Cosmic Particles Blog

This week you will be meeting a speech pathologist, JoQueta, who I met when Weston was about four years old. JoQueta is a wonderful person and the first therapist who I felt could see beyond the labels. She has such a way with children it is almost unbelievable. My friends and I smile and say that she is like Mary Poppins…everything is better when she is around. She sees the potential in all children, and it is a privilege to call her my friend. Weston loves her.

One time, my sister Carmen, who you will hear about in an upcoming newsletter, was “working” on her (i.e., clearing her energetic field). Of course, Weston showed up in the subconscious plane (where all of this takes place) to observe Carmen at work. He actually brought JoQueta to Carmen. Carmen told me that she was so moved by how lovingly Weston looked after JoQueta. Carmen could tell even during her subconscious work in which she is not physically present with her client, how much Weston treasured JoQueta. Well, let me just say that he is not the only one.

I have often said that Weston’s story starts with JoQueta and her story starts with him. You see she was the first one who saw his potential. I am embarrassed to say that it was not me, his mother. In the beginning when she first told me that she thought he might be reading, I thought she was crazy. At the time he was still involved in traditional schooling. He was attending kindergarten at Serra Catholic School part-time with an aide, and I was home schooling him. For about four months JoQueta had been telling me that Weston could read. I was speechless! He would not even routinely identify letters of the alphabet.  I remember I would call a friend of mine at the time and discuss how amazing the whole thing was. A part of me did not really believe what JoQueta was telling me, as it sounded too unbelievable (boy, have I gotten a lesson in learning to believe the unbelievable since then!). This friend’s son was also doing amazing things with JoQueta in therapy with regards to speaking. I remember telling her that a part of me did not want to know for sure if it was true or not that Weston was reading, which is the reason why I rarely observed him when he was working with JoQueta. At that time I had very little hope for Weston academically. It seemed that all I ever heard from his teachers and aide at that time was his lack of interest in school and his constant desire to “do his own thing.” However, the school was very accommodating and I could tell they really wanted to help. I learned quickly that there was no “perfect” school for him, and it was up to me to piecemeal the components that worked.

JoQueta gave me the foundation to believe the impossible with regards to Weston. I resisted seeing him read with her during therapy because many times hers was the only feedback I got about him that was positive. I know it sounds crazy, but I reasoned I would rather believe in this fantasy that he could read because at least I had something to look forward to each week. I shared JoQueta’s observations that he could read with his other therapists and teachers, and I know some of them thought less of her because it could not possibly be true in their eyes.

Eventually, I was placed in a position at Serra Catholic in which his aide was out sick for about a week. I knew he could not attend school without an aide, and the school was very accommodating and let me sub as his aide. I was forced to put into practice what JoQueta had been telling me for all those months. I modified the school’s curriculum by just having Weston sit on the floor and put his class assignments on a wall in front of him. The unbelievable happened! He could read! Not only could he read but he could do math as well! In kindergarten they were still counting with bears, which Weston, of course, would throw. I quickly realized that when you just put the actual number problem on a wall in front of him he could add and subtract. He didn’t need counting bears or a number line. By the end of kindergarten he was reading all second grade books as well as adding and subtracting three digit numbers. None of this would have been possible if it was not for JoQueta’s conviction and her willingness to see beyond the label. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This message was told to Meg Lupin, who can hear Weston telepathically. I will use the term “voiced” in referring to this method of communication.

So much is happening in the world today. Many of the problems and disasters are happening to help us to go to creating community. We need to help ourselves, help our children, help our neighbor, and help the world. There is so much unnecessary pain in the world today. We all need to help each other in any way we can. We have to get out of the ego, and think of others. So many are living in fear and need help with this. Fear is the absence of faith. The world was not created for us to live in fear but for us to learn how to love. If you are loving yourself and others, you cannot be in fear.

Be at peace today. Know that everything is in divine order. Find someone less fortunate and help them. Realize that everything happens for a reason and it is always for the greater good. Many painful and awful things that happen to us happen so we can help others that are suffering like we did. A good example of this is addiction. Our society supports addictions. Look at all of the bars that have many different themes to attract customers. Look at all of the new kinds of alcohol. Look at all of the sex in teen music, videos and TV shows. Look at all of the unhealthy foods at our schools and all of the fast food restaurants. Look at all of the new casinos that promote staying in there as long as they can keep you there. Everywhere we look there is addiction.

