The Consiousness Connection

Modern science is struggling to define consciousness. Does it live in the brain? Is it part of the mind? Is consciousness part of and dependant on the existence of the physical body?

These questions have lead the greatest minds of our time down a path that is cracking the very mortar of modern science.

Evidence from recent scientific experiments suggests the strange notion that awareness is not confined to the brain, but rather, that it is independent of any physical location within the body. There also seems to be mounting evidence that thoughts can have a measurable effect on physical reality. This line of research is an unexpected curve ball to the reductionist philosophies of modern medicine.

Research of these mind – body connections are leading medical science into the realms of psychology and spirituality. Physiologist Claude Bernard may have been right when he predicted that in the future “the poet, the philosopher, and the physiologist will all understand each other.”

This may be a big hurdle for science, but it’s just common sense to the rest of us. There are thousands of stories that illustrate that our state of mind does have an effect on our physical body.

Beat but not beaten

Whew!

I just got back from a LOOOONG day at the Statehouse.

It began with a crowd of choicers and only three lifers.
We gathered in committee, each prepared with 30 copies of our 3 minute speeches.

Since there were only three lifers, and a whole days worth of choicers, the Chairman decided to have each side form a panel. Each panel would have all the time they needed to make their best case. Afterwards, there would be Q & A, and then all the rest of us would give our prepared testimonies.

Well...right after he says this, the lifers pour into the room, and produce a panel of high profile professional advocates. An OBGYN, an evangelist, two emotionally fragile women with the saddest testimony imaginable, and a woman named Folger, who was one heavy hitter for life.

They dominated the entire day, and with the exception of some great speeches by our designated panel members, none of the sixty pro choice women were permitted to testify.

We were there all day, waiting for naught.

At lunch, I stepped outside to get a bite to eat, and left my speech on my chair to hold my seat, as did many others. An infusion of fresh lifers arrived out of nowhere as we adjourned. When we got back, all of our seats were taken, and security told us we had to go sit in the overflow room and listen via radio.

At 5pm, the chairman abruptly adjourned with no apologies or mention of continuation.

Here's one for Metalchick and her friend

Excerpt from my book, Reach for the Stars:


"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."-Michelangelo


All people share a basic sense of insecurity. We second guess our thoughts, our actions and our ideals. We are a species that lives in a constant state of awe and wonderment of the universe that we behold. Psychologists say that one of the most powerful emotional needs of human beings is the desire to be accepted by others. This explains a lot of the crazy behaviors that we see in others. It explains both introverts, who hide from the spotlight because of their fear of being rejected, as it explains the extroverts to act out publicly in order to gain the attention, if not the approval of their peers.

The secret to navigating through this quagmire of emotion is simple.

Ya gotta know when to play it Cool, and when to play the Fool.

When you are dealing with the ego, or the Id, as Freud defined it, play it cool. This applies to issues of your own ego, or that of others. Just be cool, baby. Don’t make a big deal of small issues. Don’t stress out and make things worse. Don’t blow your stack. Just be cool.

When dealing with the divine, well, that’s when you gotta play the fool. The wisdom of the fool is summed up in the famous quote: “All I know is that I know nothing at all.” This attitude opens your mind to all possibilities. It relieves you of the responsibility of controlling everything in your world. It summarizes the intent that there is a higher power of divinity that you surrender to.

We all know what it is like to listen to someone boast knowledge abut a subject that it is obvious they know nothing about. They are talking out of their backside. They are making the mistake of trying to play it cool when wisdom would direct them to play the fool. Their ego is getting in the way of their ability to be open and honest, and willing to accept new ideas. They are so afraid of what others think that they go to great lengths to put on a big act. They feel that if they can force others to believe that they know more than everyone else, or if they can get others to agree with their opinions that they will win the battle over their own insecurities. They focus all of their energy on this false bravado or hoax, when it would be so much easier, and so much more honorable to simply let go and be the fool.


