Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: vegan tiramisu , Vtopian Artisan Cheeses - Carmelized Onion Camembert with rhubarb compote; lavender blueberry ale Sight: "The Garden," Descender," Adaptor," art by Brin Levinson ; street murals; urban squirrels - Fox Squirrels Sound: drunken shouts and chatter Touch: feet sore from 16 miles of walking and dancing in heels Smell: lilac Extra: objet d'art: antlers, dragon horns, wine glasses, stained glass earrings, recycled metal; sated indulgence; delighted, overwhelmed, delighted and panicked in booktopia; "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." - Carl Sagan Grateful for: Human Rights Campaign

Taste: wasabi, aubergine, toasted cashews and beetroot chutney — vegan toast; rye Sight: winter-crisped sky, mountains, a primal wild land covered in lava rock; two pendants of green light appear beside the Imagine Peace Tower  in spring; an easy independent relaxed gait; Blue Lagoon, piercing Iceland blue; street murals; white disco lights, colored disco lights; a display of feminist books; Cygnus cygnus, Whooper Swans Sound: íslenska — Laugevegur, Ólafur,Viðey Touch: wind blows up off The Pond; geothermal water; going down a warm water slide; one pair of boots, three pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, five shirts, two hoodies, two hats, one scarf, two pair gloves, and an overcoat Smell:  crêpes Extra: "A dream you dream alone is only a dream/A dream you dream together is reality"—Yoko Ono, Imagine Peace Tower Grateful for: travel by boat, travel by air, travel by foot; warm clothes

Taste: pomegranate seeds Sight: white cherry blossoms at night; golden glitter Sound:  wedding vows Touch:  sugar sticky fingers Smell: bramble on the nose Extra: "...and I have been placed here by our Compassionate Utopia to ease her suffering." — "The Last Dance," G.G. Silverman "Love the earth and sun and the animals...and your very flesh shall be a great poem..." — Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass , 1855 Grateful for:  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring,  1962 "By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished as a human being?" "The questions is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized."

Taste: golden beet, blood orange, ginger; beet, apple, grape Sight:   the surface of Venus from the Venera 13 lander , March 1, 1982; flowering purple heather, flowering pale blue rosemary; rosy Sound: albedo; windchimes Touch: a backpack weighted with three beets, two golden beets, four carrots, and two Fuji apples Smell: washed children, scrubbed and soaped families Extra:  Makemake, Sedna, Quaoar, Haumea, Eris; one astronomical unit (AU), the distance between Earth and sun, 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles, 8 light-minutes "In my scientific life, most of the discoveries come as the result of seeing something for the first time."—Mike Brown, author of  How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming Grateful for:  Perfect Day #2 Awake with husband Walk dog Drive to the park Breakfast out at a new place Drink Golden Sunshine Riverwalk Taste sampler of ciders Enjoy feeling of discovery Lake walk Walk hand in hand until a feeling ...

Taste: oregano; ginger; flights of cider pomegranate, raspberry, blackberry, pear Sight:  runners, bikers, walkers — a city of movement blossoming in sunshine, the first warm springlike day; tiny goblets of carefully fermented fruit in lined up in the light in shades of honey and rose Sound: birdsong, "Bunny!" Touch: a bristle of beard; walking hand in hand Smell: jasmine, honeysuckle Extra: "May the birds, the soulful birds, the flying birds, the immortal birds remind us at every moment that although we are in the finite we are of the Infinite."— Sri Chinmoy   "At every moment We need cheerfulness To surmount All our problems." — Sri Chinmoy  Grateful for: strolling in sympatico

Taste: blood orange Sight: a pig capsule; a Pacific Rose apple; the bald eagle glides still in the breeze while the three seagulls gather and pester Sound:  "I want to learn to drive a tractor, so git you one."; My heart is enormous lake Black with potion I am blind Drowning in this ocean "Black Lake," Vulnicura, Björk Touch:  squinting in sunlight Smell: a flowering rosemary bush Extra: I have always wanted to live many lives: so the choices are 1) write novels 2) foster a belief in reincarnation.; Do what you love and do what is needed.; When the alarm clock is a language with horns.; reading Vice by Ai, The American Woman in the Chinese Hat by Carole Maso and The Encantadas by Herman Melville at Burning Man Grateful for: planets, and the naming of them after creation myths—planetology becomes mythology

Taste: chocolate peanut butter pie Sight: North Cascades Grizzly Bear ; blue sky, cherry blossoms, white star magnolia, tulip tree magnolia, white camellia Sound:  Björk,  Vulnicura : Atom Dance, "I am dancing towards transformation."; Family, "There is a swarm of sound/Around our heads"; Quicksand, "When she's broken, she is whole And when she's whole, she's broken Our mother's philosophy It feels like quicksand And if she sinks I'm going down with her" Touch: light wind in the low 50s Smell: hyacinth Extra: "After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world." - Philip Pullman  "Who rides so late in the night and the wind? It is the writer's grief. It is the wild March wind." — Pale Fire, Nabokov  Grateful for: the onset of spring