Monday, March 05, 2007

The Spell of the Sensuous

I started to read The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams. The first chapter was poetically written as he describes his experiences in heightened sensitivity to his environment while in Nepal and Indonesia. His experiences with shamans in those oral traditions lead him to several conclusions. One is that we have lost the sensitivity to our nonhuman surroundings that is more potent in cultures that do not have writing. He concludes that shamans live on the edge of communities in order to have an even higher sensitivity to the web of life. They must sense any inbalance in the web in order to heal without upsetting the balance further.

The next chapter goes into the history and philosophy of phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I want to understand this philosophy that blurs the distinctions between the perciever and the perceived. but the reading is slow going.

4 Comments:

Blogger Mots du Bugsy said...

I came to the conclusion that language can be either the obstructive gatekeeper or the portal to feelings and perceptions beyond the secular duties and the temporal consensus bubbles.

We exist to travel through these rabbit-hole portals to discover the different dimensions of time and space that we take for granted in our dreams.

8:19 PM  
Blogger Christina said...

Sorry, I just found your comment - 3 years too late. Rabbit-hole portals - I think of these portals often.

1:23 PM  
Blogger Mots du Bugsy said...

JUST YESTERDAY-actually...

Our minds are receivers for transdimensional conceptions that allow us different scenarios (rabbit-holes) for transformation from ego-trappings to a cosmic transmitter.

5:08 PM  
Blogger Christina said...

Watch this TED video with Jill Bolte Taylor:

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

Just what you said! So glad I did not miss your comment for 3 years. I did not see an email about it, just happened to find it on my dashboard today.

7:16 PM  

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