THE OLDEST SENSE

A one-celled animal

The oldest sense has got to be smell, which is the ability to decipher molecular clues from the environment.  A one-celled animal must know what to go towards and what to avoid, which is at the core of smelling the environment.  It is a sense historically most deeply related to worship as incense, oils, and burnt offerings.  Two of the three natal gifts to the Baby Jesus were sources of scent.  And yet smell is the most problematic of senses to use when designing ceremonies.

When we were operating the Scriver Museum of Montana Wildlife, which was attached to the Scriver Taxidermy Studio, we were careful to make sure there were no offensive smells during tourist season.  (In hunting season there might be bears to skin -- they smelled like wet dogs unless they’d been traveling in conifers, which made them smell like Christmas trees.)  In treating skins we used borax, one of the oldest ingredients of Egyptian mummification recipes.  People who can smell it at all associate it with laundry soap.  Rubber latex, smelling of 1,4-polyisoprene, was one of our usual substances, as was plastilene, clay kneaded into a waxy petroleum base.

http://moose-r-us.com/Item/lodge-decor/incense.html

We burned “Campfire Memories,” an incense devised by a local biology teacher as a little side business.  By some secret process, he ground up pine needles, got them to stick together in a paste and extruded them into “sticks” which did indeed smell like a campfire when burned.  The Blackfeet, of course, constantly used smudges, especially sources of coumarin like sweetgrass or sweet pine (balsam pine), cedar and sage.  

My time in the ministry was on the prairie in the Eighties when people still related to sweet clover and new-cut alfalfa as good things.  But the last time I visited my home Portland church there was a sign on the door forbidding anyone wearing perfume from entering because of allergies.  (I haven’t been back.  Why would I go to a place that’s allergic to me?)  In fact, close to the end of my circuit-riding there was a parent who asked us not to use smudges because her child was allergic.  This strange chemical asceticism is quite serious and I didn’t fight it.  People die of peanut allergies.  But it’s a loss.  Now we can only name the smells and hope people will be able to summon them up in memory.  

Do not come to my house if you are allergic to any smells.  It’s not just the cats and the cat box that had to come inside because Crackers stopped using it otherwise.  It’s that the earth under the house smells of volcanic clay (I leave the trapdoor open so I can monitor the ancient plumbing) and I smudge sweetgrass.  Rather than using commercial deodorizers, I fling all the doors and windows open as long as the temperature allows.  

I keep oils like sage and hippie mixtures on cotton in dishes.  When I left Portland, a co-worker gave me a little blue bottle of mixed essential oils that she wore as perfume so I wouldn’t forget her.  She bought it in one of the New Age shops on SE Hawthorne but over the years (15 now) the label has soaked up oil that obliterated the label so I can’t order more.  (I never saw her again and she knew I wouldn’t.)  But it’s easy to find sources by mail.  If you like the mystique and have access, you could “wildcraft,” go looking on the land.  Check out the damp places, sniff for mint.

When Leland stops by, he says the house smells like his grandmother.  He means tobacco, strong coffee, cottonwood smoke, and Ben-gay.  Maybe some Vicks Vaporub.  (I put tobacco in with my Bundle Opening clothes to protect them.) I save all the perfume samples that come in magazines to tuck into shirt pockets and the underwear drawer, but the aromas have become insipid, both in the kind of smells and the intensity of the samples, even though the zines come in plastic envelopes to protect the sensitive. 

Oak Moss

In France some powerful ingredients of perfume are now illegal on grounds that they are carcinogenic.  Claims are that the stuff causes sperm damage, hormone disruption (which is linked to some cancers, thyroid disease, obesity, diabetes, and other serious health problems), reproductive toxicity, and allergy problems.  Oak moss is one of the casualties and happens to be in my all-time fav scent (Aliage) as well as Chanel No.5. 

Bleach, ammonia, Lifeboy soap, naptha, lemon oil, Old English polish -- all potent smells but none used in religious ceremonies that I know of.  Nevertheless, they creep into the big empty spaces that are churches and form a felted background to the damp coats and galoshes of worshippers.  Sometimes there is a hint of baby powder.