Let go of all that unneeded stress by realizing that you do not need to cultivate the desire to be accepted by others. You only need to be accepting of yourself. When you let go of this anxiety, people will see it in you. They will be attracted to it, and everything you ever desired will come to pass.


Accept that no matter what you do, some people will like you and some people wont. And that’s O.K. Don’t try to please everyone. Don’t try to be everyone’s best friend. Just be yourself, and let the rest take care of it self.

Another famous quote, by Churchill, I think, was “a man without enemies is not worth knowing.”

Why is that? Let’s look at it a bit closer. A man without enemies must be someone who tries very hard to please everyone. This means that he must be engaging in a lot of falsehood. It means that he is a person who never takes a stand on any issue, because every issue has at least two sides, and therefore, when you express an opinion, you are bound to have others disagree. It means that he is a man without opinion, or one who hides his opinions, which either way means that he is really of no intellectual use to you. He will either lie to you, tell you what you want to her, or refuse to say anything at all. None of which is helpful.

So we see from this example that in order to be productive members of society, we must be willing to use our intellect, to develop opinions, and to express them openly. This means that we will have enemies, and we must accept that, and know that the more formidable that our enemies are, the more formidable our ideas are. And formidable ideas are worth suffering for.


Let us also remember the rule of the Cool and the Fool. The fool knows that opinions are just ideas from different points of view, and that these ideas are always subject to change. The fool knows that we must laugh at our own sense of seriousness, and that we must always be open to change.

The cool knows not to get overheated or to over react. Often the most powerful expression of opinion is wrapped in a quiet understated approach. The cool person will step outside of an issue, and watch from the sidelines while others hash it out. He will wait, and listen, and learn. He won’t get emotionally involved or wear his heart on his sleeve. He thinks before he acts, and he acts with a deliberate goal.


Be cool, and play the fool. It will take you far.

Pass the Blame

Here's a creative little stress buster for ya:

A new web site called Pass The Blame is positioning itself as the Hallmark of hellraisers.
Sing with me now (to the tune of "if you're happy and you know it")

If you're B*tchy and you know it
Pass The Blame (Clap-Clap)
If you're b*tchy and you know it, Pass The Blame (Clap-Clap)
If you're B*tchy and you know it,
Then this gift will surely show it,
If you're B*tchy and you know it
Pass The Blame (Clap-Clap)

Here's how they say it works:

"Tell us who you find fault with and would like to Pass The Blame on to.

On your behalf, we shall send that person

(or organisation) your special present with

a hint –a plush toy creature called

The Blame.

The recipient will get a parcel containing

The Blame (safely tucked in a metal cage) and the sender's complimentary card.

You also can type your short personal message, which will be inserted in the mouth of The Blame creature.

If you wish, you can remain anonymous.

The service charge of 25 € covers The Blame creature, handling and shipping fees.

Alternatively, you can Pass The Blame as

an e-card. It is free."

P.S.
No, I am not giving out my address.

Revised Speech

Address to The Ohio House of Representatives Re: House Bill 228
By Kelley Bell

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as our elected leaders, the task falls to you to make a choice on the issue put forth here today. Life is filled with difficult choices, issues that defy simplification, blanket solutions, or sound-byte absolutes. Your struggle to weigh these issues is not unlike the struggle that each woman faces when she evaluates a pregnancy. Keep that in mind, as you make your choice. No matter what you decide, some people will despise you for it. Some will hate you, judge you, and condemn you for the rest of your life. For that, you have my deepest compassion. We women know how that feels. Every woman I speak for knows.
For we have lived it.

In a free country we celebrate diversity, and respect those whose values are different than our own. Without Freedom, we are lost. Look to the flag. It stands for Freedom. It represents a nation of diversity. Will you sacrifice Liberty in the name of life? Or do you honor the cry of our forefathers, “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!”

