My son is not the best of travelers: like anyone, he has difficulty with jet lag. Like some people, he has a hard time getting used to a different bed. Like  most two year olds, he loves his routine, and it is hard to flex, adjust. Like his mama, he's a homebody. Like most city kids, he's a bit scared of the outdoors.

All of these things, two years on, are givens, but what I've noticed, or been reminded of this trip is how much routine and traditions support us emotionally.  Routines for the day (meals, when you shower), routines or the week (weekday vs weekend), the month, the season, the year.  Ideally those routines are sustaining us as a whole, but they may also be speaking to individual senses. Our internal (i.e. hunger) and external (i.e. seeing) senses really rely on routines so much for maintenance and well-being. They senses need to be nourished to function at the highest level, and we want them to function at the highest levels so we can have peak experiences, so we can enjoy the simple present moment, without fear of pain, of the unknown, without confusion.

So I'm going to write a few posts here about nourishing the senses-- either how we do it at our house now, that I think might be useful information, or things I'd like to change. I always thought there were 6 or 9 senses, but weirdly, there doesn't seem to be 100% consensus in the scientific community, it's 5, 6, 9, 21, possibly more, depending on where and what you read. So I'm going to start with: hearing/audiation, smell/olfactory, taste/gustation, seeing, touch/tactition (pressure), pain, balance, proprioception  (body in space), kinesthesia (body moving together), time, hunger, fear, "awareness" (the classic 6th sense). 12. Good enough for a start.

But underlying that nourishment, the network, the fiber,  the engine that makes it all work, is rhythm: of our days, and of the seasons. So I'm going  to write a little about our seasonal and monthly traditions as I go, too.