With serene confidence, we talk of nature as of an old friend in a well-thumbed photograph.  We sketch its strengths, foibles and habits, presuming to condense them in a neat phrase or two.

Yet a neighbor’s depiction of nature would be entirely at variance with our strengths transformed to weakness, foibles lauded as flair.  And nature has no habits, in truth, only the capacity to surprise.

The surprise is perpetual.  At any moment, nature is unleashing an array of images.  They are above us, around us, on the distant horizon, yet forever at our feet.

Nature torments our senses, then seconds later delights them.  Even as we sleep, it is by our side sometimes companion, sometimes fiend, whispering scenarios for our dreams and nightmares.

Still we pretend to know it, though it would be wiser not to try.  Wiser not to essay our meagre sketches. Better simply to wonder, and only to wonder, for in nature there is so much to wonder at.

 

Here is the inspiration for Ameenah’s incense powder collection.  It celebrates nature-bestowed images, worldly and mythical - the forever blooms of heaven, ecstasy at sunrise, night stars over faraway mountains, and warmth evoked by a fraction of candlelight.

The sublime moments they bring are conjured in these powders through an alliance of hard-won human expertise and the precious resin hidden enigmatically in Agarwood itself, surely, one of the most awe-inspiring of all nature’s wonders.