Editor's Note: 
The Drs. Justice filed this story before the unspeakable tragedies of the Gulf Coast occurred. But the message is timely.  We hope those who are separated from loved ones will glean comfort from this research on "connectedness."

Recently, it came time to put our sweet dog Tashi to sleep. The lymphoma he had successfully conquered for a year won the final round. He already had lived over 13 years–old for a Tibetan Terrier. We arranged for the Paws-on-Wheels veterinarian to come to our Colorado home. On the deck overlooking the Continental Divide, we held Tashi, wept, said prayers, then set him down on his favorite spot, where he liked to watch the hummingbirds and chipmunks. Tenderly, the vet gave him an injection. Instantly, his breath stopped. We carried Tashi’s limp body, covered with a bouquet of wildflowers, into the house. We cut locks of his fur, let his “sister,” Bodhi, sniff his body, and carried him down to the vet’s waiting van.

A few days later, his ashes were returned to us. And together with our children and their children, we spread some of Tashi’s ashes on the rocks by the deck, where we would remember him – feel his presence – each time we walked up the rock steps to view the Divide.

Death separates us physically from someone we’ve loved and lost. Yet, a connection prevails. Is this connection, this alignment with a deceased loved one purely the residue of memories, the depository of mental images that we have stored in our brains? Are we “alive” and “felt” only as long as someone remembers us? At the risk of a philosophical cliché: if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?

Albert Einstein conducted an experiment on a “togetherness-in-separation” phenomenon. The experiment demonstrated that quantum entities that have once interacted with each other retain a power of instantaneous mutual influence, however far apart they separate. Science calls the kind of interconnectedness that transcends time and place the EPR Experiment, named after Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, the three physicists who conducted the experiment.

Feeling “Felt”

Feelings, love, memories, the material of relationships, are not just the soft stuff of emotions but also the hard stuff of biology. Our biology reacts to belonging, feeling part of something outside of and bigger than the ego self. The reward circuit of the brain which dispenses dopamine and other feel-good endogenous chemicals, responds to relationships, cooperation and trust. A limbic resonance is created, an attunement of two beings’ inner states, a symphony of mutual exchange.

For attunement and attachment to take place, “feeling felt” is essential. Whereas empathy is a state of understanding another’s experience, feeling felt is feeling another’s feelings. The connection is physical and yet transcends the physical.

Where Does Our Essence Go?

The technology of brain SPECT imaging, MRIs and PET scans, provides the before-and-after evidence that relationships change our brains even at the neuronal level. Studies of the brains of people who are in meaningful relationships show that the synapses of the corticolimbic loop reconfigure. Neurotransmission changes. The electrical pulses within the neurons change in released chemicals.

When that happens, our story, how we look at ourselves and our lives, undergoes revision. A different message is encoded in the story synthesizer of our neocortex. Our autonomic nervous system stabilizes, our very heart rate expresses the coherence.

One of the greatest physicists still living, Dr. John A. Wheeler, claimed by both Princeton and The University of Texas at Austin, has come to the following conclusion: All existence can be likened to “an idea, to the manifestation of information.” We are told that all of us carry it and even though we die or our brains falter or grow old, the information is still all around us.

One analogy has it that even when a radio or television goes on the blink, the electromagnetic radiation it was using and manifesting is still present in the universe. Some scientists even use the word “wisdom” synonymously with “information.” It is encoded in every particle of matter, including the stuff that makes up humans.

But, like radio waves, if we don’t tune into the indwelling information or wisdom, or fail to have a perceptive receiver to make full use of it, then we slog along with a lot of static — or broken alignments — in our lives. If we do connect, then our mind, body and spirit are “informed” — infused with character and the essence of all we have experienced, including those relationships that have ended physically.

Cells and Unity

There is a growing conviction among some physicists and biologists that every atom of every being carries an essence that, when tapped, bestows in us a sense of union with a greater reality. Take the human body: every cell, whether it grows to be a kidney cell, a heart cell or a blood cell is still encoded with the same DNA “family recipe.” There is cellular kinship in the body, no matter how different their structure or function.

In the Big Bang 15 billion years ago, all of us and all we see were part of a compact homogenous ball of energy. The stuff that made stars also made us. The “eternity” created out of the Big Bang pervades and envelopes all its offspring, big and little. Our 75 trillion cells, composed of 10 to the 27th power atoms, have their counterparts in most all living creatures, large and small. There is kinship among us.

As for things much larger, spirituality can’t be weighed, but our emotions tell us there is an aspect to life that transcends the physical. We know the song playing on the radio sings through the airwaves even if our receiver no longer picks it up. We feel aligned with those we love even if they are no longer with us.

“Good morning, Tashi.”

Last Updated: 09-02-2005

 

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