In October of 2000, in Money Magazine, there was an article called “ON THEIR OWN TERMS”. This was about a PBS series on death and dying. The title caption read “BILL AND JUDITH MOYERS’ NEW SERIES MAY BE THE LAST WORD ON THE FINAL SUBJECT. THEIR GOAL? TO SHOW US THAT DYING IN AMERICA SHOULD NOT BE AS PAINFUL AND EXPENSIVE AS IT’S BECOME. LET THEM TELL YOU WHY.”

Some of the points they shared were, and I quote from their article
BM ) Bill Moyers - JM ) Judith Moyers
JM ) It’s... the last taboo
BM ) ... death is the ultimate boundary and the final limit
JM ) Well, you know, we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that death is easy or pretty.
BM ) There is no way to guarantee a good death. I"M NOT EVEN SURE DEATH IS GOOD. It can be a release, it can be an escape, we can make of it what necessity dictates. But we can have a better death if we plan for it.
BM ) ... the process of death can become a tyrant who exercises sovereignty over your every emotion and physical sensation. But if you have a chance to go through that process of saying thank you to the people who have served you, and forgive me to the people you’ve wronged, and I love you to the people who need to hear that, and good-bye to those you care about, it helps. And you can take steps, even though there’s no way to assure that what happens at the end of death won’t rob you of the last dignity that you seek.”
SHAREALL ADDS: This article was written with great care and outlined ways to help yourself, friends, and relatives with death by being prepared with complete powers of attorney, limits of medicare, qualifying for medicaid, long term-care insurance.
I have always admired Bill and Judith Moyers. They have shared so much over the years. What this series brought to my attention was the great need for people to receive help at this time of transition and to be loved and cared for.
I would like to add this site as a small token on “living to live” so anyone who chooses to investigate going past the ‘last taboo’ and ‘final limit’ may have some practical information and inspiration for their eternal journey. May all who desire transformation beyond the doors of pain and grief be renewed and restored and ultimately Live. Bless you for deciding to overcome the final frontier. May you enjoy the process with a skip in your step, and a feeling of lightheartedness. See you on the ‘highway of the stars’ forever.

POWER OF THE MIND SCIENCE FILE
(February 18-2002)

Healing Body by Fakery

Health: Placebos, be they sugar or some other innocuous substance, seem to yield short-term results. But why?

By ROBERT LEE HOTZ, TIMES STAFF WRITER

The placebo effect--the perplexing ability of a sugar pill or a harmless injection to alleviate some ailments--is causing genuine bewilderment among scientists.

Recently, researchers at the University of Copenhagen reviewed data from 114 clinical drug trials involving 7,500 people and found so little statistical evidence of a placebo effect that they questioned whether it even exists.

Hard on the heels of that finding, three independent teams of scientists now report the opposite: For the first time, medical imaging studies are offering direct clinical evidence that the power of belief harnessed by a placebo can cause changes in a patient's brain. "It is hard to quantify the placebo effect--the effect of hope, of belief, of the imagination," said Harvard University medical expert Ted Kaptchuk, who studies alternative medicine. "These studies are fantastic."

The research findings are the newest twist in a fierce debate as old asWestern science over the mystery of healing and how the mind can influence the body. The growing curiosity about alternative medicine has heightened interest in the question of whether--or to what extent--placebos can affect health.

The imaging studies reveal that people who are persuaded to take sugar pills or some other harmless placebo as a treatment for depression and other ills can undergo striking, albeit temporary, changes in brain activity and neural chemistry as their condition improves.

"It shows that something people thought was just a psychological process--or even questioned the existence of--is a physical process in the brain," said UCLA psychologist Andrew Leuchter, who led one of the research groups.

"That is the exciting thing."

There was an interview in an Australian Magazine with an actress called Colette Mann. The article was about age and how it comes up so much in our western culture.
At the end of the article she said “We need to use words like ‘mellow’, ‘ripen’ and ‘season’ and discard those like ‘decline’, ‘degenerate’ and ‘deteriorate.’ They all begin with “D” and so does ‘death.’