The neuron olfactory receptors in the nose are projected extensions of the original nose, which is the bulbs deep under the “new” brain, same as the neuron light receptors are eyeballs on the ends of the optic nerves that extend back to the real sight deciphering organs at the back of the head, close to the top of the old brain.  All this description is merely meant to evoke your own associations, especially those that are deep in the old brain, the limbic system, where the real meanings are felt, not just asserted.

This is not a pitch for scented candles in the sanctuary.  Many of them are toxic offenders -- I’ve known them to make people faint -- which is why beeswax is recommended.  It’s a benign sweet smell.  Nor am I saying one should sprinkle cinnamon or mint leaves around or install one of those scent dispensers they use in stores to make you happy enough to fork out money -- though that’s a thought!  Rather this is an invitation to sit in your religious place and "see" what you smell.  Reflect about your own personal smell associations, because they won’t be the same as everyone else’s -- and yet you might share some.  

Aside from the intriguing poetics of smell, it is good to consider the patterns that develop under different contexts.  Right now, disconcertingly, “touch” may be more toxic, allergic and contagious than smell.  Due to fears about Ebola and flu, we are encouraged not to shake hands, but so far as I know no one has invited people to “pass the peace” by the suggested substitute:  bumping elbows.  Kissing and hugging, of course, are out, which does not worry we former stiff Presbyterians who were never into it anyway.

If smell and touch are dangerous, sight and sound must take up the slack unless we begin to eat in church beyond Communion, which has also worried people who fear germs.  But religious institutions have always been good about providing images and music, printed words and spoken words.  It is recovering senses of spiritual individuality and coordinating them into a welcoming and meaningful communal experience that presents the challenge.  The basic forces of life are survival of the individual and survival of the group.  One of the functions of religious institutions is to keep the individual and the group from damaging each other -- helping them reinforce each other.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU SMELLING?

At 1000fragrances.com this morning is a surprise: a book you smell. The pages are glass, each fronting what I suppose is the equivalent of blotter paper, and the glass is porous enough to let the perfume on the paper seep through very slowly. Only twelve pages are in the “book,” but there are also twelve vials of the molecular compound so that pages can be “recharged.” Whether this is practical or not and whether there are any advantages beyond just sniffing the vials themselves is an open question. Maybe glass pages are just a gimmick.

But people have been trying to do something similar (scratch ‘n sniff) for quite a while, to the point where magazines with samples finally had to be sent out in plastic pockets for the sake of people who were either offended or allergic. We’re a very split society when it comes to smells. On the one hand we claim to find them markers of class (body odor, cheap perfume) and on the other we spend hundreds of dollars on tiny bottles of certain mixtures, so people will inquire, “Oh, what’s the name of that heavenly smell?” Everyone fantasizes about pheromones, those “invisible” odors that only moths can smell, and would like a little bottle of stuff that would make them irresistible to certain parties. The scented candle parts of some gift stores are enough to knock you down. In fact, I’ve felt a little faint myself.

I’ve been reading about perfumes long enough to realize that there are many sources and that smells are gateways to consciousness, but most perfumes are meant to be a time art propelled by human body temperature, which provides the heat for dissemination and “dry down,” which reveals new aspects of the scent. Perfumes on surfaces not worn are different. Presumably the glass covers on the pages would keep the scents from interacting with ambient air or even fingers introduced to turn the pages.

The nose is a direct extension of the brain into the face, which is what makes it such a good route for drug delivery, whether glue fumes or virus inoculation or decongestant. Scientists struggle to know just how the sensory cells manage to analyze the incredible number of molecules we can smell, quite apart from the question of what the dog is smelling that lets them know we’re short on insulin. The earlier theories from Luca Turin were that molecules “dock” with tabs that fit ports on the cells, which we know is often the way molecules act in the body, but now the cutting edge is something called “quantum tunneling” which is far beyond my understanding. For one thing, a special vocabulary is necessary, let alone concepts.

Turin was interested in designing smells for household cleaners, which you probably found out when you stopped at the shelf of dish-washing liquids and had to choose among five versions. But Coiffan’s worst insult is that a perfume smells like detergent. The last load of clothes I brought into the house to finish drying was decidedly pungent. There are certain women in this town who do contract cleaning and make sure you know when they were there (since they often clean businesses in the middle of the night or homes when occupants are at work) by leaving the place reeking of Pine-sol or bleach. Some people find this reassuring and others are repelled.

