Galilee

It took me a number of years to allow myself to pursue the craft of perfumery; it was impractical, expensive, complicated, and almost unintelligible as a vocation—as many people still point out to me, who even thinks about becoming a perfumer? It took a series of leaps of faith for me accept the call to perfumery; and I still question it, challenged daily by all the things I still don’t know and the things I can only learn with time and experience. I am impatient and specific by nature, yet I choose to practice an art that requires periods of waiting while the formula ages, and each element has its own secret coded language.

I started my journey as a perfume student when I lucked in to finding a teacher, Ayala Moriel, in Vancouver. Upon first walking through her door three years ago, I could not imagine that the knowledge she would share would take me across the world in pursuit of perfume, plants, and on an exploration in to myself and a search for belonging. I didn’t know that making perfume could give me a new voice, a new language with which to explore notions of time, identity, metaphysics, and memory; and serve as a point of connection for my past education, esoteric interests, and spiritual bent.

Ayala moved back to her childhood village in the Western Galilee, Israel, not long after we met, and I traveled there to continue my studies. My perfume, Galilee, is named for the land that inspired it, and by a wild, tangled garden we visited on a fieldtrip to the mountains; I imagine that this is the first of many perfumes inspired by the Holy Land and I know it is only one of many perfumes that will be inspired by the talent and wisdom of my teacher.

Check out Ayala’s collection of exquisite perfumes and class offerings at ayalamoriel.com