Free Your Artist - Archive

Senses/Smell - August 2001

For the fun links associated with this exercise, please e-mail me.

Quote | Visualization | Affirmation

Free Your Artist

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.

—Henry David Thoreau

Creativity Exercise

Smell can be the most powerful sense of all. One whiff of a scent can transport us years past or miles away. And subtle, even unnoticed odors—such as pheromones —can work on our minds and bodies.

Exercise 1: Walk through your home. Stand in the center of each room and close your eyes. Does the room itself have a scent? What is the strongest smell -- lingering pot pourri, incense, candle wax, flowers? What of furniture polish, coffee, baking? What does this tell you about your home? And how do you feel about it?

Exercise 2: List the five first smells that come to mind or list the five most important odors in your life. Using your favorite medium, describe one scent (or a mixture). Write, act, paint, sing of a scene that the scent inspires.

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Affirmation

I greet the day with joy and know I will be inspired and creative.

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