And there’s the trouble with smells: they are idiosyncratic, often culture bound. Part of the reason I think about them so much is that all my life my mother told me about taking me into a Chinatown shop in San Francisco when I was about three, a talking toddler. I wrinkled my nose and loudly announced that it smelled funny. She thought this was very funny (I don’t know why). I don’t.

AROMAPOETRY - a book to be read with the nose by Eduardo Kac

World premiere of Aromapoetry

Enghien-les-Bains Art Center, Enghien-les-Bains, France,

"Invisible & Insaisissable / Elusive & Invisible"

September 23rd to December 16th, 2011

"Aromapoetry is a new kind of poetry in which the compositional unit (the poem) is made up of smells. The poet "writes" the smells by conceiving the poem as an olfactory experience and then employing multiple chemical procedures to achieve his poetic goals. It goes without saying that, as in any kind of poetry, the reader is an active participant that interprets and thus ascribes his or her own meanings to the poem beyond the writer's original motivations.

“In my book Aromapoetry, the first book ever written exclusively with smells, readers find twelve aromapoems that range widely in their material structure and semantic resonance. While I composed some of my aromapoems with only one or two molecules, most of them are composed of dozens of molecules each. In some cases, a single poem has distinct olfactory zones on the page—each comprised of dozens of molecules each. In other words, the level of molecular intricacy of the works in Aromapoetry varies from the very simple to the extremely complex.

“I composed the twelve poems in Aromapoetry so as to provide the reader with a broad field of aromatic experiences. The titles simultaneously delineate and open up the semantic sphere of each work. Each poem is a distinct and self-contained composition. At the same time, the book has a dynamic internal rhythm produced through the alternation of different or contrasting smells.

“Every poem in the book Aromapoetry employs nanotechnology by binding an extremely thin layer of porous glass (200 nanometers thick) to every page, trapping the odorants (i.e. the volatile molecules) and releasing them very slowly. Without this nanotechnology, the fragrances would quickly dissipate and the smells would no longer be experienced after a few days. To ensure even greater longevity, a set of small bottles is integrated into the book, allowing the reader to recharge every individual page. With an eye to the distant future, the book’s summary presents key molecules used in the production of each poem.

“Aromapoetry is a book to be read with the nose."

Eduardo Kac, Aromapoetry (2011), artist's book with box and slipcase, twelve custom-made aromas enmeshed in a nanolayer of mesoporous glass, letterpress text and graphics, 16 2ml vials with engraved titles, 11.69" x 8.27" x 2" (297 mm x 210 mm x 50.8 mm), edition of 10 signed and numbered by the artist.

Source: Eduardo Kac Website http://ekac.org/index.html

THE FRAGRANCE OF RITUAL

The aspect of liturgy/ritual/ceremony that I am exploring is the use of the senses to shift consciousness over the limen to a deeper level of conceptualizing.  Of course we already use scent cues, whether it is the “nice” smell generated by machines in a luxury department store while the piano player tinkles out tunes, or the heavy mock-rose of a mortuary, perhaps meant to cover the reek of formaldehyde from the prep room.  We are advised that to sell our house, prospective buyers should get a whiff of apple pie baking (even if you bought the whiff in a spray can).  At a Catholic mass the priest will wield a pierced ball of burning incense, a censer.  I’m giving you examples of smell, because in spite of the above, smell is often a neglected sense in worship.

Octavian Coifan calls the formulation of perfume the “Eighth Art,” still very close to alchemy.  Books on the subject sell for hundreds of dollars, like the formularies for patining bronze sculptures before one could just buy predictable solutions from a sculptor's supply house.  On Coifan’s blog www.1000fragrances.com  he explores commercial perfumes but also historical scents.  He does not neglect those that come from the edge of human life: smoke, embalming, tanning leather, shipping shawls packed in the infamous patchouli smell that became so popular in the defiant and cannibis-scented Sixties.

