For the ancient Greeks, the rose originated from the death of Adonis, the lover of Aphrodite (Venus). It was believed that his blood made the very first red roses. Since then, roses became the symbol of love, able to overcome death and announcing reincarnation.
In other words, the process of psychic initiation that is described by this story indicates that after the death of the ego and the descent into hell, the rose symbolizes the possibility of spiritual rebirth under the compassionate eye of God. But this love reveals itself through the goddess. No wonder then that Christianity attributed the symbol of the rose to the Virgin Mary.
The rose also symbolizes discretion given that during dyonisiac parties, the guests were invited to use rose crowns that were believed to prevent them of getting drunk. From this belief came the expression “sub rosa” in Latin that means – “under silence”.
Now you take the floor, what do you associate with the rose?
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
“The rose and tha Nightingale” is 1 of the best story of the world no dout!dere is a gr8 lesson 4 us if we want 2 understand…..
With great admiration to the spirit behind these reflections, I have to thank everyone participating from, seeemingly, all over the world. What a concept; no rude interjections, or unsolicited negative energy. Only people from one large place expressing their thoughts and deepest feelings toward the world around them, and as importantly, to themselves.
Thank you, Don Paulo.
When I re-read the question that was posed, I thought more about the idea of the “giving” of roses as a gesture in intense relationships, more than anything else. In the question, the isea of reincarnation was beuatifully evoked. I could go on for hours on the subject, but I’ll stick to the idea that struck me the most. In intense realationships the need to “rebirth”, or “reincarnate” love is so inportant. Many people do it without ever having to consider the deeper aspects of what their doing. They just wake up and say the right things after the wrong things, or say the wrong things and than right things, and all of a sudden a relationship lasts for fifty-years.
I’d bet that very few of the fifty-year couples forget red roses on important days.
Peace and Love
~”A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
~The new meaning of above is just the same as someone said : “Think Big, Kick ass.”……..Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life: Donald J. Trump.
Why could I connect so different idea together?
My beauty friend~ Rose, is the reason. She has great talent to put beautiful thing together, and also has brains to be my good consiglieri.
Rose brings rich experience to my life, including smell and friendship.
PS:
I wonder, PauloCoelh0 is not only a great writer, he probably is also the Prince who brings Rose to our earth. ^______^
A little story:
A dear friend of mine, RB, who was a musician and predominately wrote symphonies, oratorios and songs in praise of God passed away many years back. There was a beautiful memorial service for him–about 350 of us were seated in a semi-circle on the floor and in chairs as our orchestra and chorus performed a symphony that he had composed. We focussed on sending him love,light, joy and the gratitude of his friendship. Then our teacher walked into the center of the group holding a basket of red rose petals. He sprinkled the rose petals all around the he floor and up to the casket where he sprinkled the rest. He then told us that the red rose signified man’s passions transformed into love for the Divine, and that RB had dedicated his life, his gifts and his passion to God perfectly. I’ve always remembered that moment — man’s passions transformed into the passion that consumes. Agape.
In Gratitude,
Cherie Plumlee, US
so beautiful stories…like savita about her grandmother’s garden of roses..
Rose… a mix of intensity and fragility. they say a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. a rose… highly useless, nice idea, love if it doesn’t cost. poetically, rose… a source of inspiration, of home, of distance, of blood.
(i’m bored when i shouldn’t be.)
It’s the first part of my name, which I’ve always loved….:-)
Friends always call me Rose.
I’ve always associated it with love and beauty as well.
It also holds a connection with The Virgin Mary for me.
I mean sacred geometry, no secret geometry, sorry, my mistake!
I associate a rose with love, beauty, fragrance.
I think is roses that Mary told Juan Diego to pick up in his tilma and when he got to the priest and opened the tilma with the roses, there was imprinted the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, or Mary herself? Mary Magdalene has also been associated to the Rose! It seems that the Rose is associated with the Divine Femenine!
I remember reading that the rose has sacred geometry, well everything has secret geometry, but there was something special about the Rose, on The Ancient Secret of The Flower of Life by Drumvalo Melchizedek, I don’t remember exactly what he says about it, but I remember him mentioning in his book!
Besides being an extraordinarily beautiful flower, I associate the rose with both Mother Mary and love. At one stage I kept smelling roses in rooms where there were none, then my mother out of sheer co-incidence presented me with an old set of Rosary beads that had been meaning to give me for a long time. They were scented with rose.
