Smells and Bells

The last few weeks, especially during Spring Weekend, I had a lot of opportunities to listen and dance to live music with my friends, and I had a blast. Reading The Faith Instinct  for my final project, I've been thinking about all this music, and about how the enjoyment of music may be at the route of humanity. I won't go too into the theory here, but basically what Wade proposes is that even before language, early human societies depended on repetitive rhythmic motion set to music to establish group cohesion. Basically, he claims that music and dance are at the core of the development of religion, language, and human society itself. Depiction of a Navajo Fire Dance With this idea that music significantly helped humanity develop, I've been thinking a lot about the ways that we reference music in our everyday language, and the significance we still attach to it. I love the word "harmony", for instance. Harmony is a state humans naturally look for, a st...

For Indians, they believe that, being seen by the eyes of the gods is the equivalent of receiving a blessing from them. How do they find the power of being seen so strong? When we stare at someone, we believe that they will not be aware of it although it does happen often, particularly with mothers "mothers have eyes in the back of their heads". The people in India at one point in time must have been aware of this power that "mothers" have. They may not have understood exactly what happens energetically between someone looking at someone being looked at, but the phenomena must have occur often. As the interaction is intangible, it must have seemed something like magic or from a higher power which allowed for this intangible "magical ability" and could be the reason why they attribute the act of "being looked at" as so powerful. Although Professor Nelson and many neuroscientists explain this phenomena as being a result of things such as...

Deborah Green explained the importance of metaphor, simile, and metonym in describing scents, because of the connection with emotional reaction.   In the Song of Songs, she states, “we must assess the scent comparisons and even the emotions they may evoke, completely and on their own terms, however difficult this may be” (85).   The link between the words shemen (oil) and shem (name) is important as the name of the individual and fragrances are not mentioned, rather the words discuss flowing oil.   By using the word shemen, a metaphor is used to generate a connection between scented oil and the lover.   This metaphor also indicates that that both the name and fragrance of their lover’s perfume is pleasing.   By using scent, the woman is able to yearn for her lover when he is not present by recalling his perfume, indicating a seductive aspect to fragrance.   Scent becomes erotic through references to spices, flowers, and even vines, because they are used ...