There are moments in life that arrive without invitation.
A familiar song playing in the supermarket.
The scent of rain on dry earth.
The perfume your grandmother used to wear.
Or, in my case, the first sip of a cup of fresh lemongrass tea.
I picked the lemongrass from my garden one quiet morning, more out of habit than intention. As it steeped, the kitchen filled with its fresh citrus fragrance. I wrapped my hands around the warm cup, took a sip, and was instantly transported to another season of my life.
For a few years, I gathered every week with three close friends. Together we explored intuitive development, channelled messages, practised psychometry, offered energy healing, and held space for people who were learning to trust their own inner knowing.
Those evenings weren’t remarkable because of what we did.
They were remarkable because of how people felt.
There was no pressure to perform.
No expectation that anyone should have all the answers.
Only a quiet invitation to listen more deeply – to themselves, to one another, and to the wisdom that often gets drowned out by the noise of everyday life.
As I remembered those gatherings, I remembered the feeling of being deeply aligned.
There are seasons in our lives when we know, without needing to explain it, that we’re exactly where we’re meant to be. We don’t always recognise those moments while we’re living them. Sometimes it takes years, and something as ordinary as the smell of fresh lemongrass, to remind us.
The remarkable way our senses hold memory
Scientists have long understood that smell is closely linked to memory because the olfactory system has direct connections to parts of the brain involved in emotion and recollection. A fragrance can bring back a moment with astonishing clarity, complete with feelings we thought we’d forgotten.
Perhaps that’s why rituals matter.
Making tea.
Walking the same path each morning.
Lighting a candle.
Stepping into the garden.
These ordinary acts gently reconnect us with ourselves.
Remembering isn’t about going backwards
As I finished my tea, I felt really grateful for that chapter of my life, grateful for what it reminded me of.
That sense of purpose and the feeling of alignment.
That quiet confidence that comes when we’re living in harmony with who we really are.
We spend so much of life searching for what’s next that we sometimes forget to notice the clues left by where we’ve already been.
Sometimes our memories arrive to remind us of something we need today, for me, all it took was one cup of fresh lemongrass tea. It reminded me that the truest parts of ourselves are never really lost.
Sometimes they simply need a gentle invitation to come back into the room.
