Being Human or Human....Being?????

I have been giving a lot of thought to my writing lately and what I am really called to write about.  I keep going down new roads trying to find what suits me and satisfies me most.  I feel as a political commentator I suck.  There are so many writers that I respect who are so much better and more well informed than I.  I try to give my informed opinion but so what?  Everyone has an opinion and I do not think I will change any minds anytime soon.  When I write about God, or Being I am on much more solid ground.  My degree in Philosophy, my study of comparative religions, my study of Christianity and Hinduism, and my own insights about what I write; ( which I truly believe are not just my own), have given me a lot more confidence in what I write.
Of course my own experiences and those of people I know do provide a rich ground for writing. When I was a kid I was told to write about what You know.  Well, unfortunately for many many years I felt I just didn't know enough about anything.  Now I know a lot more but I am nearing the end of my life, not the beginning.  So what and who do you know, and when did you know it becomes a question which looms large on my horizon.
I was speaking to a friend this morning about consciousness.  Now I believe everything is conscious to a smaller or larger degree.  We all tend to equate consciousness to humans and perhaps to some extent animals, but when it comes to plants it really gets iffy for most people.  I, on the other hand, believe even a rock or other supposedly dead, inanimate object is conscious.
Matter is made up of atoms, protons, neutrons , electrons, particles, waves, quarks, you name it it may have it.  So why not consciousness? Now, I do not have a degree in physics but it has been a life long interest of mine.  If the very act of observing a thing changes it's behavior, then to my untrained mind it displays consciousness.  The directional moves may be predetermined by the laws of physics, so what else is new. When I unconsciously move one of my feet, a part of my being which is conscious has caused the move.  Consciousness and unconsciousness are relative terms.
In my conversation with my friend this morning we were talking about universal mental consciousness. Because radio waves were  recently discovered in the broad scope of history, doesn't mean they did not exist before we found them.  The same with waves of consciousness. Because we cannot perceive these waves with our senses does not mean they do not exist.  I mentioned that when a product or idea is found it one country it is often found at about the same time in another country or part of the world. Ideas cannot belong to one individual even though we do try to patent them.  Ideas exist in the realm of consciousness, or as Plato would have said as a form.  There is nothing new under the sun; it is only left to us to discover it.
Therefore, and thusly and indubitably, I maintain we are humans being rather than human beings. The internal consciousness or soul, or being, as I like to refer to it, is moving and forming us as humans, rather that we humans simply being conscious.
Then we have the Creator, the ultimate Being and Spirit, our little piece of the Whole.  The One and it's Attributes, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Somewhere along the way is the Sacred fertile Goddess. the Holy Mother, Mother Earth.  Where is this all leading?  Follow along with me and perhaps we will enlighten you.

A struggle with understanding

I have recently been engaged with an internal struggle about what has happened to my sister.  The past several years she has become very stressed and more and more forgetful.  Of course all of us struggle with stress and it is the bane of most of us as we get older to struggle to remember names and words which only come to us later.  I for one am quick to substitute words like thingy , thing a ma gig, what's it, that woman, honey or even sqigamahala (my own word for things whose names remain elusive).  Of late or the last year my sister does not recognize the man she lives with as her husband of 60 years.  She knows his name is Gene, but not her Gene.  She will insist  there is a stranger in her house and she will demand from time to time proof that he is really Gene.  When she is shown  papers like Drivers Licence, etc, she will insist anyone could have those made.  Jackie was always a great fan of mystery stories, puzzles and crosswords and she definitely knows of what she speaks regarding fake identification.  Jackie has been diagnosed with Dementia.
When I call her on the phone she seems normal for the most part with an occasional lapse into forgetfulness which really seems to bother her.
For my own understanding I have looked up the differences between dementia and Alzheimer's and the best short description I am quoting below:
 " According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Disease is a specific type of dementia caused when high levels of certain proteins inside and outside brain cells make it hard for brain cells to stay healthy and to communicate with each other. This leads to the loss of connections between nerve cells, and eventually to the death of nerve cells and loss of brain tissue.