In this case we must choose one or the other, because the compromises available have proven themselves a travesty for both sides. Parental notification laws are flawed. State by State abortion laws or Abortion rights without federal funding both exclude the poor. And we must remember that this battle is not merely over abortion. It is really a matter of Civil Rights.

The history of reproductive freedom in this country began with our black sisters. Slave owners commonly forced these women to bear large numbers of children as a means to their increase wealth. These women were raped, subjected to forced marriage, and treated as breeding stock. Many slave women bore between 10 and 20 children against their will. They knew their babies would bear the lash, and be torn from their arms and sold. They knew their children would be beaten, abused, raped, and often killed. These women found ways to induce their own abortions. They did not do it to defy their “massa’s” or assert their rights, they did it to protect their children. The decision to bring a child into the world is one that every woman takes seriously. To assume that we an incompetent class of irresponsible harlots who use abortion to avoid responsibility is both prejudicial and discriminatory.

As if this history is not burden enough, minority women then faced forced sterilization. Racial prejudice prompted our government to ratify compulsory sterilization laws in 26 states by 1932. Law books site the 1973 case of The Relf sisters, Mary Alice was 14, and her baby sister Minnie Lee was only 12 when they were both involuntarily sterilized. The story tells us that a federally funded agency approached the girl’s mother and encouraged her to sign up for various community assistance programs. The social workers convinced her to give her daughters reversible birth-control shots. She was illiterate, and consented unknowingly by placing an X on a form that called for surgical
sterilization. ( 1)

Native American women were also targeted. “Various studies revealed that the Indian Health Service [a federally funded clinic] sterilized between 25 and 50 percent of Native American women between 1970 and 1976.” (2)

A study by Choctaw-Cherokee physician Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri “discovered that Indian women generally agreed to sterilization when they were threatened with the loss of their children and/or their welfare benefits, that most of them gave their consent when they were heavily sedated during a Cesarean section or when they were in a great deal of pain during labor, and that the women could not understand consent forms because they were written in English at the twelfth-grade level.”
“By the late 1970s at least ten states had proposed compulsory sterilization of women on welfare. Similar proposals in the 1990s aim to limit welfare benefits of women who have more than the approved number of children.”
These cases of involuntary sterilization and reproductive blackmail are no different than laws prohibiting abortion. What we are talking about is the authority of government to further its own agenda by controlling women’s fertility. The record of the State as an authority over women’s reproductive rights is appalling. Putting the States in charge of this matter is like putting a pedophile in charge of a pre-school!
The State simply can not be trusted to control a woman’s body for any reason, ever, period. Government policies against women have been used to stop over population, to reduce welfare, to promote ethnic cleansing, to ensure the “unfit” can not reproduce, and to increase personal wealth. The religious morality argument to ban abortion is just one small piece of the puzzle. Sometimes the State forces us to have babies; sometimes it forces us to abort them. Forgive me if this sounds rude, but my womb was not designed for the incubation of political agendas! There is nothing “moral” about any of this.

Religious activists appeal to our hearts with a puritan ethic. They use false stereotypes to compel voters into a frenzy that exalts homogeneous moral order, over liberty. They use half truths and censorship to confuse the issue. They relentlessly apply pseudo-psychology on emotionally unstable women, and use them as pawns for political power. For every distraught, conflicted woman, who testifies to her pain and regret over an abortion, there are literally thousands of others who stand behind their right to Reproductive Freedom with steadfast conviction.

As Governor Mario Cuomo said:
“To assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.”

In order for women to function as fully emancipated Americans, they must be in control of their fertility. The duty of a government in a free society is to make services available to the people without coercion; to inform the public in a truthful, unbiased manner, to empower even the meekest among us with the ability to make informed responsible choices. Anything less is an affront to the Flag, under which we stand.