Kathleen xxoo
“The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde. Always when seeing a rose I remember as that story:
“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,’ cried the young Student; ‘but in all my garden there is no red rose.’
From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.
‘No red rose in all my garden!’ he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears. ‘Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.’ ”
‘Be happy,’ cried the Nightingale, ‘be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.’
I am sorry I cant share pictures of my garden.Is not big,but I have a special type of rose.It is in bloom almost all year.From spring ,and even the first snow falls upon rose buds,I love my rose.If I want to feel good,I look from my window,and seing my friend “rose”.I suddenly be much more happy.I love to take care of it.Yes,I can say in a way is my vegetal”friend”.Hope nobody will think I am crazy.bye
There’s a beautiful tradition in Catalonia at St George’s day (April 23rd) that men give red roses to the loved ones (couple, mom or daughter…) and the street is full of people selling roses at the main avenues. It is the book day too.
For me the rose reminds me the feeling or wandering around watching new books and sharing roses with our beloveds.
Joan
Esse mês de outubro faz-se homenagem a Nossa Senhora do Rosário….
Hi Paulo and Everyone,
To look directly at a rose from above is to see the marvel of creation at work – the source. I have been dreaming of blue roses on and off now for a couple of months. These to me symbolize an impossible quest and the hope needed for its attainment.
Here below is my very first piece of free association. I wrote it around seven years ago in a difficult period of my life.
Best wishes,
Alan
A Rose in Winter
The rose is indeed fragile and delicate. It needs nurturing so that as it first breaks through the soil of history it can reach upwards to the heavens, to reach for the stars. Yet onward and upward it grows. From the seed it begins to take form and shape. As it grows, delicate and vulnerable at first, it moves ever onwards. It battles with the winds that blow it this way and that. Yet the stem grows stronger. It puts forth leaves to soak up the sun of new experience. Each morning it makes the choice. The one of what was before and what is new. When it has grown enough it begins to bud. The hip is formed and the nascent flower begins to take shape, all the while pressing against the cloak that en-folds it.
Then one cold morning the cloak is torn. There is a sound of leaves unfolding. The gentle un-fold-ment of what must be. The petals begin to spread their wings, first tentative, yet soon with strength. The flower begins to take shape. It is yellow and vital. At this stage the cold frosts of winter still plague it. Soon the warmth of spring is upon it and the colour deepens, then the fragrance. At first it is mild, soon oh so soon, it is heady, intoxicating and so sweet.
As each new petal of a relationship takes shape, it is indeed a delicate time, yet given enough space the petals grow. Each one is so. Each one needs care.
And yes, there is that crown, the one with thorns.
I no longer want that crown. It has served its purpose.
Where lies my flower, the flower that is me?
It is throwing off its mantle. I unfurl my protective coat. I want so much to bloom. Yet his-story holds me back. The movement sweeps away the chains of his-story, that old familiar one that begins “Once upon a time”, the story that supports my view of Alan. The one that says Alan does not deserve.
The Unknown beckons, I feel her fingers drawing me on.
They tap out a rhythm that I cannot resist. For such is the power of love, that which I have denied myself for so long.
I feel like a willow whose leaves hang over a stream. Soon that stream will become a river. A river that fights against the banks that hold it, that becomes a surging torrent of the passion and I will dance that dance.
The one that I have searched for, for so long
If there is a rose garden in Heaven, my grandmother is tending it. When I was a child, the whole yard surrounding her house was a great rose garden. There was no “plan” to it – no design – there were just these roses everywhere, in every direction, planted in every available space. These rose bushes used to drive my uncle and my brother (who lived with her) crazy, as they had to mow the yard. It was nearly impossible, they said, to weave the lawn mower in and out of this network of great thorny bushes. Furthermore, she knew every rose by heart, and would bellow furiously if a single petal got knocked off of one. I know she knew them by heart, knew every flower in that garden – precisely what color it was, its placement on the bush or vine, and exactly what stage of bloom it was in on any given day – I know she knew this, because she caught me more than once when I tried to steal a rose without her knowing. She would walk out into the garden, take one look and say, “There was a bud here yesterday,” She would point with her finger at the very spot, and declare, “It was just about to bloom! Now where is the flower?” She wasn’t all rage and accusations, however; she had her sweeter moments. It wasn’t that she didn’t want me to enjoy her roses; it was just that she wanted not a single bloom wasted. She would take me out into the garden herself, and tell me to pick a flower, the selection of which she would oversee herself, lest one be picked too soon, before its prime, or too late, when the petals were about to shatter and fall. Thus she would walk with me about the garden, considering first this rose and then another, until we found the perfect flower. “Look at this one!” she would say, “Look at the way the pink swirls up and out of the yellow…. And look at that large bud – how swollen the petals are, and the ripeness of the red – it will bloom tomorrow.” And so we would walk together, weaving in and out of the maze of rosebushes, carefully avoiding brushing against them, lest we should loose a delicate petal from a single ripe crown.
