Smells and Bells

“Exploring the history of touch makes the past come alive … It clothes the dry bones of historical fact with the flesh of physical sensation” -Constance Classen Constance Classen is a very interesting figure because she takes something I love (history) and completely revolutionizes how it is understood. From her reading what I understood is that rather than viewing history through visual prowess she incorporated the sense of touch as a way to better understand history.  Classen's book deepens her own impressive influence on the emerging field of sensory history, a field grounded not only in uncovering lost sensory worlds of the past but also in examining how those sensory worlds connect to one another. This is interesting because I personally love history and throughout my time learning about history it has been very visual in recounting events. By inducing sensory history I think it is a way to better understand history as a whole. It also reminds me of when I did a WWI...

Darsan is translated to 'auspicious sight', The Hindu ritual traditions refers to religious seeing or visual perception. Diane Eck's novel "Seeing the Divine Image in India" is mainly focused on this aspect of Darsan. This reading was interesting because it showed how people who worship Hindu stand in the presence of the statue of a deity and behold the image with their eyes which in turn makes the statue of the deity give a see be seen presence. In understanding Darsan I really relate this spiritual feeling with my own religion Judaism. When I wear my Star of David or ever look at the torah I feel as though I am looking at G-d and G-d is looking at me. Another aspect that I throughly enjoyed and related to my own religious experience, with Darsan it is popular to take pilgrimage to Banaras, I relate this to birthright for Jewish people. Though I do not trek through dangerous areas like those who embrace the pilgrimage of Darsan, I still feel the energy around me ...

Surfing in Waikiki:              For the longest time that I could remember I have been surfing. From spending summers in California to moving there full-time, surfing has been somewhat a Davidson tradition. The greatest surfing trip I have ever had though was in Waikiki Hawaii about three years ago. We went to a hut to go rent surfboards and started hitting the surf. The first thing I noticed upon entering the water was the warmness the ocean held. In the whole world I have never been surfing where the water was on average 70-80 degrees. This caught me by surprise cause of the warmth and how differently it felt in comparison to the chilly coast of mainland America. Upon hitting some nice outside waves I noticed the sun was beginning to set, but to my surprise no one was leaving the water. I ask one of the surfers and he said people surf until the sun is completely set. This took me by surprise because around the time the sun se...

Sixth sense is a psychic ability, this gives us the ability to perceive the subtle-dimension or the unseen world of angels, ghosts, Heaven.  For this story I personally have not recollection of the event about to unfold and is told to me from what my mother remembers. On one night w hen I was about 7 years old, I was living in our house in New Jersey at the time, my father was on a business trip so it was just my mother and my brothers. My mother in the middle of the night felt the temperature drop in her room so she went to go inspect what was wrong with the thermostat. Upon seeing the thermostat in functioning order, my mom returned to bed with extra blankets thinking the thermostat was malfunctioning. In bed my mom was beginning to fall asleep when suddenly she felt a tug on her big toe and heard a giggle. Thinking it was either myself or one of my brothers my mom was about to get up to lecture us on being awake so late. All of a sudden I came running into my mom's r...

What Happen When: Recently as a group our soccer team attended the play What Happens When . The plays overall message was to show students at college problems with sexual assault and irresponsible behavior when related towards sex. Though I believe getting the message to students about sexual assault and how it’s a problem nationally throughout colleges and universities, I don’t agree with the way that What Happens When conveyed such a meaning.             The acting itself was superb and obviously I have no problem to such, but myself along with other male students felt as though we were being targeted in What Happens When . Though I do not disagree with the fact that a majority of sexual assault problems happen with the male sex, it is another story when such males seem targeted by a play. I know by putting up this post I will most plausibly be subjected to critical rejoinder and quite possibly be claimed as being sexist o...

Smell: With recent studies from the magazine Science that I read recently , it rates smell in exceeding both vision and taste. Through constant studies the eye can see between 3-7 million different colors, and can hear roughly 350,000 different kinds of tones. Though it seems that smell has the trump card, claiming that the nose can smell over 1 trillion different scents. Take a rose for example, by smelling just a single rose you can detect its certain scents. Now but that in a bouquet of roses, can you distinguish the one you smelled. Apparently to the study it is very possible to tell apart which was the rose you smelled. Smell is something amazing that can also allow times of nostalgia, which makes smell one of the most interesting and complex senses humans have.

Taste: Have you ever experienced a sedar that’s been going on for what seems like forever and all you can think about is food? Now, imagine a long table like that of Hogwarts’ Mess Hall, and fill those seats with creatures of all different sizes each having a black hole enlarging within their stomach. That famished feeling that makes you feel like an animal waiting for its prey to arrive, but then realizing you must fight others to get something to quench the storm. That’s war my friends, and in the Davidson household, when the food is set forth on the table, Yahweh help the weakest one. But let me tell you something! When you get that food on your plate and stuffing your face full of food, you get the taste that is purely sensational! The combination of all the food that you could grab quickly enough combined somehow created an array of tastes that strangely work together. The explosion of flavor takes over and you experience something spectacular.

Hearing: Hearing is a gift that music enhanced. Hearing is amazing because it allows for you to communicate easier and listen to music. Hearing is all about the meaning of sound. Music creates stimulating sounds that create emotion when listened to. What makes music so interesting is that by listening to it, it can express emotions you are feeling or have experienced in your life. Add the ability to use your vocal cords to music and you can express something euphoric. Different sounds created by instruments can bring forth memories while the lyrics can help a person relate to something they experience in past, present, and the cloudy future. This is what hearing allows humans to experience.