We need to create a supportive family that is not afraid to speak up and end the addiction in their generation. We need to break the cycle by confronting the problem and not pretending it is not there. We need to end the denial and talk about it. 

Weston actually had two messages this week. Below is the second message that he wanted Meg to “voice” for him.

Your children are the leaders of tomorrow. They need to be educated in a way that is completely different than you. The schools are not preparing children for life and all of its challenges. It has become a boring necessity.

My vision of a school includes an entire Eco-village. We have got to become more conscious of our environment and what better place to teach it than at school. In teaching and learning in a green school, this will aid the teachers and children because a lot of the behavior problems are alleviated in a clean environment. There should also be animals on campus because they are such a help to us in many ways and have many lessons included in their care. They help ground us and show us how to love, nurture, and be compassionate.

The school will have a variety of healers available on campus such as: Reiki, massage, hypnotherapy, quantum machines, psychologists, yoga, and other healing modalities for the parents, teachers and students. The usual therapies will be available also, such as speech and physical therapists. Music will be an integral part of the curriculum. The music teacher will be a sound healer. All of the children will play instruments. There will be gardens of different types depending on the climate where the school is located. In the colder places there will be greenhouses. Everything will be organic. There will be no use of pesticides or harsh cleaning chemicals used at the school. The children will be actively involved in preparing the earth, planting, weeding, and maintenance of the gardens. This will be a great learning tool. The harvest will be a whole school celebration.

The food served at the school will be all natural and the children will only be allowed to drink water at school. The children in certain grades will be involved in making the lunches on certain days. This will help them to get comfortable with making their own nutritious meals. They will learn a lot during this time about what different foods do to our bodies both good and unhealthy. They will develop a greater understanding about the huge impact putting unhealthy foods in your system, has on a body. All classrooms will have water.

Art is an important part of the curriculum also. The teachers will surround the students with beauty. The students will be introduced to all types of mediums. The classrooms will be simple and not too busy so as not to distract.

There will be plenty of time for movement in the classrooms. If the children can’t focus the teachers will be trained on many different grounding techniques. They will also be educated about the natural alternatives to help the parents with the children. The teachers will have an open communication with all of the parents in their classes.

The older children will mentor the younger children. This will teach a true respect for elders which we have lost in our communities. Part of the Eco-villages should be housing for special needs adults, senior citizens and families. All of these people will have active roles at the schools. There will parent education evenings with speakers that will help parents to learn about new and different ideas for how to help make the world a better place!!

There are so many more things about this subject that I will continue to say over the weeks. We are going to start with special needs children because they are in such dire need for change in the current schools. We welcome all comments and suggestions to this vision and we hope that you will join us in any way you can contribute.

Prepare these children for life, not subject matter!

It is with great honor I tell my story about my journey with one of the greatest teachers of my lifetime and it all started with tapping…

I met Weston and began working with him in 1998.  He was four years old.  Before I actually met Weston, his mother, Marilu, came to meet me and talked to me about her son’s speech difficulties.  It sounded like the typical scenario of a child who had had some complications with birth and development and was not yet talking. After hearing all the information about Weston from Marilu, I felt his case was nothing out of the ordinary that I had not worked with before. I had recently relocated from New York to California, where I worked with critical care infants in the 0-3 population. So I felt I had the necessary experience for his case. 

Before leaving that day, Marilu handed me the name of a very prominent speech pathologist that had just evaluated Weston and ask that I give her a call regarding specific treatment plan information.  I gladly took the name and made the phone call. This particular therapist was highly recognized in the field of Speech Pathology.  I had studied from her textbook in graduate school, and I had administered her standardized tests for stuttering.  Being a relative new speech pathologist of five years experience, I was thrilled at the opportunity of gleaning advice from such a veteran in the field.

With almost the first hello and me explaining how honored I was to be speaking to her, she said, “The best advice I can give you is to not take this case.” It was her opinion that Weston would not make any progress in therapy and children “like him” give speech pathologists a bad name because of their lack of progress.  She told me my time would be better spent with a child I could really make a difference with as a therapist.  With that statement, she hung up the phone.  Not quite the advice or treatment plan I thought I was going to receive from a world class author and specialist.  Needless to say, I didn’t take her advice, and I am so blessed today because of it. 

