“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

There is a scent on the wind that unearths the past. It whispers tales of forgotten lands once traveled yet faded to the far corners of the mind. It conjures ancient memory, times long removed from us, but inherently part of who we are. This is the petrichor of the mind, revisiting us on the winds of life.

It is said that the olfactory is one of the more primitive parts of the human body. With one scent we can recall a specific day of our past, a perfectly visited moment spurred to the front of the mind.

Sometimes, the past travels on the wind. A stoic reminder of life lived yesterday.

I am often reminded of specific things; a day at track practice or a time spent walking by the creek bank. Sometimes it’s a cold reminder of a painful memory, and others it’s a warm spring day walking peacefully home from school. Indeed, they are all powerful reminders of a past forgotten.

But this is more powerful a force than we can fathom.

As with all compliments, perhaps the future rides on the wind as well..

In the forebreath.

It comes to us in moments of heartfelt gratitude. We breathe in the idea of hope, the notion of something much greater than ourselves is out there just waiting to be known. We look out over a wide landscape glistening with life and possibility, fresh to our eyes, and we know that the future is bright, unspoken but ours to cherish.

We breathe the opportunity of tomorrow, and know that our rising sun will promise us greatness.

Visceral, this breath of gnosis, though it is not knowable. It is not tangible.

Not yet.

But in our hearts it speaks the freedom of tomorrow, and we breathe a fragrance of pure life.

The forebreath tells of days to come, of experience that we have yet to hold. It is the trumpet of the divine playing its soft melody for all to hear, for all to breathe in. This is the place where dreams are born, in this moment, in this breath.

Breathe in the vision of life you wish to create. See with the heart. See beyond sight that you have stepped onto the plains of tomorrow and have witnessed the rising sun of hope long before today’s has set.

These are the moments where we find our purpose. These are the moments when we live as though we are dying.

In this breath, we are reminded of our destiny.

In the forebreath, we are called to live.