Study: The Effects Of Serotonin On Spirituality
About The Inner Life
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I've lately been interested in this subject of "spirituality" apart from any New Age connotations which I steer clear of. But I took SAMe (S-Adenosyl methionine) for many years, yes with the prescribed vitamin and mineral supplements, and this is a substance supposed to increase serotonin. (Though I never noticed any particular increase in "spirituality".)
I have, since 1995, been a computer composer who tends to write descriptive (representational) music for orchestra, voice, piano or chamber music. Though I've written some "sacred" music in the past due to circumstances, I've avoided it more recently.
Does this make me "spiritual"? I'd put this under "imaginative" rather than "spiritual" or "mystical", another word that is bandied around quite a bit. (No, I've never ingested LSD, mushrooms or similar drugs!)
I am a longtime agnostic (since my early teens) and organized or "disorganized" religion is really not a part of my life. I have experienced a couple of "ghostly" phenomena while traveling in Europe in my younger days but I remain "agnostic" about these as well.
Ed Gold
posted by Ed @ 8:52 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Since I've learned how to edit the posts sent from Huffingon, I will paste the comments directly into them. You may still read them at Huff-Po (if they ever fix their comments system!).
Ed
hi ed - can you send any detail on the comment system issues your having to techtips@huffingtonopst.com ?
thanks
A close musician friend of mine--Susan Alonso--passed away on 1 July after a long battle with cancer. She and I talked a great deal about dying and death before then, and promised each other to try to let the other know about the "other side" (if there is one) depending on who got there first.
We didn't exactly formulate a plan in this connection that we could follow through with before she succumbed to the inevitable, but Susan said she would send me "the most beautiful music." I've tried to communicate with her in my thoughts ever since, and did have a strange dream in which she appeared, happy and healthy, holding my hand--an experience that so startled me that she apologized before I woke up! Still, I persisted in trying to reach her, and asked her repeatedly to find some way of her own to let me know if she continued to live.
A mutual friend, Joan Nemeth, had planned to drive with me to Miami to visit Susan, but since Susan died before we could make the trip, Joan flew down to spend some time with me anyway. It had been over a decade since we had seen one another. Last weekend before she returned to Montana, we went to St. Augustine to explore the old Castillo de San Marcos and nearby Spanish quarter of the city, where some of the oldest European colonial buildings in North America are still standing. Susan was constantly the subject of conversation, and Joan continuously said we two should find some way to commemorate Susan's life.
After visiting the massive Castillo, built of tons of highly compacted seashells taking the form of coquina masonry. a short walk brought us to one of the oldest parts of town. Although there are homes dating from the eighteenth century, the area is overwhelmingly touristy and commercial. I read some of the plaques documenting the historic significance of some of these structures, but we didn't feel like going inside any of them to shop or disport ourselves like typical travelers.
But there was one place with a simple white facade whose open door drew us directly to a lovely little interior garden courtyard. Neither of us had ever been to this place before. Once in the garden, I had Joan stand out of the sun near a small door in this unexpected oasis so I could photograph her. After I took her picture, she rather surprised me by opening the signless door near which she had been standing, and we both went inside.
What we found immediately overpowered us with emotion. We had somehow stumbled upon the Saint Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine, and were standing in the cool serenity of its exquisite frescoed chapel. The Shrine is "dedicated to those first Greek people who came to America in search of freedom and a better life for their children." But there was more to our discovery than the sheer beauty and restful quiet of this place that had somehow managed to escape the restless throngs of vacationers.
Our friend Susan had for some years been an organist at the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Miami, having converted to that religion from Catholicism. I had accompanied Susan to festivals at Saint Sophia, and years earlier had even traveled with her to Greece. I also knew how fond Susan was of lighting candles in the various churches we had visited together in the past. There, right before Joan and I, were stacks of candles ready to be lit by those wishing to remember their departed love ones. In some seemingly mysterious way, we had arrived in exactly the "right" spot and been provided with exactly the "right" means of honoring Susan's memory.
After making a small donation, Joan and I each took a candle. Joan lit hers first, but I lighted mine from another that was already burning. Joan reminded me, however, that I should have lit my candle directly from hers, and--strangely enough--at that very instant a whiff of cold air snuffed out my candle. I then lit it again from Joan's, and we stuck both candles side by side in the sand of the nearby container intended for that purpose. After taking a few pictures of the Chapel, we made our way to the gift shop at the front of the building. spoke of our friend to the sales clerk, who was very moved by our account, then returned to the street.
The significance of this strange series of "coincidences" only gradually dawned on me. I finally realized that if Susan had wanted to give us a "sign" that she were still alive, she could have found no better place while Joan and I--two of her closest friends--were together. Susan's ancestry was Spanish (a refugee of Castro's Cuba), and so was the eighteenth-century house in which the Shrine was built. Susan had given generously of her talent to the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Shrine is one of its most important monuments in North America. Susan loved candles and ritual, and Joan's desire for us to commemorate her was fulfilled when candles came into our hands as if by magic. Although Susan became a Jew by choice years before her death, she had never ceased to love Greek culture--and the oldest synagogue in St. Augustine was too far away for Joan and I to have walked that hot, humid summer afternoon.
Does any of this "prove" the existence of a human spirit and afterlife? Probably not. But it does give me something to ponder as I try to understand how some coincidences don't always seem that coincidental. It is wise to doubt, and I shudder to think where we'd be without the rational restraints provided by scientific method. But even as we doubt, it seems to me we are well advised to keep our minds open to the possibility that in this vast, mysterious universe, there is far more than we imagine--and far more than we can possibly imagine.
Meanwhile, I'm listening out for "the most beautiful music" I hope Susan will some day send to me.
--Joseph Dillon Ford
A touching account, Joe!
Anonymous HuffingtonPost said...
"hi ed - can you send any detail on the comment system issues your having to techtips@huffingtonopst.com ?
thanks
July 23, 2008 1:39 PM"
It would seem that, as of today, either HuffPo has entirely fixed the problem or my disk repair program has. More likely the former.
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