I met Weston and his dad, Don, the next day.  When I say it all began with tapping, it literally did.  Weston entered the treatment room in a rush of motion and anxiety.  The treatment room he chose was a small-size gym.  It was full of equipment for moving and jumping.  Weston didn’t choose any of the equipment, but retreated to the corner across the room from the door.  As I approached, he quickly darted to the corner on the other side of the room.  I showed him toys.  I bounced balls.  I moved the swing.  I sang songs.  Weston responded to all my efforts, by turning his body 90 degrees from me and staring at the floor or the ceiling.  After 30 minutes of finding nothing to engage him, I sat down on the floor across the room from him (as this was as close as he would let me get to him).  My thought was, “Now what do I do?” I felt completely inexperienced to be working with this child.  What could I possibly do to breakdown the wall to establish communication?  All I could come up with was to tap.  I knew this technique worked with some stroke victims and I had nothing else, so why not?  I tapped the floor one time.  Weston immediately responded with a quick slap of the floor.  I tapped the floor two times and Weston imitated.  That was the beginning of our relationship. Little did I know, this was just the beginning of the most incredible learning experience of my career. 

That year progressed into the next one, and Weston and I met two days a week for hour long sessions every week.  There were many events that occurred during the next two years. Weston had brain surgery. He started Jr kindergarten at a private catholic school.  He began working with homeopaths for yeast die-off and an occupational therapist for a severe vestibular delay.  It wasn’t until an energy healer and doctor came into both of our lives that things really began to take shape. 

I have always had a passion for nutrition and even went back to school to get my Doctor of Naturopathy degree.  Through this path I was introduced to an energy healer and a man that became a mentor to me, Dr. Ron Jones.  I told Marilu about this doctor, and she began taking Weston to see him.  After only a couple of meetings, Dr Jones announced quite profoundly that Weston could talk.  When we would all be at his office together, he would frequently say, “Can’t you hear him?”  No, quite frankly, I couldn’t hear him, and I thought Dr. Jones had really gone off the deep-end.  He was very nontraditional to begin with and sometimes, just flat out bizarre. 

One Friday afternoon as Weston and I sat in Dr Jones’ office, Weston was quickly flipping through pages of a magazine, as he did on a regular basis.  He almost always had a book or magazine in his hand, rapidly turning pages. Sometimes the book was right side up and sometimes it was upside down. It was not uncommon for him to go through several magazines in five minutes times.  As Dr. Jones and I sat watching this behavior, (which had been labeled as an Autistic stemming behavior), Dr. Jones responded with, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if Weston could read?”  Now I did think he had lost his mind.  What a random, unfounded notion.  My response was, “Read?  He can’t even identify letters of the alphabet.”  

Now at this point, I need to stop with my story and make this point very clear.  This statement is the key to everything, and it is so important that we all understand the impact that statements like this one have on children.  They are nothing more than limiting, self imposed judgments, many times based on our own lack of experience or willingness to step outside the box of what we think is logical.  My perspective and my thought process in uttering this statement, was based on what I thought was logical. My experience at that point was based on a traditional approach of what society says is the normal, developmental way to learn. Our special education model is based on the normal developmental way to learn.  The problem is, children in today’s generation that have been given the label of special needs, don’t fit into the box of learning the normal developmental way. Why?  Simply because, God is designing it that way and the universe dictates it. Children with the label of “special needs” no matter where they fit into that category, from mild to severe, are here, today, to challenge us on what we call the “logical process” of learning.  It is our job as parents, teachers, doctors, and therapists, to recognize them and accept them as our teachers.

Now, to finish my story about Weston…I am sure you have realized by now, that Dr. Jones’ suspicion was right.  Weston could read.  He could read at adult levels at the age of six and comprehend information at rapid speeds.  At the age of six, he was far more intelligent than me, or the majority of his teachers that had spent countless hours trying to get him to identify letters of the alphabet.  His learning characteristics had been labeled as deviant behaviors.  Day after day for at least three years, everyone that had worked with Weston had ignored his page turning, punished him for page tuning, and literally alienated him, for his page turning.  All the while, he was gleaning vast amounts of information, while we, as the “logical adults, were trying to make him identify the letters of the alphabet, because that is the way you are supposed to learn…right?

Weston is a gift to me, as he has been to so many others, so that I could have a hands-on experience to challenge my belief in what is logical in the academic process of learning.  From that experience, my entire belief system changed in the way that I look at children and my perspective changed from me being their teacher, to them being my teacher.  My perspective changed from seeing children labeled as special needs in need of my help to “fix” them, To a perspective of, I don’t need to fix them, because they are not broken.  I need to open my heart and mind to learn ALL that they can teach me. 

