Smells and Bells

"Spices and perfumed oils do not endure over long periods of time, however, and the destruction of incense, through burning, is integral to its employment" (Green, 5)  After reading this, what struck me as interesting wasn't the actual fact, but rather, by conclusions to be made about the power(s) of scent and its limitations. Is the power of scent reliant on its state of temporality? This idea was further elaborated by the scientific notion of scents dissipating from our perceptions after a certain period of time. This corresponds with the phrase of spending enough time in a monkey exhibit, you no longer smell it. The longer you stay in an area and experience a particular scent, the less you experience and eventually it begins to fade into oblivion. The same can be said with certain skin receptors which are only activated once and then are only activated again when another touch or a change of touch occurs. The same applies with all of smells. Eventually we all get...

What are the limits of human consciousness? How do our sensations compose the reality in which we live?  Throughout the discussion of  'the sixth sense' I began trying to wrap my mind our my own brain and why in my dreams I can predict the future. Is that a sense at all? Or just precognition? I believe that to an extent it is a sense, to sense what will happen. For me, my dreams (not every dream) is characterized by deja vu to the point where if I have a dream that is realistic in design I begin to question if it is a premonition or just a dream. That is how often it occurs. What could be the reasoning of these experiences? One thought I had was that maybe these dreams are collections of past experiences, but that was proved wrong with the following experience: I had a dream where I was somewhere completely different and new. Somewhere I've never been before. I was with my father, whom I am not with too often. I was hearing noises that aren't too common in my ...

"Intimate contact with animals was a part of daily life in the premodern world. Animals were everywhere" (Classen,93)  What has become of our connection to what and who is around us? Is out lose of connection to the animals and nature surrounding us play a role in our increase hostility and fading compassion as a society? How important are animals to human life? Beyond that of serving as food (for some). What have we lost as a people when we cut off connections to animals? Since when have animals become denigrated as lesser than humans? It's despairing that we live in a world where the only way we can connect with the natural world around us via animals has to be sanctioned - but the same cannot be said vice versa. Our regular contact with animals in the Western world is under control and defined by domestication and segregation. We eroticize the exoticism of species of foreign terrain but why must it suffer for our amusement? Is this all connected to our conne...

What should we see? What should we hold witness to?  "Since, in the Hindu understanding, the deity is present in the image, the visual apprehension of the image is charged with religious meaning. Beholding the image is an act of worship, and through the eyes one gains the blessings of the divine" (Eck, 3) After reading this quote, I started to think about the power of sight and what it means to see. According to Eck blessings are to be received through the eye; making the eye the orifice or connecting point in which the divine 'touches' a person. Te eye itself is an organ which depends on the brain's interpretations of the outside world. No matter the culture, a brain (normally) can see what is there - but can it feel what cannot be seen? Through the eye, the divine may be able to 'physically' touch, not the eye itself, but rather, the mind of the devout. Most know the phrase "eyes are the window to the soul" - so would the opening o...

Street musicians in Chicago performing on buckets Throughout the reading, the same though continue to remain in my mind that Anne Rasmussen posed in the beginning of her writings: What is music?  Although the answer seems clear, there are people who find find ambient "background" noise as music. Is the difference in music or not that intention and effort put in? Even the presence of an instrument doesn't exactly equate to people considering it music. Think, for example, about a novice playing the saxophone (or many wind instruments, actually), people around them may say that it's not music and may even call it "racket". Older people talking about music of a younger generation may call it noise ("turn off that noise!"). This eliminates the idea that just an instrument is needed to indeed make something musical. For that matter; What is an instrument?  Colloquially, instruments pop into our heads that are made with the intention to produ...

Hand print of a bacteria culture. Link is to common germs however, I'm using it to connect to the Saberi section on human cultures After reading the Saberi piece, one of the most interesting concepts that arose was that human cultures and the cultures of our own biology: an interesting dualism I wouldn't have ever thought of. The premise of the article itself is interesting: the intersection of where religion and biology meet.The fact that the bacteria involved with making cheese can be found on some people's skin is so unheard of. It makes me think more about the culture of microbes.  Over the winter break I read a book on the significance of microbes and bacteria in our lives and it supports the concept of a human culture's culture, and actually takes it a step further. Each individual has a unique microbial makeup inside and out of our bodies, from birth, if naturally delivered we receive our mother's microbes preparing us for life. Another interesti...

Honeycomb s "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet"  Depending on the translation, God's sweetness flows from him like honey, an oozing sweetness that could mean bliss or joy, but could also be literally translated to sweetness. With the satiability of God's words and presence being connected to only sweetness, while things that may bring harm to us are considered bitter. What's interesting to me is the delectability of God despite his power and wrath. Where is the sweetness when he induces the flood? Would we every consider God any other flavors or tastes? To connect this back to what the author said about taste being a matter of perspective. Rachel Fulton also noted how sweetness can be seen as juvenile, with the connotations as follows could be perceiving the person tasting as immature.  Further elaborating on this idea that Bernard of Clarivaux introduced of our palate being tainted by the serpent's poison, providing a loss of tastes of goodne...

 Suggested to listen with headphones.  Sounds of increasing frequency to test the listener's ability to hear particular pitches. Ranging from 20 Hertz to 16000 Hertz. The higher the pitch, the less likely it is for people to hear it.  Something interesting about hearing, and all of the senses in general, is how our choices can impact how we experience them. Unpacking this more, the choices we make can alter how we hear and that's something that I think is incredibly interesting. Being in a concert for extended periods of time can severely damage your hearing yet we do it anyway. It's interesting how our body cannot communicate  the distress we put in under.  Conceptually it's interesting. When we think of putting our bodies at risk for a thrill you think of skydiving or looking at the sun: an external concern is what we think about. When we think of risk and danger, we thin more corporally, what's on the outside. But when do we think about our ea...

"Language is steeped in metaphors of touch... call our emotions feelings, we care most deeply when something 'touches' us. Problems can be thorny, sticky... [there are] touchy people... get on our nerves" (70) Longing Hands touching  Touch is something most of us take for granted - most of us can touch, or in Ackerman's interpretation of touch above, have the ability to be touched in some way. Upon reading Ackerman's explanation of the relationship between touch and language - through the way people talk or act we get 'feelings' about them. Touch is intertwined in everything we do - in either an emotional or physical context. There is a small number of people, in fact, who were born with the inability to feel physical touch - both positive and negative. This is called anhidrosis . Analyzing what it means to not feel touch, gives an insight into what it's like to feel . Yes, from a typical perspective of a person who can touch, being able...

“it is both our panic and our privilege to be mortal and sense-full. We live on the leash of our senses" (xvii)  Roses in the water to reference Ackerman's section on the smell of roses.  Our sensations have been intrinsic in our human survival and experience and have probably changed and evolved over time. What once was integral for survival and the continuation of the species is now what shapes our human experience. According to Ackerman, our senses both limit and restrain us in our interpretations and understandings of the world in a way that isn't cerebral. Looking at animals and analyzing their senses gives us an idea of what our senses could have been. What’s the importance of the interplay between animalistic senses and our own and how much can we learn from them? Some things, in my opinion can be learned, but it must be noted that animals and humans (both actually animals) evolved and adapted in different ways that ultimately best suited them fo...