A few days ago, some friends came home, and one of them brought me a book (Fritjof Capra’s , Tao of physics), It is one of my favourite books. It was, he said in an apologetic tone, an old copy. I was delighted. Something about old books.
The first thing I did, when I was alone with the book, was smell it and then touch and feel the oldness of the pages, with eyes closed. As if I was reading braille (as if) and took in the many touch imprints. And almost taste the deliciousness of it.
This is something I have done for a very long time. Many of my friends, back then found this weird, me weird. But it was ok. I can only be labelled weird once, no matter how many things it applies to. 🙂
I also buy flowers based on how they feel on my eyes. When I take a sip of water or any drink, I feel my eyes drinking them. I also feel the sun most, with my bare feet, as I curl my toes on warm stone, and feel the skin on the sole of my feet expanding and the sun energy being sucked up into my body, as if through a straw.
I found, myself weird as well, as you can imagine.
A few years ago reading through Gene keys by Richard Rudd.(What is gene key is for another time), one of my Keys, states me having “Synaesthesia”. It sounded sinister, it’s not a disease but a condition. I had never heard that word before.
As I began to research it, a whole different world opened up. A world which was there in feelings, invisible, but now suddenly through words became visible.
To start with, Synaesthesia is a neurological condition, in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several other. People who have synaesthesia are called syntesthetes. The word “synaesthesia” comes from the Greek words: “synth” (which means “together”) and “ethesia” (which means “perception”). To put it in lay terms, it means, one can smell with feet, hear with eyes, see with tongue etc.
Senses are a learnt habit. I realise. You watch babies, they have to know their world with their mouth. Everything goes to the mouth first. As you can imagine I was relieved, to have a word for my ‘condition’, which was not weird. And, importantly, that I was not alone. I sighed.
This was not uncommon but still unknown as an observed phenomena. Perhaps people didn’t show the behaviour in “public” (like not smelling books n front of others), and I don’t blame them
But, as I went deeper, I found that our ancestral lineage goes way beyond humans – to animals, trees and perhaps things I do not know the names of. After all we still have tail bones right
For example, some animals, like the turtles, can detect forms of energy invisible to us, like magnetic and electrical fields. Others see light and hear sounds well outside the range of human perception. Some species of snake can ‘see’ heat. Elephants communicate long distance through infrasonic sounds and many more.
And so, through our ancestry, if we have these genes, albeit dormant or inactivated, we potentially have the ability to also turn them on, in order to see hear and feel more of the invisible world.
And some of that, ancient animalness still lives inside of us, travels with us, dreams with us. The wild within and without, are kin
I believe, synaesthesia, is really that. In some people, like me, the sensing genes, didn’t get “mixed-up as it is defined, but got turned on or were not turned off to start with.
It’s not a condition – it’s a phenomenon. I feel really upset, at how some of this unknown quickly gets pathologized, and therefore feared and fixed.
The question I am curious about is, why – why Synaesthesia
Perhaps, so we can sense more, in a more nuanced way?. The small known world, we perceive is within an even smaller range of senses and to make meaning from just that is very difficult. And we are often then inundated. Frustrated with the dissonance we feel, between the world I “see” with my eyes and with my “other senses” does not match. And we feel it in our bones, our skin, but we cannot name it.
As with a couple of friends recently, who are being visited by crows regularly and for now can’t make sense, but thankfully remain present. After-all here in India at-least, this communion with crows we leave for after death, and even let the crows tell us if the departed soul is happy or not. – my point, why wait for after death.
We feel the tears, hot and thick, when animals, nature or people (even strangers) die, we try to “make sense” using our mind and come up blank. Why am I feeling for someone I don’t know. It’s a good kind of frustration. It does not need a psychological rescue ambulance.
But the blank we draw is, stilling. We turn away and try to “not feel” by going numb or distracting or rationalizing.
Ironically we do the same with joy. That sudden smile, that sudden desire to jump in the puddle, touch and earthworm, feel the softness of the butterflies, the longing to hug a stone or tree…but then again, held back. And then, because I cannot accord it to anything, these feelings are tucked away in a awkward straightening of face or shoulders, as we pretend to be purposefull in our strides, as we walk away from that sense.
Instead of giving in to the sensing, we say, “This does not make sense”
It’s quite evident, we have moved from sensing to making sense, and of course we make sense with our piddly 5-6 senses. Feel very good and even proud about having figured it out, neatly pack the encounter, label it as “understood” and file it away as knowledge.
And what we cannot neatly pack – we edit from our reality.
Sigh.
What we cannot make sense of – we edit from our reality
What we edit from our reality – we don’t talk to
What we don’t talk about- we don’t understand
What we don’t understand – we fear
What we fear – we avoid
What we avoid – we become immune to
What we become immune to – we destroy and kill
The unknown left unknown, won’t leave much of the known.
“What we cannot feel – we cannot heal”
Human Biologist, Paul shepherd said it so beautifully.
The grief and sense of loss , that we often interpret as a failure in our personality, is actually a feeling of emptiness where a beautiful and strange otherness should have been encountered.
Our senses have an adaptive quality, like many other species. And so, perhaps the “condition” of synaesthesia, needs to be turned on. Perhaps we need to move from “Multitask” to “Multisense” ? . I notice many starting to have the courage to let these dormant genes wake up. Sure, it can be overwhelming to feel so much, but it will be apocalyptic not to.
As we begin to thaw and come out of our numbness and feel, and give ourselves the privilege of sensing, maybe just that one act can save our humanity and our world
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