When my grandparents passed on, the house went to my mother. When she passed away just a couple of years later, my brother inherited it, which was only right, as it was his childhood home – he had been raised by my grandparents after my mother remarried.
Now my brother has never been “aesthetically inclined” you might say, unless that aesthetic has to do with race cars and the engines that run them. He is very much a home-body, some might even say a “hermit,” but nonetheless, he has never been very much concerned with the “beauty” of his home environment. For him, everything is purely functional. The last time I was in his house, there was an engine (and I don’t mean a toy of some sort) sitting square atop the kitchen table, where he was working on it. I don’t know how he got it in the door…but that is hardly the point of the story. The roses are.
When my mother died, the first thing my brother did was to rid, or at least try to rid, the yard of the rose bushes he had long battled and so desperately hated. He went out to the barn, hooked up the brush-hog to the tractor, and mowed them down. Now, I wasn’t there, wasn’t even in the country at the time, but he later shared with me the whole comical story. In no time, he said, they shot right back up, heartier than ever! So, this time he tried a different approach: he went out with a shovel and dug them up, by hand, tossing the bushes – stems, roots and all – into the wheelbarrow, then hauled them off and dumped them onto the manure pile out back, by the barn. The manure pile was no longer in use by then, because my brother didn’t keep any of the animals on the farm either – just another bother to him – but the pile, which had been used for years and years to dump the droppings from the barn, was still there, huge and richly fermented by then. He should have known better! He said only a couple of weeks passed when one day he just happened to look out the back window, and what did he behold? A gigantic “rose forest,” he called it. The uprooted bushes not only took a new hold, they grew taller and fuller and more robust than ever! Such became his view from the bathroom window – a forest of multi-colored roses, higher than a man’s head and covering an area as large as a house.
But that wasn’t all. This had happened in the fall, just at about the time he had finished mowing the lawn for the year. After that, he didn’t really pay much attention to the front yard at all, until the following spring, when it was time to mow again. So, one morning, he went out and got on the mower and started off across the yard, when suddenly, what should he see, much to his horror…? A rose bush! A single rose bush, growing smack in the center of the yard, and on it, a single white bud. His only possible conclusion was that somehow, as he was digging up the bushes the year before, he must have missed a piece of one of the roots. It had re-grown when he was not looking, and there it was – my grandmother’s last testament to her pride and joy, the rose garden she once tended and so adored.
My brother left that one bush, as, he declared, he just couldn’t bring himself to cut it or attempt to remove it. Now, when he mows, he just mows around it. One day, when he wasn’t expecting me to pass by, I drove up into the yard and, much to my surprise, caught him, on his hands and knees, pulling up weeds from around it. He would never admit this, of course, but I saw it with my own eyes.
Savita Vega
I associate the rose with a dear friend of mine who died two years ago…..She was a very spiritual person and one of her sayings which I believe was from St. Monica(my friends name too) was ‘God gave us a memory, so that we could have roses in December.. Our climate has changed and we do now have roses in December. I have a yellow rose bush in my front garden….in December I look at it and smile…..remembering Monica…who has left so many memories…..with love Angela/Starlight
Rosa sempre vai ser a expressão de amor. Entra década sai década se a gente ganha um buquê de rosas vermelhas é de alguem que te ama…o buquê de rosas também lembram as noivas e as rosas o casamento, ornamento da igreja…quando a gente ofereçe uma rosa clara, significa amizade, carinho..
