2019
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Wildcrafted Indian red champaca
Davana
Ylang-ylang
Apricot
‘While living in Singapore, I took my dogs for exercise everyday to an abandoned cemetery located in what was reverting to a jungle. We would jog past the most beautiful fragrance, but when I would stop to look to find a blossom to identify where this sublime odor was coming from, I could never find any evidence of origin. One Fall, I was in Bali for work and finishing early I went to bide my time in the market. The first stalls were those of the flower ladies, selling loose flowers in baskets or pre-made offerings in palm frond baskets. There in the market was a woman perched in front of a large basket of ‘my’ fragrance. Returning home, I bought a champaca tree and would sit under its fragrant blooms and deconstruct the magic. There are many folktales of the spectral champaca. One can stand in front of it and not smell the blooms, yet stand twenty feet away and be caught in its web.’
