Smells and Bells

  “Animal Skins”, chapter five of Constance Classen’s book, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch  really resonates with me because I’m currently taking Barbara Darling’s Religion and Animals course. In addition to visual, auditory, and chemical methods of communication, tactile communication is “the common medium of communication for all inhabitants of the Earth” (69). Human beings shake hands, hug, or kiss as a sign of respect or endearment- the same can be applied for non-human animals. Elephants will intertwine their trunks to show acceptance and affection, cats will lick and nuzzle their young, sea otters will rub their nose and faces on each other to establish social bonds, etc. Animals will communicate with animals outside their species through touch. My cat will know when I’m feeling down, and he will nuzzle up against me and provide me with a sense of reassurance. When my dog was extremely sick, my sisters and I would take turns petting him as a way of comfo...

I do not believe in ghosts. I've never had any paranormal experiences, and though I listen and nod politely when people tell me about their ghost stories, I always assume there's a logical explanation, that whatever happened was a coincidence or it was made up in their mind to be something it's not. Then again, I do  happen to believe that we are not the only miserable beings in this huge vacuous space we call the universe. Steinar Engeland David Abram in Spell of the Sensuous  talking about how humans and animals, that were once connected, are now disconnected got me thinking. There are a lot of stories out there "proving" or trying to prove that animals can sense paranormal happenings. Of course, this would be easier to debunk or prove if we  could see what they saw, or if they could communicate verbally with us. But alas, that won't happen anytime soon. As for personal experiences with the 6th sense, the only time I can think of is when I was visit...

With resources and boredom comes the opportunity to experiment and hone a craft, I have decided that would be breakfast, because I've already mastered the grill. During the week, not that time or days of the week really means anything anymore, my mom has work calls all day, my sister depression binges Hulu, and my dad hasn't made breakfast for the family in years, so I've taken to making myself breakfast again, something I typically reserve for summers, or weekends when I'm alone. Here is how my breakfast has evolved My mom's shopping addiction, which is clearly hereditary, and also my dad has one too, focus mainly on clothing and food, so our fridge is stuffed, I would make myself kitchen sink eggs, hoping to reuse the previous night's meat and veg. This could be chickpeas and lamb in an omelet, or mash potatoes and chicken and kale. Regardless of the combos, I felt a sense of accomplishment, the food was good and I was fixing a storage problem that my pa...

Even prior to reading Anne Rasmussen’s Women, The Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia , I knew the significance that sound plays in Indonesian culture. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia last summer. Among the diverse cultures, traditions, and landscapes, I was also drawn to the rich sonic environment. Although I was not able to attend any of the cultural and religious festivals that Indonesia is known for, I was still able to get a good sense of the sounds in Indonesia. When we drove through the villages with our car windows down, we were met with the bustling sounds of the streets- outdoor market vendors selling various produce, honking cars, the revving of motorcycle engines, and barking dogs. On one of the days that I was there there, we noticed that the cars ahead of us had stopped moving. We couldn’t see what was going on, but we could hear- the beating of drums, the sound of the laughter of children, the footsteps of people, etc. fil...

When I was in like 3rd grade my grandmother taught me to knit. I worked on a few projects for like a year, then life happened and I didn't do it for at least 10 years. Then when I was at Wheaton minding my own business my friend texted me that she needed a treasurer for this club she was the president of and would I please help her out. I said sure why not, and suddenly I was the treasurer of the knitting club but I had not knitted in a decade. This is me holding this insanely large ball of super soft yarn. *Picture from @craftwheaton on Instagram* Over the next few weeks, I relearned how to knit and started working on a few projects. (My first one was a MAJOR fail) After a while, I knew the basics and on Sunday nights in the Lyons Den (where we met) I was able to knit while enjoying a milkshake. That was 3 years ago. Since then we have rebranded our club to be the CRAFT club. (Create, Relax, and Familiarize with Textiles) Why am I telling you about this? Well, when I was ...

I wasn't sure about how I wanted to finish the blog posts for this course, so I decided to spend some time with my senses and just share some observations. It is a sunny evening and so I figured it would be perfect to sit outside and reflect on what I have learned over the course of this semester. Smell : The smell of nature is difficult to describe, but there is definitely a smell. I don't know if I can put the smells of nature into words, but I feel like there is a slight smell in the air after a snow or rain storm or in the morning when there is still dew on the grass. Ackerman states that "nothing is more memorable than a smell" and I couldn't agree more (Ackerman, 5). When I thought about the smell of nature it made me immediately think about mornings walking to the bus stop as a kid after it had snowed and there was always a fresh smell in the air. Taste : I don't know if there is a specific taste that I notice right now as I sit on the porch, but ...

In David Abram's book The Spell of the Sensuous  he explains how the sixth sense can act as someone’s ability to connect the surrounding nature by altering their consciousness.  Abrams mentions that the idea of the sixth sense experience is often refuted and overlooked by Westerners. He claims that Westerners perceive the sixth sense as some sort of super natural power. This is evident through Western media like the movie “Star Wars”, which imagines a world where individuals connects to their natural surroundings utilizing the “Force” or the Bruce Willis movie “The Sixth Sense” which features a young boy who can see dead people. Abrams explains that while the sixth sense experience remains quite unbelievable it is actually a very  real connection that people can cultivate with their surroundings. People who are believed to freely move between the realms of the physical and spiritual world have sometimes been integrated into different societies. In certain native cult...

