What becomes possible when we discover that the first portals are not hidden doorways, but our own senses?

In The Spell of the Sensuous, philosopher David Abram reflects on the days following a hurricane, when power outages quieted the machinery of everyday life. Without the usual hum of cars, streetlights, and telephones, birdsong became audible, the Milky Way reappeared overhead, and the salty air from the ocean seemed newly alive. "The breakdown of our technologies had forced a return to our senses," he writes, revealing "a sensuous world that had been waiting, for years, at the very fringe of our awareness."

In this Study, we'll explore what happens as we reacquaint ourselves with our breathing bodies and the living world around us. Together, we'll experiment with expanding our field of attention, noticing what slips into the background and what begins to stand forth when we slow down and engage the world with our whole sensory experience. As Abram reminds us, "as we return to our senses, we gradually discover our sensory perceptions to be simply our part of a vast, interpenetrating webwork of perceptions and sensations" shared with countless other beings.

Text: David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous

Date: Sunday, August 9 at 10:30am

Location: Zilker Park in Austin, Texas with Chris and Leah

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