Practising Presence 4: read the world with your nose
Smell is the underdog of the senses.
Even though it's our only sense to fully develop in utero and has an incredible capacity to detect emotion and stimulate memory, smell is our most unappreciated sense.
Consider this: when the marketing firm McCann Worldgroup surveyed thousands of young people about what they value most, more than half of the 16 to 22 year-olds said they would rather give up their sense of smell than their phones or laptops.
Maybe you can dismiss this as a sign of young people’s (over)attachment to technology but their devaluing of smell is part of a trend in Western thought. Smell has been denigrated by almost all Western philosophers stretching back to the Greeks but with particular venom during the Enlightenment. "Which organic sense is the most ungrateful and also seems the most dispensable?" asked Immanuel Kant. Yep, you guessed it: smell.
The sad news is that devaluing smell becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It turns out that the less we pay attention to smells, the more we lose the ability to detect smells.
The good news is that we can reclaim and strengthen our sense of smell and it’s actually very simple. According to scent expert Dawn Goldworm, our sense of smell is like a muscle and it gets a workout every time we notice and name what we're smelling.
Goldworm explains:
“Just pay attention with your nose. When you are walking down the street, consciously indicate what you are smelling … the more you use [your nose], the stronger it gets.”
When I imagine someone paying attention with their nose as they walk down the street, I can’t help but think of my dog, Teddy, trotting along with his nose close to the ground. Like most dogs, Teddy sniffs with abandon. He’ll sniff anything and, if he’s not sure he’s getting a clear enough whiff, he’ll give it a little lick too.
If you're a dog owner, you'll know that this constant sniffing can get rather tiring (do you really need to sniff every lamppost?) but I’ve found I’ve become more sympathetic since I’ve realised that his sniffing is his primary way of reading the world. When he’s sniffing yet another lamppost, he’s reading it for clues about who was there and what they ate for breakfast. When he cocks his leg in response, he’s writing a note back.
If paying attention with my nose is a pathway into heightened smelling and Teddy is my most nose-attentive companion, I’m wondering what might happen if I tried following his lead (no pun intended). What if I let myself read the world through my nose? This week, I’m giving it a go and I’m inviting you to join me. As always, you are welcome to follow the invitation however you feel inclined but I’ll be using these four principles (all of which I’ve learnt from Teddy):
Sniff the air, especially outside or when something’s cooking.
Follow the smell and be willing to go out of your way to find the source.
Savour the smell by lingering long enough to really take it in and experimenting with short sharp sniffs as well as deeper inhales.
Respond by inwardly naming what you're smelling or what you're feeling or remembering in response.
I’m looking forward to trying this out and I’m curious to see what happens but, I have to be honest with you, I feel a bit nervous to offer this to you as this week's soak in presence and a pathway into prayer. I mean, you're probably thinking:
How on earth cansmellingbe a spiritual practice?
In sitting with this, I’ve realised that any resistance to connecting smell with prayer probably says more about the day and age we live in than it does about scent or the capacity of smell to connect us with the Divine. It may seem strange to talk about smelling God in the 21st century but in the Middle Ages this wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow any more than “seeing” God or “hearing” God.
Partly, this was because they lived in a more intensely smelly world; without deodorants and modern plumbing, medieval folk were far more familiar with the scent of body odour and decay than we are today. It would have been more natural to talk about smelling God because it would have been more natural to talk about smells in general. In addition, sacred spaces were marked by smells - in particular, the smell of incense, which would have pervaded all churches and cathedrals.
Researching the connection between scent and the sacred further I found this fascinating article What does God smell like? If you have time, I thoroughly recommend you have a read. As well as potting a history of the connection between saintliness and unusual smells (apparently the bones of St Nicholas smelt sweet), it touches on the importance of scent for worship, suggesting that scent can build communal spiritual memories across the centuries.
All this makes me wonder…
What are we missing by detaching the sacred from scent?
If we can encounter the Divine when we look at a sunset or listen to the lapping of waves, why can’t we encounter the Divine through the scent of honeysuckle or freshly baked bread?
Why shouldn't we be able to connect with God through our sense ofsmelljust as readily, yet mysteriously, as with any other?
What might happen if we allowed our sense of smell to be a pathway into connection with the Divine Presence?
Just as I finished writing this, my daughter Phoebe came in and gave me a hug. As I held her, I smelt her hair and then, because I've just been writing about lingering in smell, I smelt again. I tried to name the scent but all I got was "joy" and "love". Don't ask me how, it's a mystery. But today, for me, she smelt divine.
Jen x