This is the change in perspective that our special education systems need to have at a national level and at a world level.  Think of the possibilities that could take place in our schools across the nation if children with special needs were seen as “not broken.” Think of that possibility in terms of IEP goals, system over crowding, treatment implementation, and teaching in general.

It can happen!  It will happen!  It already has happened, with one boy, a master teacher named Weston. He came into my treatment room 10 years ago with tapping, and he taught me he could read and learn at phenomenal speeds without knowing a single letter of the alphabet.  He taught me to step outside of the box of what seems logical and explore what might be possible. 

Thank you, Weston, for being one my greatest teacher.  Thank you for giving me the awesome gift of a changed perspective.  With your help I know, we can change the perspective of millions around the world.  

With Great Appreciation,

Your Friend,

JoQueta

The following letter was written by JoQueta Handy, speech-language pathologist.

“I only need one public school.”  This has been my prayer for 10 years. When I share with people my goal to change the special education model nationwide, usually they just laugh and say, “Good luck with that one.”  Well, my prayer was answered this past week. I received a letter from the Corona-Norco school board saying, “Your program has been board approved and we will be contacting you to begin training our staff.”  Along with the letter came a signed contract, employing me as a staff member of the school district to begin implementing CLAP….Customized Learning Approach Program. 

CLAP developed from my change in perspective in working with children, as described above in my story about Weston.  That is why I felt it was so important to thank him for this monumental accomplishment.  My work with Weston is the foundation of this program. What makes this moment so monumental is that CLAP was finally board-approved by a public school district.  What this means for the special education population is that a legal precedent has now been set for other families. Therefore, this makes it a huge accomplishment for special education in the state of California. 

The amazing thing is that a school district stepped outside of the box of what the law mandates.  The special education guidelines say that a school district doesn’t have to even consider a program that does not have at least 20 years research behind it.  So the fact that Corona-Norco, not only accepted my program, (with no formal research behind it at all) into one of their schools would be great; but the special education department took it a step further and put it before the board for district approval. This is truly a “God Thing” of divine intervention. 

So beginning December 12, 2008, for the first time in the history of  the public school system, a training will begin where teachers (both regular and special education), therapist, and parents will come together to learn the same information, at the same time.  This means the special education model is being changed.  Instead of a child being assessed by a special education team, an IEP developed, and the parents being told what goals will be worked on at school, this model is set up so that the regular education teacher, the specialist, and the parent come together as a team to learn the exercises the child needs for success in the classroom and at home.  Everyone shares a common knowledge and vocabulary.  Therefore information on progress and difficulties are easily shared among the triad and the child benefits from consistency, continuity, and teamwork. 

Change occurs through small steps in the right direction.  School by school…district by district, we can change the special education model nationwide.  Thank you God for this victory! 

Some information on upcoming events:

Robert Abell, N.D., L.Ac will be the guest speaker in Orange, California on Sunday, November 16th. The time is yet to be determined. This should be a very exciting event, and we are all very grateful to him for the magnificent work he does. Look for his testimonial in the next newsletter.

Meg Lupin will be in Maryland this weekend. She will be conducting the Children’s Workshop that Weston and she developed for children in that area. In addition, she has agreed to “voice” for Weston during a presentation at the National Institutes of Health on Monday evening.

I met Marilu and Weston about 10 years ago.  Thru the years Marilu and I stayed in touch and compared stories about our therapies, and what was working for us.  We both home schooled and seemed to use the same therapy people.  When we found new people, we would share names.  Over the years, I got to know Weston better and his unbelievable ability to predict the future.  I would ask Marilu to ask Weston my questions when I was unsure of my direction for my daughter.  Weston never let me down with his advice!!  I have been using him and Chris Marmes on the Quantum machine for the last four months for my daughter's head injury.  We follow this session by a Reiki session with Meg Lupin and Weston three days later.  We have seen incredible results with my daughter.  They have been using the brain panel and the difference is significant.  She is writing sentences she could never write two months ago.  She is doing math problems she could never do a month ago.  Her teacher at school has commented numerous times about the significant changes.  Across the board, we have seen substantial changes academically, socially, and emotionally.  Weston is an incredible asset to the special needs community and he has a vision that will dramatically affect the lives of every person who comes in contact with him!!!  He is in the process of changing the future of special needs children.

Rosemary