Like the Great Doctor Martin Luther King, I too have a dream,
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people, men and women, rich and poor, black, white, and every shade in between, are ALL created equal.
I have a dream that my daughter will one day live in a nation where she will not be marginalized by her gender, ridiculed about her religion, or condemned for her sexuality, but free to define her own role as a contributing, thinking, responsible, member of a vibrant and diverse society.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we exalt liberty for every person of every ethnicity, Our Country will then become a shining beacon of light to the world. Proving that a free nation can succeed, without the use of strong arm tactics, force, or fear based propaganda, but through education, empowerment, and a vision of Liberty for all.

Abortion Speech

After reading all the comments, I went back and reviewed the arguments put before The Supreme Court, and I agree with you all, the debate is between Life and Liberty. I am rewriting the speech with the title: Give me Liberty or Give me Death, and running it with a patriotic twist.

I have shelved the whole eco-responsibility argument and will post a new draft in a couple of days.

However, this morning I woke up to a lovely pro-life editorial in The Columbus Dispatch from a Ms. Lizzie Cline, State Leader of Operation Outcry Ohio, in which she states:

"We would not be aborting ourselves into extinction, if the funds being given for abstinence education were actually being used for that purpose."

Please excuse me for just one moment. (Kelbell gets up from the computer, runs outside and screams.)

O.K. I'm back... All better now.

I realize that I must craft this speech with great care and decorum, but that doesn't mean I can't do a little informal venting here in blogland.

What I REALLY want to tell the Morality Nazi's is:

For all of recorded history, (whether you think that was 3000 years or 3 million years), human population never exceeded ten million people. We are now at 6.2 billion and multiplying exponentially. Scientists project that we will reach 14 billion in the next two centuries.

If you are one of the card carrying Pro-Life members of Jesus Inc. who think that this is God's plan, then you should assume The Good Lord wants us to grow like fungus on the great Petri dish of Earth, until we reach critical mass and kill each other off in the Big Super-Bowl Battle of Armageddon.

If this is the plan of the All Loving Creator, then my advice is to pop out as many munchkins as you possibly can, arm them with high powered military assault weapons, while drilling them in prayer, and recon tactics.

If you are making Miss Lizzie's argument of "Aborting ourselves into Extinction" Then take a moment and get real about what you are saying.

Here in the States, we seem to have a situation where Hispanics are on the road to become the Majority. We have plenty of brown babies available for adoption right now, and lots of special needs kids are in the bargain bin too; but apparently most White folks won't settle for that.

If abortion becomes illegal, all those adorable little white fetuses will be adopted into upper class families, while all of the colored children remain in poverty, along with their mothers.

So when you talk about extinction, you are really talking about Power; Keeping White People in power, and using Pro Life legislation to take power away from women, so that you can force them to incubate your power base, and perpetuate the class divisions of our society.

You make passionate plea's for the life of the fetus, while voting down social services for children. You do all this in the name of God, while sitting comfortably on the feather tufted church pews of indignant hypocritical morality.

Pish-haw to that.

The Pro Life movement is not about saving babies, it's about preserving the aristocracy by forcing women to sit in the back of the bus.

Someday Comes

Yesterday we took a trip to The Ohio Historical Society. It's a trip we have been meaning to take for quite some time, but it was always one of those "someday" things.

Grandpa wanted to teach the kids a little bit about our family history.

The helmet my daughter is wearing belonged to her Great Uncle Inky. He was a doughboy in WWI. When he returned from the war, his helmet was used as the model for The Doughboy Statue pictured above.

Grandpa told the kids, there is a painting of the old family home in the lobby of State Savings Bank, and that it is also printed in the book, "Columbus Viniettes" by Bill Arter.

He told them their Grandmother was born in the Old Governors Mansion, and how she became a nurse, and founded The Columbus Baby Camp for underprivileged children during The Great Depression.

He told the story of James Thurber's "Funny Flood," and how our family grocery store was destroyed on that fateful day in 1914. He went on to say that Great Grandpa took the customer records from the flooded store, and used them to found the first credit bureau in Ohio, The Ohio Bureau of Credits, and how the depression was the catalyst for the modern concept of buying on credit.

