Essay: Have You Lost Your Senses?

Have You Lost Your Senses?

Some years ago when children did weird things their parents used to ask, “Have you lost your senses?” Today they say, “Are you crazy”? I suppose, that if we don’t know what our senses are and for, then we would appear to be a bit crazy. So let’s do some reflecting on our senses and get in closer touch with them.

Traditionally folks have talked about five senses. By order of development they are smell, touch, taste, hearing and vision. Recently, there have been discussions about two more—sexuality or creativity and heart sense. There is some evidence for these proposals. In Latin the word sex means six. Biblical language equates sex with knowledge, “Adam knew Eve and she conceived Cain.” Some old timers still refer to conversation with a friend as intercourse. So is our generative faculty a sixth sense? The heart has been honored for centuries as a source of knowledge. “Listen to your heart” is common advice to this day. Recently, researchers have discovered a cluster of neurons in the heart that has an electro-magnetic field that is much stronger than the field
that surrounds the brain. Is the heart a means of knowing – a seventh sense?

Aside from that debate, human beings are very gifted creatures but often take their sensing gifts for granted. Sometimes it takes an accident or old age to “bring us to our senses”. When we encounter people who are in touch with their senses we call them sensitive. We normally mean that such a person is a good listener, feels with you, understands your needs, and responds to them quickly and with care. A sensitive person is like blood that shows up at a wound before it is called.

The concept of universal aliveness -- the interrelatedness and interdependence of all things -- is one that is difficult for us to understand and activate in our daily life. The reason for that is that somewhere along the line we have come to believe that we are separate from everything else and are spectators of what is happening. Consequently we often miss the give and take that transpires between us and the Universe. When we experience something awesome in the Universe and shimmer with wonderment we think that is our development. But our feelings are not ours alone. Those external factors activate our feelings. Sensing those factors and responding to them is how we become the dynamic of sensitivity.

Brian Swimme indicates that the most obvious place for witnessing this sensitivity dynamic of the Universe is in water. Three quarters of our planet is covered with water and each of us is a mini, mobile lake. We are two-thirds water and cannot exist without it. Our ancestors came from the ocean and all of us spent the early months of our life in water. So how does water exhibit sensitivity? First of all, we cannot exist without water. Like in a wave or a mountain stream the water in our bodies gives us flexibility and fluidity. Hydrogen, oxygen and other compounds within us move and blend at three trillion times per second in our bones, muscles, tendons, organs so that we can move, think, talk, sing, dance, play, create. That’s the sensitivity of the Universe – caring, sharing, evolving, abundant life with us.

Swimme says that we get a clearer, message when we examine the overall process of water, which is to absorb, dissolve and recycle. For centuries streams, rivers, lakes and oceans receive or absorb whatever flows or falls into them, work on it systematically, break it down into basic elements, and then recycle those elements back into the closed system of the Universe. Water doesn’t waste anything because she’s sensitive and responsible. She cares about every atom of her creation because She is those atoms.

We see this dynamic of the Universe in many other places. In the sky we can see very large and bright stars that are called supernovae. They are gigantic thermonuclear reactors that start as huge clouds of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium absorbed from the Big Bang. They dissolve these elements in their core at incredibly intense temperatures and in the process produce all the heavier elements like carbon and nitrogen that make up 20% of our body weight. After thousands of years of boiling supernovae eventually explode, empty themselves completely, and become a black hole. There’s nothing left. Like water and everything else in the Universe the dynamic of absorbing, dissolving and recycling continues without interruption. Every 50 seconds a supernova occurs in some part of the Universe. Sensitivity?

This dissolution/redistribution process is also evident at the micro level of our bodies. Our intestines and stomach absorb the food we eat, dissolve it and then distribute it as energy to the various components of our bodies. Our skin, bones and cells follow suit and are constantly dissolving and new ones rapidly evolve. With our senses we absorb new knowledge from books, lectures, discussions. Our brains then process, store, convert this knowledge into laws, principles, theories like the Big Bang, which in turn are disseminated for the well-being of the Universe.

So how do we become in human form this dynamic of sensitivity? Here are some ideas:

“Materialism alone will not fulfill the possibilities of your existence. You have to fulfill that with something else. You have to fill it with the Golden Rule. You have to fill it thinking about others.” President Obama

Now please recall the cosmic start when Love designed her work of art.
She poured life out with gen’rous care that left Herself completely bare.
Our Being’s Ground turned inside out so Universe could come about.
Transcendence was not whole enough so Immanence gave her some stuff.
The Universe reflects her cause – unfolds, evolves by Lover’s laws.
If Gen’rousness is Love’s sole game, then “cosmic we” must do the same.
Like Paul we must become a fool. Sell everything for Golden Rule.
And rule includes much more than men. All things are one in cosmic ken.

If you are interested in knowing more about your senses read Diane Ackerman’s
A Natural History of the Senses.

1. What does sensitivity means to you?
2. What does it mean to be an embedded part of the Universe?
3. What are your connections to water?
4. What do the stars contribute to your existence?
5. What does it mean that the Universe is a closed system?

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