“Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.”
- Vladimir Nabokov
You always hear about how a smell can bring back memories in an instant. It’s true, but today I’m thinking of how smell can bring us so strongly into the present. There’s nothing like the smells floating from a bakery or a nearby restaurant that can make you stop to look around in search of its source.
Just as with sounds, smell can come from any direction — we receive it. While something can be “out of sight out of mind,” smells can creep up on us the way sounds do, sometimes faintly, from a distance. And we make associations with those smells and develop attractions or aversions sometimes. We are subject to the smells in our environment, but sometimes we have the ability to bring a scent into our proximity as a way of setting ambience: incense, essential oils, cooking, baking, a fragrant garden.
Now and then you might have smelled the incense or essential oils at a yoga studio. Or maybe you do yoga at the gym, and the scent of sweat is your association with yoga. But what if you don’t like lavender essential oil, or whatever they use at the yoga studio; or yoga at the gym is more in line with your budget, but you can’t stand the smell of sweat and exercise equipment. The nice thing about practicing at home is that you can control the scent of your environment where you practice.
I’m not just talking about creating some nice smells around you when you practice postures on your mat. What about those times when you need to get grounded and centered and you don’t have time for a few yoga postures? Sometimes just having a smell you associate with something uplifting is enough. It can be something as fancy-shmancy as pure essential oils or as down-to-earth as the smell of your morning coffee.
Now and then I come across a book or activity for kids yoga and I think, “I could use that technique. Adults need that, too.” Recently my daughter has been asking my husband and I to read to her from this precious little book called Breathe Like a Bear by Kira Willey. All the activities in it call upon the powers of imagination that come so naturally to kids. Here’s one that seems so appropriate as we move into spring:
Spring is in the air, Yoga Mamas! Let’s take time to stop and smell the roses, as they say. There aren’t really any flowers blooming in Chicago yet (where I am), so for now, I’ll have to just stop and smell my coffee or tea, or just pause for moments to savor the aroma of whatever I’m cooking for dinner. It’s all about stopping and noticing, taking in the richness of my surroundings, and using a deep breath to zoom me into this present moment. Yoga is not just about postures, it’s also about the breath; and it’s not just the breath, but the act of noticing. The highest yoga is about witnessing your experience of the body, breath, and mind and that can take place during any normal daily activity.
One of my favorite Sanskrit mantras that I learned at Satchidananda Ashram even describes the Higher Power as fragrant (apologies for the less-than-perfect transcription of the Sanskrit portion):
Om tryambakum yajamahe
Sugandhim pushti vardhanam
Urvarukamiva bandhanan
Mrityor mukshya mamritat
Om, shanti, shanti, shanti
English translation:
We worship You, all-seeing one.
Fragrant, You nourish bounteously
From the fear of death may You cut us free
To realize immortality.
Om, peace, peace, peace.
Here’s to a spring season that inspires us to stop and smell the roses during our busy days. What are your favorite smells and how do they help you slow down even during the most hectic of times?