Rose: Creating Love and Beauty in Hard times
The portal to the Great Mother
This past month, I had the opportunity to deepen my practice of plant spirit medicine. I took a week out of my life to focus on my inner world with the support of the beautiful rose as my maesta (teacher) and healer. I drank a thick tea made from rose petals and hips every day, spent time with blooming roses, and spent much of my time in silence and isolation. Some of what I learned is below.
The rose is a teacher of love and beauty, but in a multi-layered way—as demonstrated by her layered petals. Her flowers embody soft, beautiful, tender, compassionate motherly and romantic love. Her stems and thorns embody protection, boundaries, and how to approach with care. She holds the code for remembering our own “hopeless romantic,” the one who believes in beauty and love beyond all.
A thick decoction of rose hips and rose petals can bring a sense of peace, love, and warmth to the heart on a daily basis or in hard times. She is a nervine and relaxes and supports the heart and nervous system. When I take a sip of rose tea and pay attention, I immediately notice a softening in my heart, a relaxation through my being. It appears to me as a soft rose hue that fills my body and mind. I invite her to bring her medicine into the parts of my body, heart, or mind that may be hurting or struggling. I ask her to help me adapt to the inevitable challenges of life by growing my ability to love and soften.
With her thorny stems, she teaches us about boundaries. How are boundaries connected to love and beauty? To love someone or something and to appreciate or create something beautiful, we must make space for it. To give yourself to your creative impulses, you can create a boundary of beautiful roses around yourself—within which you can be inspired by the beauty and smell of the rose and whose prickles deter all that does not support your creation.
Rose inspires our "hopeless romantic"—the one who believes in beauty and love—against and through all odds. Believing in the beauty of life and holding an optimistic outlook can be challenging in the times we are living in, with wars raging, mental and physical health challenges on the rise, and the inevitable losses and hard lessons that life brings. And yet, I find strength in the concept of “Hallelujah anyway,” popularized by Anne Lamott, which speaks to the revolutionary and life-sustaining qualities of finding joy and praise in the midst of hard times, inspired by the black church during times of slavery and segregation.
Rose is connected to the Great Mother who has birthed us, sustains us, and cares for us throughout our lives. This can be seen in the embodiment of Mother Earth and also can be called upon by her many names, including Mother Mary, Shechina, Gaia, Pachamama, Yemanja, Kuan Yin, and endless others. I believe that calling upon the Great Mother can allow us to find the compassionate heart and love that can hold and soothe all human suffering. This is a big thing to say and to believe in—and my faith is certainly tested. But what I see is that a compassionate mother cannot step in and do her children’s work for them. She stands by and offers her tender heart as she holds her children in their struggle, always believing in them, even when they can’t see their own beauty.
This is the love that I believe we all know deeply, somewhere in our hearts and souls. In this age of patriarchy, many have lost the devotion to the Great Mother. You can connect to her through the rose and ask her to bring her hands and heart to support yourself and all of humanity in these times. You can remember love and beauty by stepping your feet on mother earth, bringing yourself to the ocean, placing your back on a tree, lighting a rose candle, and praying to the great compassionate mother, drinking a nice dose of rose tea every day with intention, or utlizing rose hydrosol sprays or oils.
"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~ Anaïs Nin
