What's this all about, you ask? Click on the picture and find out - after you read this entry, natch ;-)Back to exploring the senses on this magickal and mysterious Monday...staying with the instinctual and primal, we come to the sense of touch.
Having pondered the senses over these past few weeks, I now think touch is even more primal than smell. You can take all the other senses away, but touch would remain. It's also the most universal of the senses - where we may disagree on smells and sounds and sights, touch is the one thing that binds us together; without it, it's the one thing that can drive us apart. It is the mother's touch that greets us in this world, and it is the touch of a loved one that guides us across the Great Veil to the other side.
Many of us are starving for touch, and don't even consciously know it. I have felt it come into my awareness - quite keenly this past year, in fact. One of my excellent friends (and fellow blogger) came up with an excellent descriptive for it: skin hunger. So many of us just want to be touched in a gentle, loving way; so many of us are driven, when you get down to it, by a simple need to connect with one another. In our desire to be independent and self-reliant, we are in danger of losing the very thing that makes us whole and human: basic contact. Sharing ourselves with others. Think about that...one of the deep mysteries of our lives.
The key, of course, is right in the descriptive. Touch is so very important to us because of our skin. Not only is it the biggest organ of the body, it's also the biggest receptor of the body. You can't go through life without getting sensory input from your skin. Some of this input, however, is so routine that you take it for granted - and then a mystery arises when you look down and see a new cut or scratch or bruise that wasn't there before! Now how did I do that? you wonder. (which is what I did yesterday when I beheld a pair of small scratches on my right arm. I think it was from one of the pieces of wood I carried over for the bonfire that we lit for our drumming circle on Saturday...)
Within the last two years or so, my horizons of touch have been expanded, in mysterious ways... ;-)
First, I've become a kinesthetic healer. That's fancy talk for being able to feel energetic patterns and currents with my hands. I'm going beyond feeling just "material" things with my hands; I can now feel the ebb and flow of energy, in people, plants, and objects. I can even "see" a color in the energy of a person/plant/thing - very mindblowing to a former "classically educated Western scientist!" (lol)
With this greater awareness of "other" energy comes a greater awareness of "my" energy, and what influences it. Last year I put on a tank top made from organic cotton...and felt my body sigh in relieved pleasure! I kid you not! Since then I've made a concerted effort to get more natural clothing in my closet - cotton and organic cotton - while eliminating everything made of polyester from my closet. I didn't believe my "more enlightened" friends when they told me of the ills of polyester, but I do now! My goal is to be polyester (and nylon) free by forty, and have a completely (organic) cotton wardrobe by fifty. I've got to give myself a little time on the latter goal, because high-quality clothing is not cheap! Why not? Well, that is a mystery unto itself, yes? ;-)
Touch does not have to be literal; it is often metaphoric as well. Our hearts can be touched by a kind gesture. Our minds can be "touched" by alternative thinking. (Yes, to be considered touched in this way is often derogatory, but that changes when you think outside the box.) And many of us feel that we are touched by the Divine, however you envision Him/Her/It. When we are opened up in this way, life can become quite mysterious and magickal, indeed!
I will conclude by saying I hope this exploration has touched you, somehow... ;-)
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