Kids don't usually have much interest in history, but yesterday it came alive for them. They connected, and found their roots.

I'm glad we took the time to make "someday" happen. Last week, Grandpa was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and I'm not sure how many "somedays" we have left.

Really Useful Information:

I took a hotline call at the Wildlife Center today. The caller asked how to get a raccoon out of her garage. I told her the usual stuff listed in our hotline manual:

1) Make sure the animal has a way out.
2) Remove any possible food source.
3) Play the radio really loud.

The conservation Director was sitting behind me, and added, with deadpan sincerity "Tell her to play Rush Linbaugh. We've found that his voice really makes the animals scatter fast."

Wicked!!!!!!

This is what I'm listening to right now...The theme song "Defying Gravity" from the *HOT-HOT-HOT* broadway musical WICKED.
Oh I can't wait to see this show!
My daughter will be singing this song in the school choir for the big last-day send off, from grade school to middle school.
We have been practicing daily. Singing it in the car, on the deck, while doing the washin up, while walkin the dogs.

It's our theme song for the summer.

Singing this song with my baby girl while thinking about her growing up gets me all choked up, especially when I try to hit those high notes. (giggle)

The question is: Do I wait for it to come to town in 2007, or bite the bullet and take the family to NYC to see it now?

Another Hard day at the Office

This sweet little fawn was found during a thunderstorm, huddling under the body of her dead mother. She was shocky and weak. I took her to our animal hospital where she was admitted to the orphan ward.

We put her in with another fawn, and you should have seen her come back to life at the sight and smell of her own kind!

We are bottle feeding her some of our "super charged" fawn formula. There is no doubt that she will recover, be released into a new herd, and live a long healthy life in the wild.

Mr. Squeaks

We lost a member of our little family today. Mr. Squeaks went off to rat heaven. Thankfully, he crossed over while the kids were in school.

We had a little funeral when they got home, and buried him in our pet cemetery by the stream, at the edge of the woods. All our pets are buried there. We have a concrete meditation bench and two stone lions guarding the space with quiet dignity. Tulip bulbs are planted on every grave.

Each spring when the flowers bloom, we know our furry family members send us their love.

The DaVinci Code

I met up with a group of local media folks to see The DaVinci Code last night, and the experience was pretty much exactly what I expected. One critic was panning the film before we even walked into the theater, and seeing it did not change his opinion one bit. He was offended by the mere Idea of this film, and was not about to let himself be entertained.
The story is a murder mystery that takes Tom Hanks on a treasure hunt for clues. His quest for The Holy Grail, leads us through some of the most famous landmarks in Europe. It was well made, fast paced, and full of interesting twists and turns.

This film should be on par with Indiana Jones and the last crusade. Both movies are action adventure tales based on Grail lore. But Indiana Jones never raised the ire of the faithful the way The DaVinci Code has. The contoversy lies in the premise that the clues in this mystery question some of the modern interpretations of Christianity. Indiana Jones never did that. The Indy movie reinforced the tenets of The Church.

The crime behind Dan Brown's book is that it dares to ask the heretical question "What If?"

"What if?" is a dangerous question.

"What If?" caused the death of Galileo when he challenged the teachings of The Church by claiming that the earth moved around the sun.

"What If?" set off the great debate of Darwin's Evolution.

"What If?" landed John Scopes in jail.

"What If?" was the question posed by our forefathers when they wondered if it was possible to create a nation without a King; When the demanded Freedom of Religion; When they explored the idea that The People might be able to govern themselves; When they surmised that freedom of speech might be an idea worth protecting.

There are a lot of Americans who shook their heads in dismay at the violent reactions of Muslims when a Danish newspaper printed a cartoon of The Prophet Mohammad.

When I read all the hype over The DaVinci Code, it just makes me realize how alike we all really are.

If you like murder mysteries, code breaking and clues, you will like The DaVinci Code, unless of course you are afraid to ask "What If?"