by Monica Voss
Roses have cheered our mental state, delighted our senses, soothed our nervous systems and stimulated memory and longing for over six thousand years. Their form, that leads us from outside to in, their colour, from the most delicate pinkish to ‘flagrant crimson’, their scent, delicious and otherworldly – all combine to stir joy, enchantment, even rapture. Roses play a role in our lives almost daily, certainly in summer. Various cultures eat the petals in jam and syrup, use rose water to refresh the skin, bathe with rose petals, and strew them on the path of a newly married couple or a revered teacher. They’re used as boutonnieres. In Iran, elderly men hold them between their teeth. Roses are beautiful symbols of life and hope, soft and sweet like a baby yet hardy, long-lived and protected by moisture-filled thorns.
But most of all, roses signify love: a blossoming connection to another human being, sympathy for a whole group, devotion to a divinity. They’re even heart-shaped. Study the rose blooming in your garden, in poetry, in visual art and seek there a clue to your inner life, dreams and goals. The rose may be a key to an important understanding of your yoga and meditation experience – sweet, marvellous, profound.
Poem: Sacred Emily, Gertrude Stein, 1913