SAVOURING SCENTS

This page develops Mindfulness of Breathing and Smelling from Chapter One.

The effects of panoramic seeing and listening are obvious, they are manifest. And i noticed the first effects within a couple of weeks.

Tastes are also relatively straightforward. But my experience of the sense of smell is far deeper and more complex.

The sense of taste is more fundamental than the sense of smell. Taste evolved first, and every embryo has cravings for tastes before it starts breathing and smelling at birth. It feels as though smells are sénsed when they touch skin receptors, it feels as though we taste smells.

Tastes and smells involve inner-body awareness. This is an area which is so subjective that it would be easy for any individual to delude themselves about how it really feels, and i don't want to get involved in anything an innocent animal wouldn't feel.

So on the subject of inner-body awareness, we need to ask young children how it really feels. We need them to teach us. What is a healthy and natural approach to taste, smell, and inner-body awareness?

To empathise with how dogs smell, open your mouth very slightly with the lips just touching, breathe out through your mouth and you will taste your out-smell in your mouth. If you open the lips too much your mouth will soon get dry.

Then leave the lips very slightly open, but 'smell-in' through your nose. As you 'smell-in', if your tongue is relaxed, the back of your tongue will automatically curl up, like a valve, where the 'K' sound or 'Q' sound is made.

This valve at the back of your mouth stops the 'in-smell' from entering in through the back of the mouth. It sends the incoming scent directly through your nasal canals, filling behind the cheek bones, the middle, top, and back of your head.

Then, as you smell-out again through your mouth, the tongue drops again. So the out-smell is tasted, in the throat and the mouth.

Smell-in through your nose and smell-out through your mouth.

Let the residue of the in-smell and the out-smell build up in the nostrils, nasal canals, head, etc., and the mouth, throat, etc. – over a period of five breaths – savour those taste and smell residues.

The effects are especially noticeable, if you smear a little Vick, tiger balm, or tea tree oil on the nostrils, and after chewing or drinking something strong – Southern Comfort, toothpaste, garlic, etc.

If you chew sweet chocolate, and then smell mint, after about 10 breaths you will feel a clear divide line on the roof of your mouth. Above the roof and at the sides and back of your head is filled with mint, and in the mouth down to the stomach is a warm chocolate taste.

The following is my subjective feeling on what happens next.

Human adults think: objects produce smells – this is a limited perspective – a hedgehog thinks, and experiences: smells produce objects. They stumble around through the undergrowth, and first pick up scents on the wind, which then turn into apples or beetles.

Hedgehogs have bad eyesight and limited hearing, and cars move so quickly that i effect they are always upwind from them, their sense of smell has no chance. Please watch for hedgehogs on country roads.

I've obviously no scientific proof, but i imagine that they are so used to their own inside (and outside) body smell and scent, that they are not constantly aware of it. However, these smells are some sort of guide to their own inner health (in the same way we use visual symptoms), so, even though they don't need a constant conscious awareness of it, i believe they would be very quick to notice and react to any changes.

So, it seems to me, any sensible hedgehog scenting the world outside, would use the time during the old normal, reliable, habitual 'me-smell', the out-smell – to savour every available new in-scent which they can find.

Outside where scents change with each change of wind – each fresh new in-smell is savoured and examined, searching for food or danger. And they notice the slightest contrasts and changes, and search out all the different meanings behind the smells.

And i repeat, it's the unexpectedness, and this necessity to be ready and waiting for sudden changes, which stimulates the straightforward receptive alert nowness seen in animals.

We're only interested in the new in-smells around us. We want to know if there's anything edible or dangerous in the world outside. So we want to concentrate on the residue of the in-scent even when breathing out.

Focus exclusively, enjoying, and curious about the in-smell. Sense the residue as it builds up maybe in the entire brain area. Let the feeling spread, examine it. Savour it.

Do this for a few breaths. Where do you sense the scent?

It feels to me, like the sensation extends first to the upper half of my head, and then fills up the entire space above the roof of my mouth, behind the cheek bones, spreading out to the ears and the back of the head. And then, after a few breaths this sensation spreads into my lungs and body.

Every cell in out bodies has a primitive form of this taste/smell perception for its environment. Scientifically speaking each cell 'responds' to oxygen – i understand this as : each cell senses, tastes and digests oxygen.

All human adults, will be able to remember a time when the smell of a succulent meal, seemed to fill their whole body. I wouldn't be surprised if children and animals regularly felt even faint scents throughout their bodies.

In meditation i often feel the breath permeates the whole body, filling it up to just under the skin, and then emptying out, a bit like a balloon. Smells are carried by the breath; the simplest logical conclusion any clear thinking hedgehog could make is that the smell goes where the breath goes, filling up the body to just under the skin.

And my experience is exactly that. The smell goes where my breath goes. The smell comes in filling me up to just under my skin.

This sensation is like a combination of tastes and smells. I taste, savour and absorb the residue of the fresh new in-scent. I digest the in-smell and the sensation is that i savour the scent with my whole body.

The taste/smell confirms the impression made by the breathing of the shape of my body from the inside, and the inside skin sometimes starts fizzing, there is a sensation of vital life happening just under my skin. It reinforces the feeling of self identity in my body from the inside

This may well be to some extent my imagination – but to argue it scientifically: we know that the 'goodness' in the air we breathe, goes to the lungs where it's absorbed by the heart and circulated around the body in blood, and this 'goodness' is then absorbed by the surrounding tissue, by the cells.

No hedgehog could figure out all the science. From a hedgehog's perspective, they taste and digest the scents, and then they are conscious of it with their whole body. And as far as I'm concerned this is the truth, until it is disproved by science, common sense, or a consensus of opinion from children.

There is one other point, which i would like children to confirm, the sensation is that i digest the smell outwards through my skin, rather than inwards towards the bones and central body.

This may be connected with the sensation of the in-smell going to the sides, legs and arms, while the warm out-smell comes up centrally from the stomach

I find myself wondering to what extent animals can control their own scents. We know they can produce scents for mating purposes, but just generally, how is this digesting and ingesting of smells connected with producing scents?

But when i start scenting smells, i feel i digest the smell. This is a vastly different process and experience of life and it has its own consequences for our understanding.

Primarily it's a one-way process of absorbing smells. The feelings it generates are more about nourishment – not an interdependence with the outside world, but a dependence on it, a feeling of reliance on it. I'm not saying this is better, it's just another perspective.

And as i will often say on this subject: any adult or group of adults could easily start kidding themselves about the effects of scenting, and i don't want to get involved in theories or anything unnatural, anything an innocent animal wouldn't feel.

So, before i can write much more, i really do need a group of parents who will question their children, to confirm my 'theories', and then please give feedback.

There are worlds still to discover – i'm still experimenting. The world of smells and taste are far deeper and stranger than seeing and listening.

Please continue with Return to Normal Human Smelling

Back to Chapter Six : Smelling and Tasting Exercises
Back to THE SENSE OF IT ALL Priority Pages