 "Here's the major  difference between Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia — when an individual is diagnosed with dementia, they are diagnosed based on their symptoms without actually knowing what's behind the symptoms. In Alzheimer’s disease, the exact cause of the symptoms is understood. In addition, Alzheimer's disease is not reversible, whereas some types of dementia, such as those caused by nutritional problems or a drug interaction, can be reversed."                                                                                                                                                                I only wish my sister's disease which has been diagnosed as dementia could be, at least partially,  reversed.  I have had extremely vivid dreams the last 10 years.  They are like stories which can be interrupted and continued.  If I wake in the middle of a dream to go to the toilet, when I return I can go right back into and continue my dream.  The dreams are extremely realistic and most often involve people I know or family members.  There are a large number of themes and they keep recurring.  I will list only a few:  my mom is alive and alone and living is a specially constructed house in upstate NY.  She is divorced from my father, who sometimes has remarried, or is sometimes still married to mom.  Sometimes I have gone to visit my sister, in a sprawling estate which encompasses a lot of acres of woods and mountains.  Sometimes this property is in NY State and sometimes it appears to be in a state like the Carolina's or Tenn.  The actual house is always in disrepair, filled with unknown distant relatives, Jackie has gone out shopping or some kind of cult religious meeting with her daughter.  I am trying to clean the kitchen, find food and deal with various relatives I don't know.   As I mentioned before there are several dozens of themes and settings but they keep recurring and are rich with details and conversations and locations.  They always take different forms regardless of the particular theme and often involve arguments and conversations with relatives I have experienced problems with. I am always fascinated with these stories in my dreams and I want to go back into them to see how they come out or what is going to happen next.  They are extremely clear when I am in them but when I try to explain a dream to others I can only remember a few details and they are confusing.  When I was speaking to my Nephew the other day and he was explaining what Jackie sometimes experiences as her reality, I was struck by the similarity to my dreams.                                                                                                                        It occurred to me that it sounded like she was experiencing some sort of a dream or fugue state.  She recognizes the characters in her state but their reality is different.  She sees as if through a fog or dream and her people are sometimes who they really are and are sometimes very different from the persons she has known and loved.  This can be in the same waking time frame.  she will recognize, remember and talk to Kenny or Debbie and yet not recognizer Gene.   Even when they are sitting and eating at the same dinner table.  Gene is a nice man but simply not the Gene she was married to for 60 years.                                                                                                                  In my dreams the people are not the same ones I know in my waking life either.  They are either much nicer or nastier and appear in different settings than I have ever experienced waking.  Can this be somewhat like string theory or parallel lines which never meet, but in reality do meet???????
  I guess this is my theory to integrate reality, fugue states and dementia, a tapestry. 

     What is string theory in 10 words or less, by bgreene"It's an attempt to unify all matter and all forces into one mathematical tapestry."       

An apologists view on prayer

merriam-webster.com/dictionary

apol·o·gist

noun \ə-ˈpä-lə-jist\

: a person who defends or supports something (such as a religion, cause, or organization) that is being criticized or attacked by other people 

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Every culture prays or has prayed to some sort of God or Deity.  They must believe prayer brings them benefits or they would not continue the practice.  Muslims bow toward Mecca five times a day and pray, and in their mosques, offer their prayers to Allah.  Hindu's pray both at home and in temples to their representations of God.  Christians pray at home and in churches to God, Jesus, Mary and some, to a list of saints. Jews pray at home and in the temple to  the unnamed God whom some call Y H W H  or Adonai which means Lord.  There are at least a dozen other revered religions like Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, etc.etc. all of which offer prayers to either their God or those who possess virtues who have passed on.  There are many early religions which have prayed to sacred symbols, animals, locations or spirits who have influenced their lives. There are many religions of today who pray to founders, or spirits who inhabit special realms in the Himalayas or other places.

There are books and videos and CD's on prayer, how to pray and how to influence the god or Gods to do your will.  My niece used to say God is not a wish nick but many persons direct their prayers as if the object of their prayer was one. 
There is the "Prayer of Jabez" to increase your territory which has attracted a  a whole series by itself.


I would imagine there are as many kinds of prayer as there are men and women who pray, but I think they all have one thing in common.  An attempt by a mortal to connect with a source or being other than his or herself  to effect a relationship and gain some kind of favor.
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merriam-webster.com/dictionary/favor
Full Definition of FAVOR. 1. a (1): friendly regard shown toward another especially by a superior (2): approving consideration or attention