In Deborah Green's book The Aroma of Righteousness, she talks about different scents like frankincense and myrrh and their biblical significances.  Green explains how frankincense is associated with white since it is white when it is picked in the fall time. Myrrh interestingly enough is not associated with color but instead is heavily associated with super duper bitter taste. It is interesting to try to associate different smells to different “feelings” or rituals. The idea of assigning meaning to different smells is observed both in religious and nonreligious settings. For example, I’m sure some men can relate to shaving in the morning and then applying aftershave to their face. This morning ritual while primarily practiced to relieve one’s skin and keep it soft, may have men feeling “fresh” and “awoken.” Other people may apply perfume or cologne while getting dressed to go on an important social function like a date or a nice dinner or maybe even just to go to work or class. ...

In “Kitchen, Food, and Family”, chapter two of Elizabeth Perez’s, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions, she talks about the emphasis on feeding the gods in Black Atlantic traditions and that practitioners “use food as a medium of exchange with their deities” (61). Reading this made me think of a similar practice we do in my family, but instead of feeding the gods, we feed our ancestors. My family’s participation in the religion that we’ve been following has diminished over the years, but my mom continues to be an active practitioner. There is an altar (butsudan) in the room upstairs of my house for our ancestors. Most, if not all the families in the church we belong to have an ancestor altar, and the responsibility of each family is to maintain cleanliness of the altar and make daily food offerings, as well as pray to their ancestor spirits. My mom will take small portions of the dinner that we have prepared for the family to eat tha...

Now I know that this is not supposed to be a book review, but I wanted to start off by saying that I really liked the way David Abrams approached the idea of language as a type of sixth sense. Now while he doesn't explicitly call it a "sixth sense" he alludes to it being a characteristic to being human that differentiates us from any other organism. What I like about it is (this might sound kind of stuck up) that it really just makes sense to me. We've already had discussions as a class and read a couple passages that encompassed a definitive and alleged "sixth sense" that involves a lot of ambiguity (and sometimes ghosts), but Abrams's take on an additional sense is very clear-cut in my opinion. Language has rules and understandings, like how different connotations are used in different situations, that we don't really teach, we just pick up on them. Society perpetuates them and therefore, they remain a part of our species. In the animal world, co...

I think there is an overgeneralization that humans’ olfactory abilities are ridiculously poor. A number of studies have been published indicating that humans are more attuned to detect specific chemical components found in urine, blood, fruits, flowers, etc. compared to non human animals, such as mice and dogs. This does not mean that humans have a better sense of smell in comparison to these animals, but rather, our olfactory abilities are not as weak as we think they are (we should give our noses more credit!) This also shows that each species specializes in specific scents that pertain to their lifestyle. For example, humans are attuned to the scent of blood to alert them when they are hurt or when others near them are hurt, while a mouse may be more sensitive to the scent of its predators .   In the “Noses” section of her book, “A Natural History of the Senses”, Diane Ackerman writes that as we humans evolved, our sense of smell has weakened over time, and vision and hea...

When I was reading the chapter "kitchen, food and family" in the book "Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions" I started to think about my own experiences in the kitchen. Growing up I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house, especially after I moved in 5th grade to the town next to where they live. In their kitchen was really where I got to explore cooking and baking with the guidance of my grandmother. We would cook dinner every night I was there together. I made many mistakes in the kitchen, but I did learn from them, I also learned how to experiment with cooking. I could not find a photo of the kitchen or me cooking in it. Instead here is a photo of my grandparents supporting Wheaton College. (they are standing in their kitchen I was talking about) The quote "fell in love with the kitchen" from this chapter really hit home for me because I really did fall in love with her kitchen. I often...

I have never seen the movie "The Sixth Sense", but by watching the trailer it seems like a movie about the paranormal world and I find this really interesting. Even during some of our class discussions it seems like a lot of people's perception of the sixth sense has a paranormal connection. I have never considered this definition of the sixth sense, but I also have never spent much time thinking about what the sixth sense is. I feel like people's definition of the sixth sense is based upon their perception of previous experiences. Perhaps if I had a very powerful experience relating to sensing a ghost, then I would be more likely to form my definition of the sixth sense based upon that experience. Instead of the paranormal, the first thing that comes to mind when trying to place a finger on the sixth sense is that "gut feeling" experience. This gut feeling, intuition, instincts or whatever you choose to call it, is really important to some people, includ...

Something scary that I heard once is that people who become blind see darkness, but people who are born blind see NOTHING. That is just such a crazy concept to me that makes me so thankful for the fact that I can see. While all senses are important, I feel that sight is one of the more important ones because it helps to confirm things. Sometimes you can mistake what you hear, mistake what you smell, and might even need a second opinion on how something tastes. But in most cases, when you see something, you see it, and sometimes it can be hard to un-see it.  Apart from performing the necessary top-down and bottom-up processes, sight can be depicted to mean so much more, like how "seeing" is a religious experience to people of Hindu descent. "Darsan" is a religious connection that one shares with their deity in the Hindu religion; the people are figuratively "seeing" their deities. One of the things that struck me as interesting was how Darsan is ...

I feel like hearing is one of the most used, but at the same time nonessential, senses. We use it as a means of receiving communications and being aware of our surroundings. The sense has even been integrated into expressions, like how people might say "I hear you" to signify understanding. However, not possessing the ability to hear doesn't pose a completely unimaginable roadblock in life because people who are deaf can use sign language as a means of transferring communications. Anne Rasmussen integrates the idea of hearing and sound into the different ways that various cultures recite the Qur'an through singing, which brings up a huge idea within the sense of hearing: music. I feel that sharing a love for music is something that makes us human; it's something that you can see cross-culturally. While styles of music vary infinitely, the interest for it is seen amongst all peoples. While Rasmussen was traveling in Indonesia, she felt that the locals weren...