Well, everybody has their story. It is through our stories that we learn & get to create new ones, … or not. It is not our story that matters but who we become by living them consciously & making new choices along the way. I’ll share a brief overview of my story so far, as a means of introducing myself.
After my studies of industrial engineering & the opportunity to get my first work experiences, I started out in a family owned telecom company. About 7 years later, my whole idea of what life was supposed to be, got wiped out. We had to sell the company to secure the jobs for as many people as we could. Me, I tumbled into a depression. Later, I was able to see these happenings as part of Life’s invitations.
Through gardening & being with nature, I was able to engage with life again. I ended up running a centre for personal development, founded by my mother. I begun my quest to find answers to my recurrent feelings of sadness & anger. I was in the perfect place & had the perfect excuse to do so. On the outside, everything looked more than fine. I ventured intensively in the domain of personal development for about 15 years. You can find a brief overview of my journey in the words of gratitude.
After an intensive seminar overseas, I decided to put my actions were my mouth was. I never lacked of ideas but realizing them was a struggle. I wanted to make the most natural products imaginable & sell them at the centre to continue my drive to make the centre profitable & secure it’s way forward.
I travelled to India & created the First Leaf Collection. A collection of practical home & office decorations, engraved with ever deepening mantra’s.
The whole adventure touched me deeply & I fell in love with creation. It also brought me in touch with my needs. I later transformed these needs into my design guidelines. I decided it was time to take care of my-self & find the answers to all of my questions from within.
In the beginning of 2012, I founded Scent&Sense as the embodiment of this new choice. The foundation of Scent&Sense was my way to create a life of meaning. I formulated my mission & started what I later came to see as my inner journey.
After a most turbulent end of my Indian co-operation, combined with a painful relational break-up in 2014, I touched upon the process of Divine co-creation. Many pieces of information I gathered along the road fell into place. I decided to take some time aside to start writing about it in a fairy like seminar centre in Jonkowo, Poland.
I left Poland in the beginning of 2015, clueless about any next steps. The question I had to answer was; “ what would I have do if I wanted to do something, just to “please” my-self ?” Having discovered my love for creation, I decided to create a collection of table lights for my own birthday.
I wanted to go to the Philippines but ended up in Marrakesh & started on the co-creation of what became “the tunes of the Divine” collection. A collection of 15 photophores, representing the 15 virtues of the process of Divine co-creation. On my 49th birthday, in 2017 the collection & the accompanying texts came to completion.
Today, I design & co-create hand-made lights, founded in tradition & inspired by our nature. I do this at my newly found atelier & home “Jardin d’Art” in Marrakesh Morocco. I keep going on my journey & continue to uncover deeper layers of my unknown dream; ” my dream to manifest the most natural expression of my being.”
Steven Pauwels, founder of Scent&Sense.