..A Rosa de Sharon…
…Nossa Senhora da Rosa Mística…
Eu adoro a cor rosa, meu sabonete é phebo de rosas.
O chá das pétalas das rosas é doce e o cheiro é muito bom…
I associate the rose with the fight against all types of cancer and its ramifications.
The pink rose for breast cancer
the yellow rose for depression, mental illness
the orange one for spirituality
the white one for healing
and the red rose -as the cherry on top of the cake -
Cancer is a plague that strikes a very wide community all around the world. It involves all of us – the patient and the family -
Thirteen years ago I had cancer. I contributed to it. Telling the truth can save you from cancer too.
Presently, a Tour de France is being conducted in France for the fight against Breast Cancer. Organised by the German Society Amoena, the event called “Ribbon of hope” will end in Paris on the 19th and 20th of October with a conference by Dr David Servan-Schreiber.
David Servan-Schreiber is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and has conducted research in neuro-science.
I have read his book “Anti-Cancer” (available in French and in English – Publisher Robert Laffont) with great interest.
Although huge progress have been made in medecine these days, I believe interference with nature (through over prescriptions) by the medical profession should be revised.
Education is needed for us to avoid illness in order to connect with our spirituality.
I believe David Servan Schreiber provides us with simple ways of implementing that. His book is so refreshing and his approach on modern medecine so innovative.
It is about regaining your power through good sleep, implementation of a good diatery program, physical excercise, learning to breathe, meditation , good network support,getting in touch with your past and….. dreams I guess.without the help of drugs. I can vouch for that, I have experienced it.
Caring for our body is essential if we want to have peace.
You might want to visit his site http://www.guerir.fr
Please take time to smell the roses before it is too late.
Trust me – I am one of the lucky one !
Spare a thought for all the people with cancer and their family.
I’ll wrap this up with cellophane, sending you all a rainbow of roses , sealed with a kiss and a “ribbon of hope” to colour your world.
Emptiness…….Everything x
There are different colours of ROSE.But all of them can be related to some or other human emotion/psychology.Red Rose for me,has always been the symbol of love.Yellow Rose is the symbol of friendship. Like the colour Red,Red Rose also signifies something intense/severe.For me, if not love, Red Rose denotes a strong feeling!
I always associate a blooming rose with my parents. There used to be a roseplant at home that blooms once a year during my parents anniversary and early those mornings, dad would go and pick it for mom, with the morning dew still hanging heavily on it.
And to complete…the Rose is a present, but like Rapunzel…is up in the Tower, and the way up is spiny.
The Path is spiny…
Revelation of unknown, secret things. Or Divine revelation.
A rosebud, with its tightly closed petals, seems to hide a secret. Then it blossom, opening out to reveal its heart and its secret: the perfume of Heaven. God’ s love present to us.
A Rose to you, Paulo
Deborah
Paulo Coelho gostaria que lesse a materia que escrevi na Alemanha para o site da EPTV e que da destaque para seu nome. Apesar de nao ter convite para sua festa hoje na boate, fiquei agradecida por sua gentileza de permitir a minha entrada com companhia tao ilustre. Espero retribuir com palavras seu carinho e atencao. Fiquei visivelmente emocionada de participar de sua linda festa!!!! Parabens pelo Guiness…. foi o maximo te ver de perto com tanta sensibilidade…
um abraco da Luna
acesse:
http://www.eptv.globo.com
clicar em lazer e cultura
Mago querido!
Quisera poder estar sempre te lendo e comentando,mas hoje, já que você falou em livros, gostaria de registrar toda a minha satisfação pela notícia que ouvi, casualmente (nada é por acaso), no rádio, ou seja, a sua merecida BIOGRAFIA, elaborada pelo não menos grande escritor, Fernando Morais.
EM BOA HORA, VIU?
TODO O NOSSO AFETO!!!Bjssss
son parfum attirera,sa beauté émerveillera,son épine la protègera.
A rose is Beauty,
surrounded by pain.
THE LITTLE PRINCE
and HIS rose unlike any other….
He Loved HER sooo much, wanted to protect HER…
So Sweet, So innocent…..
I was read this book by my parents at the age of 3…And it still remains the most wonderful Book etched onto My heart……
ALL LOVE=cat
The War of the Roses (1455-1485)…heraldry & peerage in England
rose petals – confetti in English weddings
rose water – for laundry, ironing..
rose flower – medicinal, uplifting fragrance
desert rose – a wonder of rock formation from sand, found buried in arid areas.
