– Part Two of a story and a review of Amouage Fate Man

It isn’t every day an adventurer such as you has the courage to enter through Fortune’s gates, to have all the questions answered that so enflame your soul, seeking you to wander ever onward, ever forward, ever eyeing the horizon and the stories you may find there.

Did you not know that elusive far horizon moves with you as you whirl headlong through your life? Did you know that sometimes, the answers you seek are found not by moving forward, but by standing still?

Are you prepared for the secrets I shall see for you? Or shall it be you found me by a happy accident, around a corner, through an ordinary-seeming gate, to seek the answers to the questions you were unaware you wished to know?

You walked through the gates and found me waiting, thinking you were searching for me, but in fact, it was I who searched for you.

Sit, and I shall tell you of momentous things and all your incendiary dreams, all that urge you on to set your world alight, tell you all your restless heart will want to know.

What perfume shall be for such a one as you with such wings on your feet and such a fire in your soul? Indeed a perfume, for you are no ordinary mortal and I am no mortal fortune teller cloaked in faux mystique and superstition.

These are Fortune’s Gates, which only the brave ever find and none ever dare to seek, and this is where you perch on the verge between your old tales and your new hopes, this is where all your arcane secrets waft towards that far horizon that so eludes you. Like all secrets and many, many stories, this is a costly tale of uncertainties you have left behind, and all the hopes you have come to find, even as you fear them and even as you dream them into being.

Breathe them in. What do you sense in this fragrant cloud, do you see it reflected in my crystal ball?

Breathe in all your fiery hopes, inhale all its colors and its dreams. Can you sense that sunshine saffron burn, does that feisty, fruity kick of ginger lift you upward, even as an earthy whisper of cumin pulls you to the ground?

So much richness to your tale, so many secrets breathed into all the wormwood heartbeats… to go, to stay, to inspire, to wish, to instigate, to choose your path and unchoose other impossible mirages you must leave behind as you move ever forward, ever on.

To go, to do, to begin again, to start from nowhere and nothing known – that is what this scented song tells you must be left behind, if you ever want to find your far horizon.

Ah! That touched you, I can tell from the way you shift on your chair and your eyes slide to the door and your chin sets its hard and stubborn line. No one tells you where to go or what you can or cannot do?

If you truly had no wish to know what song you need to breathe or what answers you need to find, you never would have found Fortune’s Gates.

Sit still. Breathe it in and be inspired by the destiny you have come to claim. Did you ever suspect it would be so opulent or so deep? That rosy-tinted frankincense pulse that lies beneath and plays such an enticing calliope tune… this is where your game changes, this is where your time will stop an instant or two, this is where your new life begins and all your  old will fall away behind.

Crawl aboard that carrousel, do you see that gilded column of immortelle with all its sweet fragrant phantasms painted? This is what lies just beyond and straight ahead, not the clear cut answers you thought you sought, but the ever shifting, ever swirling dreams you have always denied, this the secret you never told.

The world was never meant to know you dream in such vivid colors, or scents exuded quite so sweetly.

This is the secret I tell you now – you will always paint another dream another day, always shift and change and gild it as it suits your purpose – a little more, a little less, a lavender and a labdanum shading to make it all seem more real and less a dream, but this carrousel never stops, not even for an adventurer like you, but then, there are none quite like you, yes?

It simply spins out your dreams into the ether and on to the world, out to where even your hungry soul stands still enough to build them up and make them real.

That hit you hard, I can see. Watch them as they spin out all your midnight fears, listen as they tell you as even I shall tell you that most arcane secret of all.

Nothing is predetermined, nothing is ordained just so, nothing is certain but this:

Your destiny is not a creature you can keep in a cage and feed with your dreams, your hopes and all the longing that hungry heart of yours can bear.

You shall find it and embrace it only if you set it free, only if you dare to paint it bolder still in darker hues and wrap your fragmented self in all its twilit notes, the sighs of sandalwood and cedar, the basso hum of labdanum and musk, the dulcet harmonies of tonka and licorice that urge you ever on.

Dare to believe in those calliope visions you paint so real, dare to hope for those twilit notes, stand up and face what you have never quite had the courage to face before.

Go back into the world now, go to find that far horizon that has haunted all your dreams, turn to the setting sun, breathe in all your secrets and all the courage you somehow doubt you have.

You have breathed in all your portent here. You have learned as it unfolded in your soul and on your skin, you have read its enigma as it breathed you back to the life that awaits you, a life unlike any you have known or any you can anticipate.

It is time to claim your fate.

Notes: Saffron, artemisia, ginger, cumin, mandarin, rose, frankincense, lavandin, immortelle, labdanum, copaiba balsam, tonka bean, labdanum, cedar, sandalwood, musk, licorice

Amouage Fate Man was created by Karine Vinchon – Spehner in collaboration with Creative Director Christopher Chong. It is available directly from Amouage boutiques worldwide now, and in the US in October 2013.

Disclosure: A sample was provided for review by Amouage. With thanks to the Very August Personage.

Images: Amouage Fate presentation courtesy of Amouage. Used by permission. Fortune teller via Dorothea’s Closet Vintage, original hamsa via deviantart, Wheel of Fortune Tarot card via Polyvore, Photoshop reprographics, editing and compositing, my own.