Today we're exploring the senses other than taste. In Asatru and heathenry, the most common sacrifice is sumbel, that is, making a toast. The person honoring the god or other power drinks the beverage, so the person is experiencing and consuming the thing given to the god. Other sacrifices work the same way. For example, an offering of dance is the person giving the offering doing the dance. A person burning a special candle experiences the light and scent. And so on.

As mentioned in Part 1, I wanted to find ways of honoring the gods and powers other than by eating and drinking because as part of my Gila Lizard Powers I no longer have the same relationship with food and drink as I did before.

Hearing

Music: listening to music is hearing. Making music is both hearing and touch, and can even involve proprioception, the sense of the body in space. Drumming in a drum circle, many people get up and also dance while drumming. If you are drumming and close your eyes, and your hands keep hitting the drum in the correct way without looking at it, you're using proprioception to remember where it is in space.

Poetry and song: When I write poetry, I'm often not aware of the world at all. But when I present it later at a Bardic Circle, there is both the intellectual component of the meaning of the words, and also the sound of the words. Alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm all involve sound and the sense of hearing.

A while ago there was a fad for selling recordings of sounds of nature. Birdsong, waterfalls, rushing rivers, waves of the sea hitting the beach. These days there are a lot of artificial sounds similar to rainfall, fire, and so on, available on video sites as background music or ASMR sounds. Additionally there are soundscape videos known as ambience or ambient sound, of libraries with turning pages and other comforting background noises. Some of them are even temple sounds or intentional ritual sounds. All of these could be useful, either as direct gifts during a ritual, or as ways for the humans performing the ritual to get into the right chosen mood to match the intention.

Sight

Art and crafts: making art and appreciating art are related but separate activities, just like making or listening to music. Looking at art is sight, but making art is both sight and touch. Art can directly depict the gods and powers and their symbols. Or it can indirectly evoke a meaning related to holiness. Some gods and goddesses are patrons of specific arts and crafts, and a thing made in their craft can honor that god even if it has no direct symbolism on it.

Jewelry and clothing: just like other crafts and arts, making, wearing, and displaying or looking at jewelry and clothes engage the senses in different ways, including both sight and touch. Except for photos of clothing or of people wearing clothing, which can be classified as art in the sight category. Just like art, jewelry and clothing can directly depict the gods and powers and their symbols. For example, wearing a Thor's hammer pendant, or a Thor's hammer T-shirt. Or it can indirectly reference them. Clothing can also directly reference tradition by using special magical, religious, or historical type clothing for ritual.

Touch

Crafts in which making is the act of devotion, and touching is part of the meditative quality of the act, such as spinning and weaving, whittling, potting, etc. Meditations that involve touching objects such as a particular type of stone. Getting into the groove with places and objects like hugging trees, touching the stones in a stone circle, etc. Magical practices that include touching objects and getting impressions off of them such as rune reading. All of these are suitable for acts of devotion.

Proprioception

Dance. All kinds of dance can be offerings, or can be used to get the dancers into the ritual headspace, and if there is an audience, dance can also be used to get the audience into the right mood. Dance is usually paired with music, so it is both movement and hearing. It is possible to dance in silence, although most dancers prefer to use sound. There are dances specifically intended for rituals, for example, wedding dances.

Most folk dances have a unifying effect on the dancers, getting everyone to move together as a team. Some folk dances are intentionally designed for that effect, for example, the dance of the fisherman on Lake Van in Turkey in which dancers practice the co-ordinated movement of hauling in nets. Another such dance is the military dance Vari Hasapikos from the Greek culture, which is designed to get a four man team to be able to move as one following the hand signals of the leader.

Mermaid swimming. Honoring the mermaids by partially embodying them by swimming, either with or without a monofin. We completely change the way we perceive our bodies moving in space when we are moving underwater.

Stage magic tricks. Some stage magic tricks involve special practiced hand motions, or other practiced movements. There are quite a number of pagans who practice both magick and magic. Including stage performances in holiday celebrations is something many groups do, both among pagans and heathens, and in the wider cultures of which we are a part. When presented as part of a holiday gathering that includes a ritual, including ritual gift giving, feasting, etc., stage magic or other stage performances can become part of the sacrifice.

Smell

The Smell section got to be long enough for its own post so it will appear in Part 3: Smell.

I have learned so much since starting my Monster Powers journey, and a lot of what I learned was about perfume. So, who was going to tell me that "Florida Water" is literally just cologne? Folk magic like "wash your doorknobs with Florida Water to prevent disease" doesn't mean to get some mysterious, elusive magical ingredient, it means to use that stuff you have in your house that's made of alcohol. The herbs and scents of fragrances can have magical and spiritual qualities but that isn't one. lol. Anyway stay tuned for Part 3, coming soon.