Smells and Bells

According to the Christian belief, God entered the world himself in the tangible form of Jesus allowing this being to be approached in a multitude of ways, as: a broken body on a cross, a baby nursing from his mother’s breast, a young man embracing a friend. In, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, Canstance Classen discusses two very important excerpts from the gospel of St. John that specifically connect the sense of touch to Jesus. In one passage, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him and in the other he invites Saint Thomas to touch him as proof of his resurrection. It was eventually concluded that Mary should not touch Jesus because she wanted to embrace him as a lover and a man. In contrast, Thomas could embrace him because, being high-minded and masculine in nature, he properly understood the proper reverence owed to Jesus. I believe that the action of Jesus had responding differently to the touch of a man versus a woman, has resulted ...

Religion in itself is a set of guidelines for proper behavior within society, family and friends and even in our most intimate relationships.   Religion, regardless of which one, provides us with stories and reasoning to follow specific guidelines and the consequences that will ensue from not following these guidelines.   Religion also provides the answers to the most difficult questions that cannot be satisfactorily answered by science and it gives its followers the feeling of belonging and reason to exit. What Happens When, like religion, carried a message of guidelines involving our behavior towards sexual encounters and activity occurring on this college campus. Like religion, it provided a story with a narrative that we could all relate to and apply to our own behavior and experiences. And, like religion it explained the consequences that result from behavior that does not follow the specific guidelines for sexual activity without consent.    ...

St. Johns Passion was an eruption of sound, a tremendous drama it seemed. Not being able to understand any of the words, I let the sounds wash over me, explosive in its volume and harmonies. I did not feel any particularly religious connection but I did feel the energy vibrations throughout the room increase exponentially. As the tones within the ensemble moved from full, passionate and voluminous, to calm undertones with a single voice cascading over them, I was able to feel invisible strings tugging at my emotions. I wasn't just hearing the music anymore, I was feeling the music throughout my whole body. This sensation put me in a state of feeling more connected to "something" greater than myself. This altered state of feeling includes a multitude of experiences: vibrancy, clarity, jubilance, clearance of negative feelings, being at ease and connected to everything and everyone around me. From my experience, I believe this sensation arises from being physically immer...

Rasmussen's description of the "Public Soundscape" really brought the noisy atmosphere of Jakarta to life and clearly portrayed the contrast between the lifestyle in Indonesia and the lifestyle of those living in rural America. She describes the buildings themselves as being porous, inviting in all of the sounds from outdoors into the private lives of people in their homes. The concept of being willingly to mix the noise of daily life is completely polar to the Western concept of noise, which is, to avoid it even at high costs. She gave a particularly heart-warming description, noting that the culture of sharing your personal sounds at a high volume: songs, boomboxes, radios, conversation, is a way of showing your inclusivity of everyone. It allows for a feeling of community of unity when everyone is sharing in the same sensory experience. I myself, grew up in in the middle of the woods. We couldn't even see our closest neighbors from our window and the only sounds ...

Everything as we know it, has a cycle; a beginning and an ending.  All living creatures and plants experience the cycle of birth and death. Cycles are the most natural part of our life. The cycle of four seasons that we pass through each year, the cycle of the moon waxing and waning and even on a molecular level; the death and regeneration of each one of the cells in our body.  All of these cycles are natural and therefore considered positive aspects of our lives but there are certainly negative cycles that occur and that humans often fall into. Cycles often referred to as bad habits, such as chewing all the skin off our figures or worse, addiction to substances that give our bodies a craving that make it almost impossible for one to break the unhealthy cycle of ingesting it. There is one very important, massive cycle, which none of us can truly comprehend, but which Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher and many others believe to be the most negative cycle in existence and one that we w...

One concept that Green discussed regarding the rabbis’ descriptions, was the need for women to perfume themselves, specifically because they are made from bone, which decays and naturally has a rotting scent. This concept heavily implies that women ‘must’ perfume themselves so that their husbands will find them attractive. Otherwise, their husbands would not want to mate with them and they would not be able to produce offspring, which is the grand finale that shows your success at being human. It is ironic that the necessity of smelling good to produce offspring has been placed on the woman, when biologically speaking, it is crucial that the man to smell good in order for a couple to be capable of producing viable offspring.   According to Dr. John Velheim in his research on consciousness, for whatever reason, if a woman mates with a man who does not smell good to her, her immune system will activate and produce a large amount of antibodies within her vaginal mucus. This means tha...

The image of the woman in the Proverb “the seductress” is a highly negative depiction of a woman, “She is utterly open to the lover, inviting him and encouraging him to commit adultery with her… she not only breaks the commandants… she perverts them by using the sacrifice of her well-being as a part of her seduction.” (99) This image of a woman implies that she desires ensures that she sleeps with any man who comes near her, especially if she is already married. The negative promiscuous woman depicted in the proverbs and supported by some of the rabbis, heavily contracts with the biological evidence that Dr. Herz discussed in class regarding women and their choice of men.   She explained that, for women, the smell of a man is particularly important, no matter how aesthetically pleasing he maybe, if the woman does not find his smell appealing, she loses interest in him. This demonstrates that ‘biologically speaking’ women are the choosy ones; they are not wandering the streets maki...

Every human begins his or her life immersed in the sound of his or her mother’s heart beat. Diane Ackerman describes in great detail, the significance of this experience, in her chapter on hearing. Iambic pentameter (mostly found in poetry) mirrors the heart beat and therefore can give a third dimensionality to the words, which have already been so artfully constructed. The familiar beat gives us the feeling of comfort and ease, which allows the words to seep through us and make the experience of a poem more pleasurable. It seems clear to me, that our initial nine-month encounter with the world, living inside of a constant rhythm, bestowed a love within each of us, for all many forms of rhythm.   We see it in the music we listen to every day, regardless of the genre, its hard to find music without a rhythm.   We can find rhythm incorporated in chanting, singing, praying and dancing, performed by people in completely different cultures with totally different sounds all ove...