Specifics.  The original patchouli perfume was said to include ground up Egyptian mummies, which had been preserved with spices. 

http://bit.ly/pcN3gt  for Coifan’s eloquent description.  The famous cashmere shawls absorbed the odors of the other cargo: often exotic wood, spices, pepper, and musk.  The spices were partly commodities for sale and partly to guard against insects, the way Blackfeet used sage, sweetgrass and tobacco.  Among the bug repellants were the leaves of the patchouli plant.  In the nineteenth century enterprising commercialists traced the plant to its origins in India and began to grow it in France, where it was associated with tobacco rather in the way that it later chimed with cannabis.  But even more intensely, it was associated with sex, evoking the elegant shawl over the gauze empire dress that sometimes exposed the bosom.

When the “wise men” came to Bethlehem with gifts of frankincense and myrrh, they were bringing scents used in religious ritual.  Coifan looks at such matters, combining the traditions of Middle Eastern incense with the ritual tea ceremonies of Asia which were made bourgeois, restorative and friendly in English petite rituals, sipping Earl Grey black tea scented with bergamot, now forbidden in its original formulation.  First olfactory secularity and now extirpation.

Coifan says, “If myrrh is a ritual of smoke and scent performed inside the coldness and darkness of stone temples in a "social" space accessible to very few, the tea is about taste and the hot vapors, a ritual of intimacy accessible to everyone. Outside (communion with the others and with the Gods) and Inside (the enclosed space of intimate thoughts in silence).”

“Perfume is not about abstract concepts, even less about landscapes. It's above all about the relevant notes for us as humans in the myriad of scents of this planet.”  What is relevant is what is associated with the ultimate thresholds of death and sex.  

Vegetal sources are everywhere but those of the rhizomous orris, iris and violet plants have long “roots” in history.  See http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/2011/07/osiris-scent-mysteries-and-history-of.html  These are again Egyptian preservatives.  Smoke, or as the Native Americans would have it, smudging, is connected to the household, http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/2011/05/smoke-candles-and-scents-of-time.html  but also to the Middle Eastern burnt offering. (Sacrifices were “sent up” to the heavens by burning them on the altar.  The practical -- or stingy -- burned the parts no one would eat, but the generously beseeching would burn the whole animal, a “holocaust.”)  

There is a class element to odor.  The smells of households that burned wood or coal, that fried meat, that simmered roots (onions, turnips, cabbage) for long periods of time, had a particular reek that smack of low-class kitchens where cheap foods were prepared, maybe on kerosene stoves.  That tenement smell mixed with fungus, rot and urine.  No wonder the people smoked.  Remember Susan Sarandon in the movie role where she was a fishmonger, rubbing her bosom with lemon at the end of the day?

Dry vegetal matter, aromatic, can be kept in sachets, like lavendar or in pot pourri.  Balsam fir, or sweet pine, is popular as a Blackfeet offering, tied into a little calico bag.  Cedar, even when it’s not burning, is the sweet smell of a new pencil.  Resins, gums oozing from bark or at a cut.

Aldehydic smells stand in relation to natural odors the same way that anniline dyes relate to organic dye.  Laboratory created, they are more intense, more sharp, and perhaps more likely to trigger allergies.   The chemistry of smell is the molecular story of alcohol, fat, sugar and rot.

However specifically based on culture and ecology many perfumes are, everyone has their own private iconography of evocation.  For me, burnt metal as produced in a foundry or torch welding carries a strong emotion.  The mixture of beebalm and wild mint found along the creeks of the prairie -- because of lying in it nude with no blanket -- is more sexy to me than musk.  That’s a young smell.  Even younger were the medicines of menthol and iodine.  The smell of newly cut alfalfa is one thing; the smell of a broken-open bale of hay in the middle of winter is another.   The skillful liturgist knows the congregation well enough to balance the likely individual associations against the more broadly cultural or historic. 

Even the smell of the sacred space in use must be perceived and considered.  Because so much wood is used, there may be smells of wax and lemon oil.  Beeswax candles. The combined smell of the worshippers.  I grieve that so many people are now allergic to perfume that some church buildings are posted with notices excluding those wearing it.  And yet our children stink of fruit, baby powder, detergent additives, and oxymoronic musk-scented deodorant.  Olfactory cacophony.

In a purist worship group, perhaps a small sandalwood or cedar paneled room might invite newly washed persons wearing long loose cotton shirts laundered, well-rinsed and dried in sunlit outdoors.  Then a smoke smudge or scented oil or aromatic wine could regain its full meaning as the door latch to the sacred.