Shel Graves' Sensorium

Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis lays down the case that we are heading into the age of empathy and biosphere consciousness — characterized by compassion, grace, and a nonjudgmental attitude toward others — critical to the modern age, but does not speculate as to this would look like (seek to predict the future). It ends by posing the question: "Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse?" The book is an excellent history of human consciousness and how it is shaped by education systems, parenting techniques, social structures, relationships and energy use. The book looks back in seeking to solve modern issues and provides an interesting perspective on historical events. It's also an etymology tracing the roots and origins of words including "self" (as a noun 1400), "self-praise" (1549), "consciousness" (1678), "self-con...

Taste: pumpkin pancakes with maple syrup; Jameson and ginger ale - Seattle Steam Sight: a ceiling beaded in black and white, crisp altars with lit candles, planting rows of peas, terraced hills; Edward Scissorhands and one of the Twins on Halloween Touch: searing pain across the eye, squeezed tight; asphyxiated by jalapeno pepper: a hacking cough, a dryness Sound: "If there always had to be "o"s in sex then it would be sox...or sex-o."; bagpipes Smell: oil, frying, smoke Extra: wearing a lilac dress and covered in train tracks, being Anna Karenina for Halloween; other people dress their dogs up for Halloween: I dress as my dog: my costume all black with a white scarf around my neck, ears, a tail, a heart-shaped collar, a white dab of paint on my forehead if I am pretending to be the smaller one

Taste: unpeeled carrot Sight: a lavender and mint sky with a platinum moon between the evergreens; green-blue water beneath white bubbles; in a box lunch that consists of a plastic wrapped sandwich, a plastic cup of pasta salad, a cheesecake brownie folded in saran wrap, and a green apple 13 out of 17 people will use the apple, uneaten, as a decoration for their desk. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." "Eat more fruits and vegetables!" advise health professionals, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association." The apples decorating the conference center are beautiful, but angry. "I am a fruit!" one apple cries. "You are what you eat!" yell the others. The apple protests its mistreatment, "The smashed brownie is dense and glue-like as a clogged artery, the spirals of pasta are a cheap food ground down from fields of brown colored grass fit only for animals with four stomachs to digest and fancied up with just a ...

Taste: Mutsu apple ; lemon pop-lemon bars Sight: curved red kuri winter squash Touch: "So that's what it feels like to eat lots of vegetables!" Sound: "That's so gothentatious."; "Grind," Compas s, Assemblage23 "It'll drag you down, if you allow it to."; ear-stuffed, bubbles snapping Smell: boiling apples, stage one sauce Extra: time elongates when reading

The TED (Technology, Engineering, Design) independent (x) event in Seattle (Rainier) fit more than 30 speakers into one inspiring day. Based on presenting "ideas worth spreading," with a philosophy of radical openness, each speaker had nine minutes to share their passion with an audience of 300 live at Benaroya Hall and many more watching online. They spoke on subjects ranging from the latest developments in suspended animation (to prolong life in medical emergencies) to breakthroughs in affordable sanitary pads (so girls in Africa can stay in school without embarrassment) to modernist cuisine (science-based cooking techniques — liquid nitrogen anyone?). It brought together artists, entrepreneurs, and educators working in interdisciplinary fields to cross-pollinate ideas. It was like taking a bunch of mini-classes all in a day. Here's a sample of the conference ( http://tedxrainier.com/10/ ): Listen: • Jazz singer Meklit Hadero accompanied by cello and sax: www.mekli...

Taste: massamun curry Sight: Food, flesh and photography ; "Super duper cool Acrobaticalist Ninja Action Heroes!"; Galaxies! Touch: holding hands weaving a canopy of trees Sound: Jazz singer Meklit Hadero accompanied by cello and sax; cellist Joshua Roman ; the cello sounds most like the human voice Smell: lightly perfumed bodies in a crowded auditorium Extra: TEDxRainier : "Eat well and make love!" — Tiberio Simone , sensual chef; "Solidarity not charity." — Wendy Johnson, global health activist; "Inequality kills." — Stephen Bezruchka, physician, founder of Population Health Forum ; Our bodies as estuaries. — Jourdan Imani, poet, founder of Urban Wilderness Project ; storytelling for environmental and social justice, "You don't have to burn a book that's never published." — Claudia Mauro, poet, founder of Whit Press ; Passion creates patience. "It took 30 years of experience to climb Annapurna." (the wor...

Taste: pumpkin curry soup Sight: heading the ball, thin men running Touch: unexpected heat, a muggy day; weeping, downcast eyes, the weight of sadness Sound: Seattle Sounders , a marching band, drums, tubas, trombones, Smell: garlic, salt, oil; garlic fries Extra: sporting rituals; a favorite protagonist: Dorothea Brooke from George Eliot's Middlemarch : "I have no longings. I mean for myself. Except that I should like not to have so much more than my share without doing anything for others. But I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me...That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil--widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower... It is my life. I try not to have desires merely for myself, because they may not be good for others, and I have too much already." — Dorothea and "But the effect of her being on those ar...