Engaging the senses
Kiss me—full on the mouth!
Yes! For your love is better than wine,
headier than your aromatic oils.
The syllables of your name murmur like a meadow brook.
No wonder everyone loves to say your name!
Take me away with you! Let’s run off together!
An elopement with my King-Lover!
We’ll celebrate, we’ll sing,
we’ll make great music.
Yes! For your love is better than vintage wine.
Everyone loves you—of course! And why not? Song of Songs 1:2-4 (The Message)
This is a love that engages all of the senses – touch (kiss); taste (wine); smell (aromatic oils); hearing (brook and music) – in fact at this stage, every sense except seeing (which is the one most of us obsess about most of the time).
Love and attraction are about so much more than what someone look like. We would do well to remember that.
What strikes me is that to make these comparisons, this girl has to have really savoured all of the these experiences. She has to have known how to engage her senses in every area of her life.
Because how often are we so preoccupied that we don’t actually really hear the radio in the car?
How often do we not really taste the food that we eat?
How often do we savour the wine in the glass without being focussed on finishing the whole bottle?
When was the last time we enjoy being touched/kissed as an end in itself?
And can we even remember the last great smell that stopped us in our tracks?
This is sensuality – being fully engaged with the experience of the moment. This is when time stands still. When we escape. When all that matters is the pleasure of the touch, smell, sound, taste, image.
And no, sensuality is not the same as sexuality, but without an understanding of sensuality, I don’t know how we can ever fully enter into sexuality.
Sensuality can invade the whole of our lives. It’s about mindfulness – savouring the moment, everything about the moment. Pleasure resides in the present. And we saw in the Book of Ecclesiastes that this is the way to live life to the full – to enjoy eating and drinking and working hard. This is why we were created. To fully engage our senses in every activity.
Do you even know what you like? Some of us are so out of touch with our sensual selves that we could not say what food gives us pleasure, what music, what drink, what touch, what visual stimulus, what fragrance…and I’m not just talking about in the bedroom, because how do we stand any chance of knowing what we like in the bedroom if we do not even know what flavour ice cream we most enjoy?
We need to get back in touch with our senses – to really taste, really see, really listen, really feel, really smell. Slow down. Take the time. Truly live in the moment. Then we can escape. We can be whisked away into a place of pleasure.
It sounds good to me.
