Sensory

Many of us have grown up believing we have five senses. In reality, we actually have seven.

We have the traditional five senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch.  In addition, we have vestibular and proprioceptive senses.The vestibular sense is the perception of our body in relation to gravity, movement and balance. The proprioceptive sense is the sense of relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.

Each of these senses can be used or stimulated while gardening and while producing art.

Here’s an example of sensory integration while gardening:

Imagine you are walking into the garden. You feel the sunshine, smell the soil and touch the dew on the plants.  You see that the broccoli plants have grown taller.  You see the orange marigolds and that the tomato plants now have yellow blossoms on them. When you touch the soil you feel that it is dry.  You need to water and as you fill the watering can you feel the container get heavier. You hear the birds chirping in the trees nearby and the bees buzzing around the red petunias.  After you finish watering, you bend down to pull some weeds and you cut some lettuce as you walk out of the garden.