Smells and Bells

Finishing this course to me feels like the end of a good meal. This course was the first time I was able to talk about things I've grown up listening to or talking about, in an academic setting. To me this has been an extremely rich experience. Though I wouldn't necessarily call myself religious, I have always maintained the belief that though we as a global community adopt and practice various religions, we are connected through the faith and love shared for the divine. This course not only worked to consolidate that belief, but enabled me to look at the universality of religion through tangible everyday nuances. I see us going over each of the sense one by one as though we were going through a multi course meal, savoring the peculiarities and of each. Whether it may be Ackerman talking about the ever-present effect smells have and have had on human societies, discussing how certain smells like incense or perfume have specific religious connotations, to Eck's discourse of ...

  The creation of Music I believe has been a quintessential production in humanity's history. It is a phenomena that has taken a plethora of forms globally, and over time has become central to several religious, social and personal testaments. For it to become such a massive, influential form of communication and expression, there has to be something about it that appeals the human condition. The answer in my opinion, is the vibrations. Vibrations that are not just created through instruments, but those that are also created through vocalization of sounds over different pitches and notes.  Rasmussens discourse on the unique practice of Qu'ranic recitation by Indonesian Women took me back to thinking about chanting and how it's a revered practice in several religions. A couple years ago, I was really into the effect different vibrations have on the human body, and my somewhat in depth research led me to the conclusion that vibrations heard and creations have the ability to s...

 When I began the course, thinking about the senses and which one I thought took precedence, Touch was definitely not at the top of that list. Reading this in many ways reiterated just how deeply the sense of touch can affect, and has been affecting our lives. The way that the book explores significance of touch to an ailing individual was eye opening for me. It was also really interesting to see how during periods where leprosy was rampant, the lack of touch meant so much more than just 'no touching'. Not only were suffering individuals deprived of touch, but it also led to social isolation, which I believe is also a loss of touch in a more intangible manner, where they lost touch with their environments and the social scene of that time.  Reading about that made me reflect on what is going on in the world right now, as it related to COVID. We, as a society also recently went through a phase where we had to deprive ourselves fro touch in various ways. For me personally, the l...

Diana Eck's description of the richness associated with Hinduism was one of the most interesting reads for me. Reading the manner in which she described the opulence and relevance that goes into the preparation and viewing of holy sites and statues in India made me view my own origin in a new light.  I feel like sometimes when you're reply engulfed in a particular surrounding it somehow takes you father from appreciating its nuances, however looking at it from someone else perspective allowed me to see the beauty in practices that to me have to an extent lost their luster as I have been accustomed to them for so long. I found the way she spoke about there being an air of divinity not just in the idol but also in the location that holds it, when she talks about the process of "taking darshan" very interesting. This is something I have experienced countless times my life, as the belief is that the location that houses a specific idol has meaning to itself which in some ...

  The enumeration of the different rituals and the intentionality that goes into making each of the food items that accompany it was fascinating for me personally, as I was able to draw tangents to my own experiences, seeing preparation of food be such a foundational aspect of the rituals. The importance of cooking and talking in Afro Caribbean religions reflects the depth of the roots these religions have in the daily movements of the people that practice it. I somehow found comfort in knowing that feeding the gods is viewed as a method to make them a real entity, as this was also something I grew up witnessing. The specificity of the different kinds of food items presented to the Orishas, and the orders in which they are offered beginning with more raw ingredients suggesting a deeper connection to nature, progressively moving towards more cultured ingredients was also something I found interesting, in some way it felt to me like its a way of establishing the connection between th...

Lately, the more I read about smell, the more enigmatic it seems too me, "Most of us cannot smell a fragrance of an orange by mentally concentrating on the idea of an orange" When I Initially read this statement, I tried to think of an orange and though in my mind, I know that its a fresh, sweet yet citrus smell, I know that I like the smell, but in that moment the orange in my mind, didn't have the smell. It makes me thing of the fleeting, impermanent yet highly impressionable nature of smell. It is able to stick in memory and trigger biological processes without us consciously processing it. Green talks about how its pervasiveness overwhelms our body when we inhale certain scents, but I also think its pervasiveness overwhelms our existence as a society.  The heavy description of Women though these opulent smells is testament of this idea. The way women smelt and the scents they used, as well as the scents used for worship being categorically different from the rest, are...

 The dreaded creative block, all artists cross space and time have at some point experienced a creative block, the loss of inspiration, the lack of a concept gripping enough to unleash creativity, the feeling of staring into a blank hole and not knowing what to do next. In such cases, almost always we go in search for new ideas to feel new things. Reading Ackermans account of synesthesia and all that follows, made me realize that art, in its essence is a pursuit of feelings. Feelings that find themselves impregnated in out hearts through our senses.  Humans are in a never ending chase to 'feel'. I think this is born out of the limitations of our physical bodies. Which is another interesting thought that came to me. The various drugs that humans take, are all with the aim of feeling things that we are not able to usually. The heightened vision, increased perception, bright colors/ patters, omnipresent sounds, all cause sensory overloads that we are unable to experience when in ...

  Reading Ackerman's accounts of the tantalizing world of smell had me in awe of the magnanimity of the world of smells. However, their ability to instantaneously transport you and its ability to invoke emotions all over the spectrum are phenomena that I think don't get the awe and admiration they deserve. Over the winter I tested positive for COVID 19, following which, unfortunately, I lost my sense of smell for a little while. Reading the accounts and the vivid descriptions of the arousing nature of smell made me reflect on my days without it and I realized that my days did feel a little less vibrant, a little bland, lacking the flavor of life around me.    The omnipresent nature of smell made me think of it like being Natures very own internet. Just like the internet it is a whole  other world that is invisible to the naked eye, a nexus where  information is constantly being uploaded and downloaded, and just like computers, out connection to it: the nose. Jus...