Smells and Bells

In David Abram's book Spell of the Sensuous , he presents language as an example of the separation that todays world has from nature. He explains that with the "advent of the aleph-beth , a new distance opens between human culture and the rest of nature” (100).  He is discussing the shift from oral tradition to writing for storytelling, which he elucidates with Homer's the Iliad and Odyssey .  Homer's writing deeply connects to the nature world, as it is nature, Gods, Goddesses, and a sorceress that so greatly impact the travels and life of Odysseus.  When I read both of these books, I was drawn into the stories because of the deeply descriptive language, much of which is based on nature.  In these epics, Gods and Goddesses can control nature and create natural events that push forward the story.  Abram describes the past oral traditions of these stories as an "oral tapestry".  With the rhythmic nature of phrases increasing the ability to memorize, t...

Constance Classen's The Deepest Sense  discusses touch in relation to women's historically social roles.  Traditionally, women were connected to the lower senses because of the scripture of Adam and Eve.  Because Eve gave into temptation, she was constructed as a sensual being without high intellect and easily swayed by her lower senses. Classen links this to the place of women in the household and the fear of a woman's touch affecting male dominance.  Her discussion of the connection between women and animals is interesting because it depicts the desired woman and the feared woman.  The desired woman is like a tortoise and lives within its cold, west shell, while the feared woman is like a spider, continually spinning her web of seduction like her household handwork. The spider is also connected to Delilah in the story of Samson and Delilah, as she seduced him and then destroyed him, this story serves as an example of a woman's touch to male dominance.  Th...

After reading Ariel Glucklich's Sacred Pain  for my critical book review, I found that his discussion of spirit possession connected with the 6th sense.  The examples that Gucklich uses are tied to the influence of pain on the resulting of possession a well as the importance of pain to expel the spirit or devil from the individual possessed.  There are also cases of voluntary possessions such as shamans and exorcists who choose to become possessed to assist a patient.  Glucklich states "the pain serves as the phenomenal signal that brings the body into the real of the perceiving self and reestablishes a hierarchy of self-control” (2001:116).  His statement explains that pain is linked to possession, and I would argue serves a form of embodiment that can lead to the return bodily self-control because of its effect of the nervous system.  I found that in his book, Glucklich was discussing some form of 6th sense with his example of spirit possession. With poss...

When talking to our class, massage therapist Elizabeth Robinson, briefly discussed and demonstrated acupressure.   Acupressure can help immune support, tension, circulation, pain reduction, balance of the body, and emotional healing.   It uses what traditional Chinese medicine calls Chi, which is a human energy that is at certain junctions or points of the human body.   When these points are stimulated with pressure by a finger or tool, endorphins are released as well as increased blood flow, causing relaxation and healing.   Relaxation and increased blood flow also allows the releasing of toxins, which allows for a healthier body.   Similar to acupressure, acupuncture uses these junctions on the body as well; placing needles at these points to encourage chi and blood flow. A few years ago I has severe tendonitis in my foot and when western medicine was no longer working, I turned to acupuncture.   A family friend worked with me...

Rachel Fulton’s article “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps. 33:9): The Flavor of God in the Monastic West” opens with a discussion about the ways that taste is used in language.   She explains that people describe others as “having taste” (positive) or having “bad taste” (negative), which are aesthetic judgments by another individuals.   This relates to her later explanation that we refuse to taste certain foods, because we have already structured what we do and do not like, therefore we fear those things which are mysterious to us.   The fear of these objects, I believe is what pushes us to judge others about what they taste as “more or less civilized or socially acceptable” (Fulton, 171).   I was interested in look deeper into the connection between culture and food and stumbled across an article, by anthropologists Yuson Yung and Nicolas Cisterna, which discusses food and sensory experience.    The authors ex...

In Professor Nelson’s lecture, he explained that vision can be a synesthetic experience. One of these connections is between vision and touch is expressed many times through language, using specific phrases such as, ‘I felt his/her gaze’.   This expression uses language of touch to express the feeling of being watched or observed by another individual.   Diane Eck discusses the connection between touch and vision in her book Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India .   She explains that the eye of the devotee touches the deity to understand what is being touched; in fact they are ‘touching truth’.   The Vision group spoke extensively on this subject during their presentation, describing it as ‘an exchange of glances’.   The exchange is a contact between devotee and deity that takes place through the eyes of both individuals.   Eck describes the eyes of Gods as unblinking and there are ceremonies that surround the ‘opening’ of a deity’s eyes.   She des...

Our conversation with Professor Allen, expressed the common misconception of the oppression of women in traditional cultural practices. In Ann Rasmussen’s book, it is clear that women hold an important role in the traditional Qur’an recitation and Islamic music in Indonesian, and it is in fact the more modern musical methods that exclude women.   Rasmussen’s writings present the reader with the idea that the modernization within Indonesia is transforming the cultural gender roles of Islamic men and women.  This transformation is not one that is necessarily positive, because it is changing the previously traditionally egalitarian gender roles.  We saw this in the videos on Tuesday, which showed recitation and more “traditional” music groups as allowing the inclusion of women, whereas the more “pop” style group was solely men.  In chapter 6, “Rethinking Women, Music, and Islam, Rasmussen discusses the Islamic feminism, inspired ...