Chapter I - Japan: The Dragon Tree

Before beginning, I should probably confess something.

Most people travel to collect photographs. I apparently travel to collect leaves.

By the end of this journey, my luggage contained branches, notebooks, laboratory reports, and enough plant material to make airport security slightly uncomfortable.

Fortunately, nobody asked too many questions.

This work is dedicated to bringing attention to our ecosystem and, more specifically, to trees.

It is about the relationship between humanity and the Earth - not as two separate things, but as one. We are part of this Earth, and the Earth is part of us. Trees are not separate from our story. They have always been part of it.

This project was never intended to be merely a perfume release.

It became something much larger.

A journey.

A lesson.

A challenge.

And perhaps, in some small way, a tribute.

For centuries, trees have stood quietly while civilizations rose and fell around them. They witnessed wars, celebrations, prayers, discoveries, and countless human lives that came and went beneath their branches.

Most of them ask for nothing.

Yet they give everything.

Shade.

Shelter.

Oxygen.

Beauty.

And in some rare cases, stories.

This project was created to celebrate some of the world's most remarkable trees and the memories attached to them.

Not because they are the biggest.

Not because they are the oldest.

But because they represent something we are slowly forgetting.

Our connection to nature.

The journey would eventually take me across multiple countries, through temples, forests, ancient ruins, remote villages, hospitals, laboratories, and more than one hundred failed attempts to recreate what I had experienced.

But it all began in Japan.

 

Chapter I - Japan: The Dragon Tree

The 100-Year-Old Bonsai Dragon

Meiji Jingu Shrine – Tokyo, Japan

Japan is one of the few places in the modern world where respect for nature still feels deeply woven into everyday life. It exists in the architecture.

In the gardens.

In the ceremonies.

In the food.

And perhaps most importantly, in the way people speak about the natural world.

There is a quiet understanding that nature is not merely something to be used.

It is something to be respected.

Something to learn from.

Something to live alongside.

That philosophy fascinated me long before I ever visited the country.

So, when the opportunity finally came, I found myself doing what I often do when traveling.

Following my curiosity.

Some people plan their trips around restaurants.

Others around museums.

I apparently plan mine around trees.

While in Tokyo, I spent my days visiting temples, exploring traditional gardens, sampling natural ingredients, attending incense ceremonies, and participating in tea gatherings.

I was searching for something very specific.

Not simply old trees.

Not simply rare trees.

But trees with stories.

Trees whose significance extended beyond species, age, or size.

Trees connected to history.

Culture.

Memory.

And meaning.

That search eventually led me to one of the most remarkable trees I have ever encountered.

The Dragon Tree.

The first thing that struck me was its appearance.

At first glance, it almost looked artificial.

Not because it was unnatural.

But because it seemed too perfect to have happened by chance.

Its shape twisted and curved in ways that felt deliberate.

Its posture seemed almost alive.

If I had known nothing about trees or botany, I would have assumed someone had sculpted it.

Yet there it stood.

Ancient.

Silent.

Completely real.

Local legends surrounding the tree were equally fascinating.

Many believed that this particular tree possessed a spirit of its own.

Not merely symbolic.

Not merely poetic.

A genuine spiritual presence.

Some even believed it carried the spirit of a dragon.

Standing before it, I could understand why.

There was a certain dignity to it.

A presence.

The kind of presence that makes people lower their voices without realizing it.

Whether one believes such stories or not is beside the point.

The fact that generations of people cared enough to preserve those stories was meaningful in itself.

That, too, becomes part of a tree's history.

The stories people tell.

The memories they preserve.

The respect they choose to show.

I stood beneath its branches for quite some time.

Observing.

Listening.

Trying to understand why it felt different.

Eventually, with permission from one of the monks at the temple, I carefully collected a small branch and several leaves. As a perfumist, I have spent much of my life studying scent.

I have recreated countless natural aromas.

Flowers.

Resins.

Woods.

Spices.

Roots.

Leaves.

Even entire environments.

Yet almost immediately I realized this tree presented a problem.

Its scent was not simply the scent of a tree.

That would have been easy.

The scent included the soil beneath it.

The mountain air moving through the temple grounds.

The faint traces of incense drifting from nearby ceremonies.

The moisture from recent rainfall.

The warmth of morning sunlight reflecting from ancient stone pathways.

The scent was not one thing.

It was a collection of moments.

A collection of experiences.

A collection of memories.

I was not trying to capture a tree.

I was trying to capture a moment.

And that made all the difference.

Needless to say, I was not about to take the challenge lightly.

Not only because of the importance of the project itself, but because I understand how deeply cultural and spiritual traditions can matter to those who preserve them.

If I was going to do this, I wanted to do it properly.

Which brings me to a confession.

I immediately sent one of the leaves for a full laboratory analysis.

Yes, I know.

Some people would call that cheating.

They may even be right.

But I was not about to spare any effort, tool, or resource in trying to understand what made this tree so unique.

So, in the interest of honesty, I might as well admit it here:

I used every method available.

Laboratory analysis.

Research.

Historical references.

Botanical studies.

Conversations with locals.

If there was a tool that could help me understand the tree, I was going to use it.

The laboratory eventually provided a detailed breakdown of the leaf's aromatic composition.

Useful information.

Interesting information.

Valuable information.

And almost completely useless in solving the real problem.

Because chemistry could tell me what was present.

It could not tell me why the tree felt the way it did.

That realization would follow me throughout the entire project.

The laboratory could identify molecules.

It could identify compounds.

It could identify structures.

What it could not identify was the feeling of standing beneath a centuries-old tree while incense drifted through a temple courtyard on a rainy morning.

It could not identify silence.

It could not identify reverence.

It could not identify memory.

And yet those things were part of the scent.

Perhaps they were the most important part.

At the time, I did not fully understand that lesson.

I simply knew I had encountered something extraordinary.

Looking back now, I realize the Dragon Tree gave me something far more valuable than a scent.

It gave me a question.

A question that would follow me across multiple countries.

Across countless miles.

Through laboratories.

Through failures.

Through illness.

And through more than one hundred attempts to recreate what I had experienced.

The question was simple:

Can you preserve a memory through scent?

I would spend the next two years trying to find the answer.

Before leaving Japan, I returned to visit the tree one final time.

Not to collect another sample.

Not to take photographs.

Not to study it further.

Simply to stand there.

Sometimes, when we encounter something remarkable, our first instinct is to understand it.

To analyze it.

To explain it.

But not everything needs to be explained.

Some things simply need to be appreciated.

The Dragon Tree was one of those things.

As I walked away from the temple that day, I had no idea where the project would eventually lead.

I only knew that it had begun.

And that somewhere ahead, another tree was waiting.

To get the Dragon Click this link Here 

Here is chapter two!