Recently had a wee bit of a breakdown at work which led to my farm manager recommending that I take a sabbatical and go back home to visit family and remember who I am. I really appreciate him doing this as I would not have been able to clock that something was wrong had he not. During our check in, he handed me an agarwood bracelet from a temple in Vietnam. I was curious so I looked up agarwood in Wikipedia and, loving source materials, i dove into an article that explains agarwood, its industry, and cultivation techniques.

Apparently agarwood is used in Vietnam by traveling Buddhist monks. Fitting seeing as how I am on a journey of rediscovery at the present moment. Agarwood comes from species of trees in the Aquilaria genus in SW Asia. Agarwood gets its scent from a resin in the tree, and it is believed that the resin only shows up if the tree has some sort of fungal infection. Don’t ask me the species of fungus I have literally no idea. Cultivators of this wood attempt to harm the tree on purpose via slashing and driving nails in the trunk to try and stimulate infection. Kind of whack but it’s in demand so get that bag I guess.

The thing about harvesting agarwood though is, one cannot tell if the tree is truly infected, and to what extent (which leads to the grade of the wood) until they chop it down.

So. I guess I have to metaphorically chop my tree down, and see what’s inside. Just knowing my past, it’s likely infected. But in that infection, one finds gold.