Smells and Bells

Smell -  I liked when Ackerman wrote that  “we each have our own aromatic memories.” Being from a family that cooks almost every night I love when I can smell all the different foods being made from all the way down the hallway in my room. One of my favourite's being my mom's Cassava Pie. Like Ackerman said, it is hard to describe a smell to someone who hasn't smelt it before so I don't think I could even try. When I come back to the states, I bring Cassava Pie with me so that I can eat it while I'm away from home. When I heat it up and smell that memory filled aroma, all of sudden I am sitting in the living room watching a movie with my family while we wait for the pie to bake.   Touch - “Touch allows us to find our way in the world in the darkness or in other circumstances where we can’t fully use our other senses. " This quote is found in the section, The Skin Has Eyes. This quote reminds me of all the hurricanes that would pass Bermuda, knocking our power o...

  Touch Quote and Question from the Chapter 1 of Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman ; Quote: “It imprisons us, but it also gives us individual shape protects us from invaders,” Question: how do senses both limit and free us Other Notes: Massaged babies gain weight as much as 50 percent faster than unmassaged babies. They’re more active, alert, and responsive, more aware of their surroundings, better able to tolerate noise, and they orient themselves faster and are emotionally more in control. “At the University of Colorado School of Medicine, researchers conducted a separation experiment with monkeys, in which they removed the mother. The infant showed signs of helplessness, confusion, and depression, and only the return of its mother and continuous holding for a few days would help it return to normal.” WHY would you do this experiment to monkeys?? “Any first-time touch, or change in touch (from gentle to stinging, say), sends the brain into a flurry of activity. Any ...

  Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses explores how we perceive the world through the five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—and shows their intricate roles in shaping human experience. Combining science, history, and storytelling, Ackerman explores how these senses influence not just interactions with the world but also provide a deeper understanding of what it means to be human. Each chapter is a deep dive into a different sense, with a mix of personal stories, historical background, and cultural exploration. Her explanation of smell is richly detailed with a focus on how fragrance connects to memory and emotion in profound ways. Her descriptions of how the senses worked on a scientific level along with the social and cultural importance of each one taught me a deeper appreciation for the human body. I greatly appreciated the section on synesthesia as it helped me understand more about this aspect of myself. 

  Pain and Devotion       There are many different kinds of devotion, not all involving pain, but in many instances it seems the greatest acts of devotion for any entity is the suffering of pain in the name of something other than yourself. As Diane Ackerman states in  A Natural History of the Senses ,                      " Religions have always encouraged their martyrs to experience pain in order to purify the spirit. We come into this world with only the slender word 'I,' and giving it up in a sacred delirium is the painful ecstasy religions demand ."(Ackerman, 130)       As seen in the painting on the right ( The Crucifixion  (1762) by Pompeo Batoni), Jesus is said to have been crucified, both as a sacrifice for his movement, and so he could die in the place of mankind and take on the spiritual burden of their sins.  This act is one of the most famous acts of ...

  Smell: The Skeleton Key to Memory (A Natural History of the Senses) By Calliope Mills As much as I would love to say that the most powerful sense to me is taste–due to my obsession with food and constant pursuit of my next culinary undertaking–or hearing–as I find comfort, creativity and great joy in dancing to music–I find that smell, is truly what keeps me on my toes in everyday life.      As Diane Ackerman says in her opening paragraph to her chapter on this sense, “Nothing is more memorable than a smell” (16), I find this to be quite true. It is almost always a scent that has me catapulted back, days, months, or decades into memory. A whiff of one specific type of antique furniture, and I am transported back to my grandmother's living room. Like I am in that moment looking out her window, seeing a sunset over the ocean at the bottom of the hill, listening to my cousins run about, wreaking havoc throughout her old hallways, and I can feel a worn sheepskin...

"It is both our panic and our privilege to be mortal and sense-full." - Diane Ackerman      Can you love without any senses? I suppose we'll never know, because we, as humans and animals, have never done so. For as long as I've been alive, love has always been at the forefront of my brain: the concept of it, the science behind it, its many forms, etc. This often results in a lot of effort put into my interpersonal relationships; in something like a ritual, I write down little notes about all my friends, my mother and father, about the things they like or don't like, their favorite foods or scents or things to be called. For this blog post, I'm going to endeavor to relate each of the five senses that we covered in Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses to love. p.s. linked above is a beautiful video from 14 years ago featuring beautiful lesbians dancing :) Smell:      This one seems fairly obvious with all the Ackerman talk about pherom...