Smells and Bells

  Memorable Moments; Smells and Bells I would say I have two memorable moments from this course. One of the moments was our walk in the Wheaton woods, just because it was only my second time walking in the woods but it gave me the opportunity not only to interact with my classmates but also to explore the woods in a way I had never seen before. I did not realize how many things had been left in the woods overtime including the art projects and all the car parts! It was just an interesting look into a part of the Wheaton life that I had never considered before. The other memorable moment from this semester was our final feast. I had a really great time getting the opportunity to cook in an actual kitchen with nice, fresh ingredients and then share my food with my classmates. I haven’t really gotten the opportunity to cook for other people well I’m at Wheaton because the kitchen situation isn’t really ideal, so I was glad to finally get that opportunity! Plus, I was able to really re...

  Storytelling and The Sixth Sense “ A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber, one that opens the eyes and the ears to their real surroundings, tuning the tongue to the actual tastes in the air and sending chills of recognition along the surface of the skin. To  make sense  is to release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence to renew and rejuvenate one's felt awareness of the world. It is to make the senses wake up to where they are,” (265, Abram). We look to the senses to tell us about the world around us, but what happens when those senses are being to us in writing? I find that the senses are most clearly depicted in work like poetry, especially prose. This semester was a semester of poetic exploration for me as I was working extremely heavily with the sense to display story. Although fairly abstract when we are experiencing them I have found that most people actually have an easier time identifying...

  Pain and Suffering;  Why We Celebrate the Hurt and the Martyred One thing I find incredibly interesting about religion is the pain we so heavily associate with it. So many religious figures seem to have to have encountered some sort of pain to “deserve” their position as an “important” figure. I think one significant, particularly universal example is Christ, especially with Easter occurring so recently. For some reason pain appears to be a necessary, however, I don’t understand this. Why must one suffer to deserve something and would we feel these figures less deserving if they hadn’t suffered?  “A successful explanation of sacred pain needs to account for this phenomenon,  that is, the experiential contours of pain and how these contribute to the pervasiveness of voluntary pain in the religions of the world,” - Glucklich, 391 We celebrate and romanticize the pain that our figures experience and we look at how they experience pain for us. I guess for me it is a qu...

  Of Paint, and Pottery, and Perception;  Looking at the Effects of Religious Arts I may be biased towards the power of art. I work in the gallery four hours a week, I set up exhibitions, I love to draw, and I long to spend my hours immersed in an art museum. However, I think many would agree that art has a lot of power culturally. In this instance, I will be looking specifically at the power of art in a religious aspect since so many religions tend to use art. If we look at one of the most famous examples, the Renaissance, we see an emergence of not just art but extremely emotional depictions of religion from The Last Supper to The Birth of Adam. Art tends to be a very popular way of creating connections between religion and the “masses” because humans are such visual creatures. The Sistine Chapel is a great specific example of this because it is not only filled with art but is also a public space that (theoretically) anybody can visit, meaning that the art is open to anyone ...

  Hearing in Religion;  Looking at Music as a Full Body Experience When I think of sound as an experience I tend to think of music. Because I tend to get overwhelmed by my sense so easily, I look to music as a safe source of sensory comfort. I pop on my headphones and just press play and I’m transported to a space where I control what’s going on in my mind. In addition to this, I personally do not feel sound on a merely mind based space. I have fission, meaning I tend to get chills when listening to music, contributing to a more full experience where I find that all my senses are impacted. I like to close my eyes and let the music overtake me, and sometimes I’ll even turn off the lights just so I don’t have to think about what I’m doing! Despite the fact that I do not follow any specific religious practices (I am agnostic), I find the use of music in religion extremely interesting. Music is such an accessible form of art for people thanks to the internet, so anyone with an int...

  Cooking and Community:  Looking at Taste as a Communal Experience By Olivia Modica When I personally think of food and taste I think of the community beyond it. There are so many ways this can apply to life from the communal experience of eating at a restaurant to the community driven experience of eating with family or friends on a holiday. We look to not only what we are eating but who we are choosing to eat with. The experience of food and tasting can be impacted both by what we choose to eat with. For me personally, there are even foods I find I’ll only eat around certain people because they are who are important to me and I tend to associate those foods with them. For example, I associate my college friends with Domino’s because it tends to be something we all pitch in for together when we’re up late.  Communal eating and cooking can be seen in many other cultures, however the one we talked about the most was West African traditions, especially revolving around Ori...

  Associative Learning;  Smell as a None Instinctual Sense An interesting feature we commonly do not think about when we talking about smell, is the fact that it is a learned sense. When we are growing up, we tend to be taught what scents are good versus bad, as opposed to knowing, instinctually, whether it is good or not. A great example of this, is the fact that we start to associate smells with certain memories, which makes us believe the smells are good. I tend to think of freshly baked cookies as a smell we associate with good memories. For me personally, I remember the smell of cookies as something that always arose in the winter, especially Christmas, so I have those warm and fuzzy Holiday feelings. Author Deborah Green talked a lot about the association between different scents and their cultural influences. “ More intriguing, however, is R. Yohanan ben Zakkai's response, which turns bad odor into a positive” ( The Aroma of Righteousness ) An interesting thing about sc...

  Hyperfixation; How Focusing on One Sense Can Calm the Others      As human's it seems both completely reasonable and normal to crave a calm mind state, or rather a neutral one. We strive to calm our senses, and remain "ration". At least, that's how I see it. To me being calm, or at least at ease, is what I strive for as a base emotion on a day to day experience. As a person with anxiety it's not necessarily an easily achievable thing, but with the help of both personal strategies and outsiders, I tend to be able to control my worries most of the time. When I don't I find it best to resort as what is commonly know as a state of hyperfixation. For me, that looks like sitting in a plain environment, closing my eyes and listening to music but it can look many ways for many people.        States of ease can be achieved in many ways. Ackerman sites the idea of scent as something both calming and accessible, " Hanging from my bathtub’s shower att...