What you see is what you get.  WYSIWYG.  This is certainly true on the surface. But what happens if you begin to see beneath the surface?  What happens if you look again?  Why is sight the only sense that can be fooled - Trompe l'oeil!

Working with the sense of sight and the development of your soul can bring many points of view to consider. You create opinions and prejudices through your way of seeing things. Are you in the dark about certain things? Is your love blind?  Have you been enlightened? Do you want to see the forest or the trees?
 
Now let's look at temperature. Temperature is like balance - we want to keep our cool and not build up a sweat.  At the same time, we want sweat equity - we want to invest our will in the world with full out participation. 

When we are in love we want to melt into each other and have the hots for each other.

The four senses of participation make life worth living.  Enjoy them but manage them with consciousness. 

I've offered some thoughts on how the senses of smell and taste shape our souls. 

If we study the senses from a purely scientific point of view, what do we learn about our humanity?  If we fail to understand our neurological processes and separate our souls from our biology, what do we learn about our humanity?

We need to find an education, a perspective that allows us to develop a fully integrated, holistic picture of our humanity.  My podcasts are designed to help you reach toward this knowledge of humanity through the twelve senses.  I want to engage your imagination.  I want to light your way to a truly thrilling awareness of how beautifully designed we human beings are.

Then I want you to begin to look at yourself.  Ask yourself questions about your sense of smell.  Smell as your perception of odors and smell as your metaphor for intimacy.  What in life do you want to get close enough to to smell?  What other human beings?  What great ideas? What activities?  What aspects of your biography?  Are you willing to smell your weaknesses?

And taste.  What are you willing to taste?  What in your life tastes sweet or bitter.  What in your life has been salted away to remain yours forever?  What in your life is tart, tangy and refreshing?  These are the metaphors that describe how life tastes to you?  What do you want to swallow and take into your existence?  Is is just what tastes good or is it actually what is good?

Write a poem about smells or tastes - the ones you like and the ones you don't like.  Not only will you know yourself better, but you will know these two senses more richly and you will know the nature of the archetype of being human.

With this podcast on the senses of self-movement and balance, we complete our brief exploration of the perceptions of embodied existence within our skin.  Perceiving the world inside our skin is so critical to the health of our soul. 

Among many other qualities a, healthy soul life consists of

Integrity - the sense of contained wholeness.  This is the soul's experience of the sense of touch.  We each meet the boundary of our skin where we find the resistance of the world and the earthly reality of self and not self. 

Coherence -  the sense of  everything in the soul being rightly ordered. Through the sense of well-being, the soul learns to recognize comfort and discomfort in thoughts, feelings and intentions.  We learn to attend to our soul needs.

Flexibility - the sense of the soul's capacity to change.  The sense of self-movement  gives the awareness that the soul can change its positions and perspectives gracefully.  We move from old thoughts and feelings to new thoughts and feeling with ease. 

Harmony - the sense of soul's resonance with the cosmos.  With the sense of balance to soul awakens to its own unique and personal expression of the truth, beauty and goodness of the entire Universe.  This is the sense of "I am." With this sense of harmonious balance, the soul's capacity to love in freedom begins to shine forth.

I urge you to bring your concentration to these four soul perceptions.  Ask yourself how you experience each.  You won't find any quick and easy answers.  So I am asking you to be patient and persevere.  The increase in your self-awareness - your inner sense of self - is truly worth the effort.

Don't be afraid or ashamed if you find shortcomings.  We all have shortcomings, breakdowns and confusions.  These are all blessings in disguise. Have reverence for yourself.  You are on the path of inner development.

With this 20 minute podcast we bring our attention to the Four Senses of the Embodied Self - Touch, Well-Being, Self-Movement, Balance.  They tells us we are at home in an earthly life - at home in our skin, at home in the world and at home in the presence of others.  Imagine being perfectly at home.  Alas, karma means we don't have a perfect home. Yet, the grace of destiny tells us we can redecorate, even renovate, our home - our embodied resident self. But first, we need to take detailed pictures of our home.  We need to examine and observe the Four Senses of the Embodied Self.


Touch is the first sense of the four.  It is the sense that tells us there is one, that we are contained and alone.  Well-being is the sense that tells us there are two, one that needs and one that meets needs. These are the "mother" senses.  It is the mother that embraces and contains (the womb) and the mother that nourishes and comforts (the breast).  When we pay attention to the soul-shaping work of touch and well-being we learn about our ability to self-mother as both earthly and spiritual beings. 

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I create these podcasts without a script.  They are spontaneous in the moment and have a foundation of twenty years of paying attention to the senses, my senses and my client's senses.  Spontaneity is wonderful as it allows for imagination.  I get to surprise myself with new insights and angles (angels!) of observation as when I speak about the praying hands in this recording. I am paying attention to the senses while I am recording, not reading a previously thought through text.

However, spontaneity has difficulties. I call these the flubs.  Sometimes I use a wrong word, mix my tenses or pronouns or even not complete an idea.  Forgive these.  Listen for the personally meaningful, the "gem" that sparkles in your soul and makes a difference for you. 

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