A ring of roses – “we all fall down” = the Black plague in London.
An English rose – appelation for the true nature of womanhood in England.
The Mary Rose – infamous English sea vessel.
rose design – perfection through repetition
The Rose-red city = Petra, Jordan.
Rosy cheeks = English phrase meaning flush/healthy look of face.
A rose has delicateness.
It is the Queen of all flowers .. in England ;o)
My daughter gave me a beautiful white rose yesterday picked from our garden, it has a wonderful scent, and then she put it by my bed in a vase. (she is only five and I am very impressed).
I then opened this blog and this question appeared. Until that time my answer would have probably different. But for me now the rose symbolises pure love.
Love -romance -being open ..smell -petals -weddings -valentines day
delicate -mother nature -desire -passion -beauty – birth -death and also depends on the colour but red well it reminds of blood ..red rose ..white purity and innocence -black -death and orange -joy -yellow friendship .Blessings Tania
My dearest Heart, the ‘dedication’ reflects to you and all beautiful Hearts here in the Blog and in the World.
The Roses are just to remind us for all the … unspoken words, ungiven kisses and hugs and the .. ‘refused .. pencil’ [Eleven Minutes, my Paulo Coelho] just because we were very young, pure, ignorant, shy and with trembling hearts, Rose Buds! [I seems that I did not make a 'good use'of my .. name THELEMA!!!;]
LOVE,
THELMA
My heart.
I know the rose means eternal love, passion. There is a leggend about Saint George that fought a dragon to release a virgin princess, from blood of dragon was born a bush of roses. The saint picked a flower and gave it to a princess but he refused to marry her because his mission was to turn in the world and save another life!
When I see a rose I must absolutely smell it!
When I was child, I prepared roses’s water together my cousins, and I was unhappy because after some days the water smell of death!
No woman cann resist this flower!Instinctivly whenn i look a rose i feel only my heart ,nothing else!The color is not very important just the form it brings me in a art of presence ,that i cann not really describe…it is like a spiral form,and the spins are for me the path with many dangeraus stations.We have to use our abilities to became at list the gift of rose beauty.
love Mirela
dearest paulo coelho, in islam the daughter of prophet mohammad who is known as “the mistress of the ladies of all worlds”(i’m not sure how acuurate my translation is) was called zahraa which means the ROSE. the rose has always been linked to the female for some reason. maybe it’s because the rose has so many layers and because it’s a delicate flower whose core cannot be seen unless you tore off all the petals.
god bless..yours truely,sabah
Rose – romantic love =P
Thank you Annie, for your lovely rose story. This you tube clip is in honor of all Greek/Cyprian young and old ladies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtLHtffZvw
19 roses.there many symbols entangled
First I must say that my favourites flowers are red roses.For me are symbols of love,with amazing scent,with velvet of the petals.torns might be the difficulties one might encounter.Red is colur of passion,deffinitely.I knew a nice short story
My rose garden
Maria Callas
and
Vergin Mary
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JR0InF7LK1o
Roses from the south.
Roses the symbol of the Rosinctucians, the mystic society.
Red rose the symbol of passion and erotic love.
LOVE,
THELMA
p.s. my dearest Annie, a beautiful story.T.
Always simply: Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince and his beloved rose…
Was those forgotten loves, those moments that they managed to bloom as roses in the heart and got lost in it aroma.
A moment exposed to the smell of the love, of the friendship, of the serenity.
It is the forgotten passion, the silence of the past in a reddish color, as an eternal flame.
The rose, it is the recollection of the love on pure condition.
The love recollection. Remind
Rose: Do I really associate it with the religious sentiments.. no I don’t think so. Rose to me is the most beautiful creation of Mother Earth. The way the petals are organised intricately woven together, makes me think of the various episodes of my life which make my life an interesting but mysterious journey.The journey had fragrance, beauty, softness,intrigue,mystery…. sorrow when pricked by the thorn which is a part of this beautiful creation of Nature. The thorn is sometimes so small that it hides from the admiring view of the person holding th beauty in her hand and then suddenly… it pricks and hurts.The tear drop brings with it a feeling of mixed emotions… unexplanable.
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