”Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I am yours forever” – Anonymous

People will often look at me like I am mad because when I pick up a book, the very first thing I do is fan through the pages and smell it. I love doing this, not so much because of the literal smell but because of the mental and emotional journey that it takes me on when I do it.

I am an enormously energetically and therefore sensory driven individual, as many of you who have read my content will have gathered by now. I am guided in my decision making and life experience predominantly by feeling and the emotions evoked through those feelings.

Each sensation is precious, protect it, cherish it, keep it. Never give it away. You must develop that balance which allows all of the world to come in to you, and only that which you have expressed in your art to move back out again into the world. - Robert Henri

Image Credit: https://quotefancy.com

Thought is probably what guides me least, unless we are talking about business, but even then, I tend to go with what “feels” right.

We are all aware of our basic senses; we use them all repeatedly every day – but experiencing your senses is not just about the basics and what you were taught in school…

I find, in many ways – a lot of people these days seem to be somewhat “numb” to the potential elevation in experience that our literal and energetic senses offer us – especially when combined.

As examples -

If I really enjoy a particular song, I will generally listen / watch it several times in a row, each time, stepping into that persons “picture” and “story” a little more… I listen to the lyrics, coupled with the sound. I study the person’s body, their facial expressions, their voice, what they are wearing and I try to connect with them “in that moment” – opening myself up to what they were experiencing emotionally through the singing of that song. That is an entire journey on its own!

If I am looking at a photograph of somebody, I don’t just look at the photo – I look at the person and the person beneath that person, through way of the eyes (which I discussed in another post the other day). I get to a point where I actually start to “feel” that person – imagining what was happening at that moment in time and how they were feeling…

Image Credit: https://quotefancy.com

One of the things I probably enjoy the most though, is the sensory pleasure I get from nature – particularly when in a forest or surrounded by a lot of greenery, and especially after rain. I am certain that to a degree, we can all relate to the wonderfully energising emotion raised by inhaling the powerful smell of damp earth after it has been rained on.

For me, there is simply nothing like it. It transports me to an entirely different plane… in fact, one of my biggest intimate fantasies has always been to make love in the middle of a rain forest, while it was raining… (and Enigma would be playing in the back ground… lol) – Not so sure about the practicalities of the sound aspect in that fantasy hehe, but hey… it’s a fantasy ok, I should just be able to snap my fingers and it would play, right? Hehehe! - In fact, I actually painted “my fantasy” a few years ago (I am no artist… so no critics here ok lol)

Yip, this is my artistic interpretation of my ultimate fantasy... without the detail... lol

To me, REALLY experiencing your senses is so much more than just the physical. When you stop and truly focus on them, they offer so much more.

Even the written word can hold that same level of sensory power. If you read an article that you really identify with, or somebody close to you writes something to you in a message, it can arouse all sorts of very real emotions which in turn often stimulate physical responses.

It is so fantastically intricate – and powerful!

Image Credit: https://quotefancy.com

There comes a voluptuous moment when the senses and the whole skin tingle with a sharpened awareness of the body and the world around. - Anton Ehrenzweig

When you kiss somebody that you love, how often do you smack a kiss on their lips and carry on walking – and how often do you slow down and approach them “consciously’ – placing yourself in the moment, embracing them, becoming acutely aware of the second that your lips touch and the punch of passion and energy that suddenly moves between the two of you as you do so?

My guess is that most often it happens as initially described – sadly.

Image Cedit: https://quotefancy.com

We all spend so such of our lives on fast forward, often forgetting that being fully immersed and present in the “small” moments can have such a massively positive impact on the state of our emotional being – simply by bringing us back into touch with ourselves.

We do everything so automatically that we have forgotten the poignancy of smell, of physical anguish, of tactile sensations of all kinds. - Lygia Clark

Our lives are a culmination of continuous moments, all of which are supposed to be truly experienced - right through your core. If we were not supposed to experience things with such sensory pleasure, then it would not be possible to do so.

So, on that note… please DO go and SMELL the roses!

Until next time…

Much love from Cape Town, South Africa xxx

Image Credit: https://quotefancy.com