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    Spirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full
    Spirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full
    Spirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full
    Ebook57 pages29 minutes

    Spirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full

    By Catherine McCann

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    About this ebook

    We rarely focus on our senses and thus miss out on how they can enhance our lives at both micro and macro levels; what they can offer us in daily life, as well as during life’s special moments. It is up to each individual to become more consciously aware of and use each sense in more deliberate yet sensitive ways. Everyone can benefit by focussing daily on one or more of the senses even if only for a short period. Ideally it should become a daily practice.

    This book arose from an altered way of heightening people’s senses as they ‘experienced’ what Shekina Sculpture Garden has to offer: its views, stream, shrub beds, seating areas, and its unique collection of sculptures by modern Irish artists. The latter are made of many mediums: stone, wood, iron, glass, stainless steel etc.

    Heightening our use of each sense is enhanced by adverting to both our outer as well as equivalent inner sensing. For example seeing; seeing colours in all their shades, seeing form, then finally noticing one’s inner seeing. An example of the latter might be receiving an ‘insight’ about something. Gardens, in particular, are places to be tactile in, such as walking bare foot on grass, sensing the texture of a leaf with one’s fingers, hugging the bark of a tree, stepping into the coolness of running water etc. Inner sensing might be opened up by the phrase: ‘I felt very touched by…’ 

    The book offers a short chapter on the anatomy of our senses, and closes on another perspective: the part inner sensing plays in relation to religious faith as well as noticing how tactile Jesus was in his healing ministry.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMessenger Publications
    Release dateJul 31, 2020
    ISBN9781788122931
    Spirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full

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      Book preview

      Spirituality and the Senses - Catherine McCann

      INTRODUCTION

      In this booklet we are invited to become more conscious of the five senses. We take our senses for granted to a great extent. This is largely due to our failure to pause and stand in awe at the riches each sense has to offer us. This booklet challenges readers to appreciate more fully what the senses gift us with in everyday life as well and in life’s more special moments. They are precious abilities that enhance many aspects of human life, particularly when we focus more deliberately on what they have to offer. If a keener and more deliberate awareness of our senses is cultivated, the likely result will be appreciation and delight whatever the circumstances.

      A recent approach to preparing visitors to Shekina Sculpture Garden in County Wicklow – focusing on developing a keener awareness of the senses – inspired this booklet. Having talked to visitors their overall experience of the garden was one of ‘personal enrichment’.

      After reading this booklet we should find that the everyday events of life can be enhanced when attention is given to our senses. Further enrichment can also occur when an awareness of an ‘inner’ sense is developed. This inner sense can include a faith dimension.

      CHAPTER ONE

      SHEKINA SCULPTURE GARDEN

      SHEKINA SCULPTURE Garden inspired this booklet. So, a few words about the history of the garden are in order!

      Shekina is situated in Kirikee, the townland that marks the entrance to Wicklow’s scenic Glenmalure Valley. The ‘sculpting’ of this one-acre garden began in 1979. This process included removing a large shed and replacing it with a sizable patio area, partially diverting a stream to create two ponds, adding three large shrub beds, making spaces for sitting areas and erecting a gazebo. The sculpture collection was started in 1985 and now contains twenty-one works, all by Irish artists. These artists include: Cliodhna Cusson, Fred Conlon, Paul Page, Imogen Stuart, Ken Thompson, Michael Casey, Noel Scullion, Alexander Sokolov, Alexandra Wejchert, Leo Higgins, James Gannon, Elke Westen, Anne Murphy, Michael Foley, Seighean O’Draoi and Rachel Joynt. The collection includes a large piece nearby on the roadside by Fred Conlon.

      Throughout the nineties the garden was open to visitors during the County Wicklow Garden Festival. After the latter ended visitors, largely in groups, came for ‘outings’, which included picnicking and simply being in the garden. Over the years awareness of the existence of the garden was sustained through articles,

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