Our senses are not only our greatest asset, but our only reality. Our experience of the 'real'
world is always mediated by and channeled through one sense or another: sight, sound, taste,
touch and smell.
Increasing our physical sensitivities is the best way of enhancing our reality, and our
reactions to and understanding of it. All my senses are vital to the way I relate to the world.
As an artist or writer, I use sight primarily to absorb the world, but without touch to guide
my tools I could not reproduce it. As a shaman, all senses are used to identify and to respond
in this world and others, but I also need to enhance inner sight and learn to close down
external senses too. Healers rely on their sensitivity to obtain feedback on the client's
reaction to a particular therapeutic session.
Like many of us, there is little I can do to retune sensual sensitivity lost to overloud music,
age or other factors. However, I did take one step that dramatically restored all my senses. I
stopped smoking. Without the 2000 different toxins in a packet of cigarettes a day entering my
lungs, dulling my taste and smell, and poisoning my skin - the largest and most sensitive organ
of all - life is a little louder, a little brighter, a little ticklier and tinglier, and so
much better now I can taste and smell again.
There are many reasons to give up smoking. Governmental oragnisations and medical advice will
tend to scare you by telling you how many things you can die of if you smoke. Well, there are
a lot of things that could kill you. You can't do much to predict the length of time you're
here. You can, however, do something about its quality. Stopping smoking won't make you a
better person. A wise man once said you can be a yoga teacher and still smoke. But you'll
have more fun if you stop.
And if you're a healer, a shaman, an artist, a seeker of knowledge, a path walker or just along
for the ride; there's no excuse. You're here for a purpose. You're here to live. And living is
feeling with all your senses.
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