I’m sitting in the little garden with the breezes flowing, circling through the trees and plants, picking up the various fragrances. At one moment I can smell the honeysuckle; at another, the jasmine on the other side of the garden; or, the various herbs, geraniums and other flowering plants scattered throughout. There are hummingbirds and bees vying for the nectars and the finches fill the trees with their songs. I sit with my eyes closed and try to guess the flower by the fragrance as it wafts by.

I’m reminded of three specific  times when I have been instantly intoxicated by a fragrance in nature that I am certain has been the ambrosia-laden essence of the spirit of the Earth itself: the soft, sweet fragrance of the tall sugar pines flows on the breezes through the forests above the Yosemite Valley; the cinnamon-y spice fragrance of gorse, the soft earth-based sweetness of  heather and the pungent smokey peat mixed with fresh rain and sea air on the Isle of Lewis; and the freshly rain-soaked wild flowers and clover under the spicy canopy of redwoods on the Northern California coast. Each has brought me to a place and time where nothing matters except breathing fully and remembering.