For the Senses

Are you mindful of how you are moving through the world at any given moment? The senses connecting with all that you encounter. The sensuous world is alive. In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram writes: "Direct sensuous reality, in all its more-than-human mystery, remains the sole solid touchstone for an experiential world now inundated with electronically-generated vistas and engineered pleasures; only in regular contact with the tangible ground and sky can we learn how to orient and to navigate in the multiple dimensions that now claim us." Simply stated: stop and smell the roses today...and every day. Life is sweet and all too short. For me, today, beauty abounds in the summer garden and inspiration from the late Irish poet and mystic, John O'Donohue.

For the Senses

May the touch of your skin
Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you

May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.

May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.

And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you

May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.

John O'Donohue (1956-2008)