody

To create a persona

A role or many roles

It is what we do

It is a way of building an identity

So we feel we belong

Everyone does it

We get training in it

We become masters at it

At some point it serves us no longer

Crisis

Usually there is a crisis

The crisis forces a response

The organism responds

The crisis comes in many forms

Illness

Bereavement

An accident

An injury of some kind

Trauma

Abuse

Drug use

Psychosis

Psychedelic use

Near death experience

Existential crisis

I have experienced all of these

That crisis or dark night of the soul is the systems method of bringing our attention to

our mortality creating a reaction

It seems like the system is not coping because of the reaction

Reaction

The reaction is a sign that something needs addressed

Addressing this is the curriculum

The curriculum is life itself

Life offers up opportunities and lessons

Opportunities for healing

Understanding challenges

Challenges that we intuitively avoid

Due to grasping or aversion

As in the Buddhist tradition

The very things we wish to avoid are an opportunity for healing

The third Chinese Patriarch of Zen says in the first few lines

The Great Way is difficult for those who have no preferences

When love and hate are both absent

Everything becomes clear and undisguised

Make the smallest distinction however

And heaven and earth are set infinitely apart

If you wish to see the truth

Then hold no opinions for or against anything

Take a deep breath

My book will be in this format

It may seem strange to others but that is ok

This is how it must be for me

Removing all full stops and commas and quotation marks

allows the reader to place in their mind the mental pause unique to them

Other than being suggested at a given point

My feeling is the full stop or comma or any abbreviation marks may interrupt the flow

I experience this as a mental stutter

It is very subtle maybe too subtle to have been thought of before

I hope this helps some of you

Pause

Much like the pause in music that has a a space between the notes

This space may be different for each of us

Depending on what we hear from the last note or sound or word

And where or when we anticipate the next note or sound to be

These gaps or pauses in music are as important as the notes

This pause or gap is where the creative part of the mind can be found

Simplification of words and sentence structure

Example sentence

If the correct diagnosis of a condition can lead to the patient receiving help then

that’s a good thing

Can become or reduced to

Correct diagnosis can help

18 words 1 comma 1 full stop reduced to 4 words

I find this very helpful

Much more concise

It is also more aesthetically pleasing allowing spaciousness between the lines to

assimilate the information and just relax

Pause and Breathe

Musings

As part of my return to health and after decades of smoking and drug and cannabis use

which was a way of self medicating and managing my mental health issues I decided to

stop the day after I met my girlfriend and now wife Esther

I had been trying for years to stop but there was something about her and the exchange

of energy between us that allowed me to stop

I have had a few wobbles since then but my other practices are a great help should the

day to day stresses of life kick in

I was 42 and my wife was 25 when we met and now we have our beautiful daughter Jessica

We have been together for almost 21 years through thick and thin and we allow each

other to grow individually as well as being on a journey independently and together

I have four beautiful children from previous relationships who are finding their place in

the world and three wonderful grandchildren

Movement is grounding

As part of my return to health I started running

This was just a couple of months before my 46th birthday

I live next to the Forth and Clyde Canal so began to run most days along the canal

towpath

I loved the