The next stage of human evolution will be marked by awareness that we are all interdependent cells within the super-organism called humanity.
Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. and Steve Bhaerman in Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (And a Way to Get There from Here)
I find immeasurable value in Awareness, the state of being able to perceive, feel, and be conscious of people, ideas, and patterns. Since I first heard the word autism (December 2000), my Awareness expanded exponentially. My worldview widened, and continues to grow. I evolved, and continue to evolve.
Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Before autism (and my children) expanded my Awareness, I was very certain of what I should do, how people should act, and how the world should be. Because my children didn’t match my image of how children were supposed to be, because I loved them, and because I wanted to be the mother they needed, I softened. I realized the value of being like bamboo, flexible and bending with changing conditions. I recognized the importance of acknowledging when I was wrong. I learned to be different from the mother I’d been expecting to be. Without the gift of autism, I would be shallower, more narrow-minded, and more rigid.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
Albert Einstein
The diversity that we observe in individuals today demonstrates that there is no one optimal way to be. We can expand our Awareness by interacting, working, and playing with one another. We can learn to communicate with words and beyond words, recognizing that the task learning to communicate across styles does not fall to any group, but is a task for all.
It is not survival of the fittest, but cooperation, interaction, and mutual dependence among life forms that allows for the global expression of life.
Lynn Margulis in Symbiosis in Cell Evolution
The spectrum of people on the planet today is an invitation to see the essence of one another. It is an invitation to look with new eyes and listen with new ears, and to perceive with our hearts or our senses. It is an invitation to expand our perceptions and evolve. It is an opportunity to embrace uniqueness and individuality while recognizing our oneness.
Autism rocked by world in the most amazing way possible. Read more in my post Work in Progress and in the book that tells my story, and those of other changed mothers, Swan Mothers: Discovering Our True Selves by Parenting Uniquely Magnificent Children.
Swan Mothers 
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