Many Atheists and agnostics find no reason for prayer and deny any attributes for it.  Others of a "spiritual" nature, but not religious in any sense, feel it may effect some change but are at a loss to explain how or what occurs when one prays.
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Now having put forth all of the above what do I think?
I call myself a follower of Jesus and I pray to God and the Holy Spirit which I believe exists in all of us. 
How or What is prayerfor me? :
I compare it to the butterfly effect which occurs when a small insignificant creature in South America flaps it's wings and influences the wind in Texas.
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"The butterfly effect is a term used in chaos theory to describe how small changes to a seemingly unrelated thing or condition (also known as an initial condition) can affect large, complex systems. The term comes from the suggestion that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in South America could affect the weather in Texas, meaning that the tiniest influence on one part of a system can have a huge effect on another part. Taken more broadly, the butterfly effect is a way of describing how, unless all factors can be accounted for, large systems like the weather remain impossible to predict with total accuracy because there are too many unknown variables to track."(From Wise Geek )
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We know without doubt that people can communicate with each other without wires or other attachments.  Cell phones, the Internet, and satellite communications prove this beyond any apparent doubt.  Why is it so far fetched or a matter of only faith, to believe we can communicate with our Creator or the Spirit or Life Force within each of us?  We have horse whispers and dog whispers and  and people who communicate with other animals.  We know that many of earth's creatures communicate with sounds humans cannot hear or understand. Many animals like dolphins, and elephants communicate on levels we seek desperately to understand.  Birds fly in V shaped formation with no apparent communications and ants scurry to the latest sugar find and bees fly towards a threat to their hive, with a suddenness we cannot begin to understand.
Communication which is unheard or not understood is rampant through out the universe and yet so many doubt the power and effect of prayers. I know many will say prove to me prayer has an effect and possibly I too would believe.  I only believe in what can be known, understood or seen.
O.K. then, Does a tree which falls in the forest make a sound if there is no one there to hear it? 
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Best AnswerVoter's Choice

• Kid B answered 4 years ago

No.

Everything that vibrates the air creates the potential for sound, regardless of what conscious being is there to perceive it in the first place. If there is nobody is there to perceive it occurring, then it could not exist as sound, only vibration.

Sound is a subjective interaction with matter. All that sound is, is vibrations through a medium, without humans to perceive it, those vibrations that we call sound, when the tree fell, would make vibrations, but "sound" as we know it, couldn't exist, since no conscious being was there to interpret those vibrations.

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O.K. so a vibration can be heard only if there is a conscious being to interpret the vibration.  But Humans are conscious beings so why if mental vibrations, or brain waves are generated when we pray, cannot another conscious being receive the brain wave or vibration and be effected by it?

I think science has not yet discovered the effects and consequences of prayer but that doesn't mean there are none.  The generation of and reception of individual brain waves to and from others has not yet been proven by science. I think individual and group prayers do have an effect on the consciousness of the receiver and can generate physical changes in health, happiness and even material bodies.  As with other ideas it remains to be seen or proved but I believe in possibilities and things unseen.

The Sound of Music

When I don't really feel like writing I just start writing.  The old clichés go through my mind. Just do it.  Do it now. Don't procrastinate.  Losers never win(how did that get in there?)
Anyway, I mostly try to face the unpleasant task after a few minutes of avoiding it.  This doesn't always work as a lot of drivel can come out but I try to keep an open mind.  If it is important to my lazy brain there might be something in it for my sharp, intuitive, restless, and creative being.  So today I'm just plodding along awaiting my muse.  I wonder about the word muse.  a muse ment.  It is a part of it all.  If the muse is not amused it will simply not cooperate.  After all, there should be something for everyone in my blogs.
I was discussing the sound in my head with a dear friend in December.  This high pitched sound has been with me as long as I can remember.  When I was a child I used to ask Mama, "what is that high pitched sound?" I used to think the light bulb was humming or something. Since she never heard it and would look at me strangely I didn't mention it to anyone else.  Mama looked at me strangely a lot but that is another story for another day.
So I have always had the sound with me as my companion.  When I used to have migraine headaches I would try to relax into the sound(go into an Alpha state).  If there were no distractions I would go to sleep in the sound and wake with no migraine.  At times the sound drove me crazy because I didn't understand it and would wonder why it was always with me.  I figured it was some kind of Electra/chemical process  and I would occasionally ask others if they too had a sound. No one I asked ever did but I did read in a few places that some people hear this but it is believed to have something to do with the inner channel of the ear.  I do have large floppy ears so I thought this was most likely a result of my strange hearing apparatus.   When I practiced transcendental meditation for a few months I was given a mantra but it never worked.  I simply could not meditate.
Much later I discovered that if I tuned into this sound when I prayed I could feel God's presence more strongly, but again didn't think too much about it. 
Then, along in December, comes my friend of untold years and lo and behold, she too has a permanent sound in her head.  Upon discussion I learn that as a child she too questioned people and she also got little understanding and strange looks.  She told me she has discovered this is an om sound. 
I still do not know for sure but it has been humming like crazy since I began writing this piece. 
I feel that, among other things it is my muse, my guardian angel, my soul.  It is always with me.  Sometimes in the background, very quiet, a mere whisper.  At other times, like now it is a roar. a celestial song playing loudly in my brain.  It is in me, yet I actually hear it. When I tune in and let the sound envelope me there is no fear and no problem. It simply is and it comforts me and drives me and consoles me.
My husband loves to listen to music, I often like the quiet because the music is in my head.
I feel it is an integral part of me and makes me what I am.  So much for this post.  If you have a similar sound please let me know.  There cannot only be two of us in the world!!!.