Smells and Bells

The sixth sense is a difficult sense to describe because it is not that easy to really describe. Experiencing the sixth sense is unique to each person since it is the least physical of the senses. I think David Abram’s description of air fits the six. In the Spell of The Sensuous , he states ho the air “is utterly invisible” but that we “know very well that there is something there” (Abram 225). While we ourselves could know some transcendent experience occurred, proving that the experience happened is usually more difficult and much harder to describe. Not the same parking lot I do not know if this experience really qualifies as the sixth sense but it is the closest story I could think of. So, after pulling into the parking lot of the hospital my dad and I got were getting out of the car and heading towards the hospital. However, the car that had come in behind us stopped and the driver called out to my dad. The person turned out to be a car mechanic that my dad knew. After talki...

Touch is probably the most intimate sense besides taste. We have to physically close to something to touch it. For a particular memory regarding touch is hard to think of besides some unique texture. The touch that immediately comes to my mind is a smooth rock since I always thought rocks that were naturally smooth were interesting. There is not really much of a story there but I suppose it is in my head somewhere because that was the first example of touch that I thought of. Rocks Although there is a second touch that I know well. I have a scar on my left index finger that has a unique texture to it that is distinct from the rest of my hand. The different feeling of scar tissue made me think of Constance Classen’s opening on pain. In The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch , Classen comments how “by rebelling against God’s will, humans had exchanged a perfect world for a fallen one and doomed themselves to a painful existence from which not even the rich and powerful cou...

“Seeing is believing,” a sentiment I learned from that ghost on the Polar Express. Sight as a sense seems to transcend just seeing the world around. To see is to understand. To wake up we open our eyes to perceive the world. We see the truth, a new perspective means looking at something from a different angle. Vision becomes a part of faith to see the divine both literally and figuratively. Not The Polar Express Mountain In Darsan: Seeing the DivineImage in India , Diana Eck talks about seeing is a vital part of Hindu faith in India. The seeing of the divine becomes some important that “the places [to see the divine] becomes an icon” of the divine itself (Eck 73). Seeing is a vital part of the religious experience and feeling a connection to the divine. Being able to see the divine in the real world is integrated into the religion unlike the Puritan idea that religion must be entirely mental. Eck refers the rejection of religious images as a “Western antagonism to imaging ...

Orchestra Sounds fill our world to an almost deafening degree. Sound is layered in the perception of the world. In a single moment, there can be some many different sounds bombarding our ears. Music is a great example of the layers of sound. A song can have a melody, counter melody and bass line with multiple instruments in each group. The separate rhythms come together to create the song. Harmonies exist from instruments intertwining their notes together to create more than the notes alone. While music does show how sound can be beautiful and harmonize, everyday life is not filled with such wonderous melodies. Noise-cancelling Headphones Most background noise is considered annoying. A peaceful summer afternoon does not involve the sounds of cars rushing by or people screaming in the background. A quiet night is not made better by the honking and beeping of construction vehicles outside your room. In Women, theRecited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia , Rasmussen n...

        Taste is often seen as lesser sense, especially concerning religion. There is less revelation in taste, sublime experiences are seen, not tasted. This view of taste means that its importance to religious practices and bonding are easily overlooked. Taste subtly brings people together by sharing meals and cooking together. This sense is the foundation of bonding by being a daily activity. People need to eat multiple times a day every day in order to survive. This provides ample amounts of time to connect with one another while cooking and eating. Day by day, small conversations that slowly build into something greater.  Spaghetti In her experience with Afro-Cuban religious practices in Chicago detailed in her book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Elizabeth Perez noted the general unwillingness many of the converts initially had about joining the community. The people Perez met were not to th...

Fish Smell is an important yet often overlooked part of our experience with the outside world. Smells carry a world of meaning that is largely undescribed. Fish smells like fish; and anything that smells similar is said to smell like fish. In a strange way, we only describe smells based on other smells, hoping that whoever we are talking to knows the comparison smell. Even if people disagree on whether or not a scent is pleasant or repulsive, the scent itself is assumed to be uniformly understood. Meow What is one of the first memories of the zoo? For me, there smell was always a distinct memory. The smell of a zoo is distinct but I cannot truly describe it unless I compare it to a farm or other place with certain animals. Smell exists in our memories in a peculiar way, extremely vivid and easy to recollect, yet difficult to describe. While I can forget what the zoo, I went to looked like, or when I went there, I remember the smell. When I encounter that smell again, ...

Mac n' Cheese Taste is a sense that is easily overlooked as mere preference. Taste is seen as more individual than the other senses. What you hear, see, touch or smell as opposed to someone else is relatively the same; even if you have different reactions to the stimulus. But that difference of reactions is a matter of taste; good taste or bad taste. Taste is specific to the individual and can appear so isolating; but it is also the synthesis of the senses. When we taste, how it looks, the aroma it gives off, the texture, and the sound it makes when we eat all. Looking at this food may conjure a vague taste but it would not enhance how it looks. However, if you ate this dish with a blindfold, you could still visual what it looks like by how it tastes. Taste extends beyond bringing the senses together, it also brings people together. In A  Natural History of the Sense s , Diana Ackerman says that “if language didn’t arise at meal times, it certainly evolved and became more ...