Come back to your senses. Literally.
/If the world looks like it’s lost its senses, maybe it’s because… it has.
Literally.
Our senses aren’t irrelevant afterthoughts to human life.
Sensory information is data; our bodies and our brains interpret that data to create our lived experience.
In one aspect, our senses are overwhelmed: by constant screen use, noise pollution, light pollution, exhaust fumes, pop-ups, traffic noise and exhaust, artificial flavors, overstimulation.
On the flip side, we’re starving for rich, true sensory connection—for pleasure.
Pleasure, too, is data.
What if the craziness in the world is pointing to a primal need to return to… pleasure?
To take in data that soothes our nervous systems because of its evolutionary familiarity?
We forget, sometimes, that we evolved along WITH everything else. We are wired from our reciprocal connection with all that is—through our senses.
What might pleasureful senses feel like?
Sound: Birdsong, crickets, crashing waves, raindrops, wind rising and falling in the trees—sounds we’ve evolved along with, but don’t always get to hear, nowadays.
Touch: Dirt underneath our feet, the way different earths talk to our toes in different tongues. Human touch: playful, sensual, familiar, warm, safe. Co-regulating our nervous systems in community through safe, healing touch.
Taste: A palate rehabilitated from the onslaught of artifice, that can taste with delicacy the wholeness of whole food, discern seasonings, know satiation that comes from food as an immersive experience, not just fullness. The tentative touch of tongue to the unfamiliar. The knowing taste of tongue to sun-kissed skin after emerging from the sea.
Scent: The million different scents of earth after different types of rain. Fallen pine needles toasting in the summer sun. The varied terrain of our human bodies. Wet dog. Dry dog. Ocean. Trees in the morning. Night blooms.
Sight: Beauty. Horizons. The billion shades and patterns of ocean waters, sweetwater brooks, puddles, tide pools. The Milky Way, unadulterated by light pollution. A newly-fledged cardinal chasing its parent, vibrating its wings and chirping to be fed. A baby anole wagging its tail as it stalks bugs. Cumulonimbus clouds. The humble pinecone.
All of these sensory experiences speak to us; they remind our bodies what our life is about, how life feels through pleasure, where we find pain.
To come back to your senses, try feeding yourself with conscious pleasure.
This is how we re/member ourselves, and remember our place here on this planet.
This is how we come home.