Like anything that we domesticate, roses need our care to grow and stay healthy. Farm animals, for example, are our creation and are therefore under our care. A sheep or chicken could not really survive anymore in the wild; just as we need their flesh, or fur, or feathers, they need our barns, food, and, in the cases of roses, pruning. Pruning is not my favorite garden activity. I would really rather not cut anything off of anything else. I am more of the let it grow wild and free kind of gardener. But I recognize that in some cases this is not actually practical or favorable. So, I try to take the view of pruning as the opportunity to come into a relationship with a being that will allow that being to shine forth its potential.
A friend of mine talks about the "song" of each being as their destiny, when united with their own soul, gifts or potential and in the case of humans whatever it is we call the divine or the holy. I say "in the case of humans" because I think we are the only species capable of forgetting that we are in fact not separate from this divinity or holiness and for that matter we are the only species capable of being so disconnected from our souls that we can engage in mass genocide, for example, of other humans and other beings. We are also the only species that can demonstrate for a fair government. But I digress, when a being brings forth the song of their heart, my friend says, and aligns it with their heads and the thoughts they are thinking, then they are in harmony or in rhythm with their lives and seamless within the fabric of all that is. What in Jewish mysticism is referred to as humbleness- being in our true place, manifesting our own life beautifully and filling the space that only we can fill, rather than trying to be something or someone we are not.
A friend of mine talks about the "song" of each being as their destiny, when united with their own soul, gifts or potential and in the case of humans whatever it is we call the divine or the holy. I say "in the case of humans" because I think we are the only species capable of forgetting that we are in fact not separate from this divinity or holiness and for that matter we are the only species capable of being so disconnected from our souls that we can engage in mass genocide, for example, of other humans and other beings. We are also the only species that can demonstrate for a fair government. But I digress, when a being brings forth the song of their heart, my friend says, and aligns it with their heads and the thoughts they are thinking, then they are in harmony or in rhythm with their lives and seamless within the fabric of all that is. What in Jewish mysticism is referred to as humbleness- being in our true place, manifesting our own life beautifully and filling the space that only we can fill, rather than trying to be something or someone we are not.
Is it possible to have a relationship with a cultivated rose that needs care that actually gives as much to us in beauty and the bringing forth of our own nature as it does with finding, for example, the energy and form of growth in this particular rose? I think it is probably a good metaphor for our own growth , or intention as humans to discover and sing our own unique song in the chorus of the universe, to try to see and aid a rose into her most harmonious manifestation possible. And can the care and pruning of a rose also help that rose to come into its own glorious manifestation and not just fit into some idea we have about it?
With regards to the rose I was with today, I have noticed several things. Firstly, someone has done an awful job of pruning, or false cutting as the german term translates. Every single main branch has been cut, so that that particular branch cannot grow in one direction, but grows a spiral of branches radiating out from the cut. Her form looks and feels totally chaotic- branches crossing and crisscrossing one another, like a great confused mess. She has suckers all over the base of the main trunk and is covered in small branches that rose gardeners talk about as being "less than the thickness of a pencil". All of these should apparently go. And she is sick- her leaves full of a dappled whitish mildewy looking sickness. I would be too if I had been pruned that way. So, I first took off all of the leaves so that the sickness does not overwinter. Then I made a few cuts that were clearly necessary. Then, I stopped and simply spent awhile looking at her, talking with her, asking her to show me her true form. But mostly looking and observing what grows where and how? How was she trying to grow before one of the main canes was cut? In which direction is she trying to reach? Where is the sun? Where is she caught in her own branches? Then I went inside and made soup.
Nic and I have been reading books aloud to each other since we got together. Most often they are of the fantasy/magic realm- Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (which, if you haven't read, you must. really.). And we always engage with them as symbols or archetypal journeys for our own lives. I was thinking, while plucking every single leaf off of the rose bush, that most of the books we read seem magical and lovely but are actually infused with a level of control and masculine domination, or at least the books are peopled often with many more men than women, and I find it interesting that we read them so avidly being the leftist lesbians that we are. Part of it, of course, is that these books take place in a different time and because both of us feel rather disconnected to this technological age, there is some affinity for visiting another era. But I was thinking about how magic and the rise of patriarchal influences and the making of a huge struggle between the light and the dark- out of which two only one can become the winner-seems to be a rather stark, polar version of reality.
The dark is our birth place, it is where our soul sleeps and lives and dreams, it is where our hurts are healed, where babies are grown into human forms, where our creativity, fertility, imagination, and potential all live. It is, of course, also what we associate with the unknown, the void, emptiness, non-self; all very scary terms. And the dark is also where the monsters live, the unconscious, the uncontrollable, and wild and some say, the feminine. I could see with this rose exactly the cultivation of the wild- that which is incredibly beautiful and has thorns-the claiming of the dark by the light and the turning of what is fecund into what is knowable and often bland and even boring, although safe.
The cultivation and creation of plants, such as this rose I am entering into a relationship with, very often take only the creators wishes and whims into account. Or their laziness. Often plants are pruned or cut down simply because we have deemed that they are "in the way". My neighbor says, for example, "you can cut away as much as you like of that plant, it always grows in front of our door." Or we don't like them, or we want them to be different- a different plant, a different shape, a different something that will be under our control and therefore to our liking (much like ourselves). I wonder how often we are not even aware of these undercurrents moving through us. We think consciously that something is right in a certain way, but actually, it is only that we WANT it that way.
A relationship means to also take action, to be involved, to care and be cared for. A relationship with something created, like a cultivated rose, is required because we belong to what we have created. When we make something with our hands and our minds and our hearts, we belong to the thing we have created. Think of a baby for example, once a person has created a child, they are responsible for responding to the child's every need and often every whim. A plant is not so different, only they require less of our time, though no less a quality of relationship. So what does it mean to participate in the life of another? To take shears in our hands and cut off parts of a being's body while listening not to what we want, or would prefer only, but to include the spirit of the being. To remember that a rose, as all living beings do, has a song and that this specific rose I am charged with caring for has her unique beautiful song that only she can sing, here in this courtyard. How can I help her voice to be heard? How can I help her to thrive and find her unique expression of "roseness"? How can I do that for myself? How can I care for my own soul so that it awakens and blossoms to its own expression of beauty?
The dark is our birth place, it is where our soul sleeps and lives and dreams, it is where our hurts are healed, where babies are grown into human forms, where our creativity, fertility, imagination, and potential all live. It is, of course, also what we associate with the unknown, the void, emptiness, non-self; all very scary terms. And the dark is also where the monsters live, the unconscious, the uncontrollable, and wild and some say, the feminine. I could see with this rose exactly the cultivation of the wild- that which is incredibly beautiful and has thorns-the claiming of the dark by the light and the turning of what is fecund into what is knowable and often bland and even boring, although safe.
The cultivation and creation of plants, such as this rose I am entering into a relationship with, very often take only the creators wishes and whims into account. Or their laziness. Often plants are pruned or cut down simply because we have deemed that they are "in the way". My neighbor says, for example, "you can cut away as much as you like of that plant, it always grows in front of our door." Or we don't like them, or we want them to be different- a different plant, a different shape, a different something that will be under our control and therefore to our liking (much like ourselves). I wonder how often we are not even aware of these undercurrents moving through us. We think consciously that something is right in a certain way, but actually, it is only that we WANT it that way.
A relationship means to also take action, to be involved, to care and be cared for. A relationship with something created, like a cultivated rose, is required because we belong to what we have created. When we make something with our hands and our minds and our hearts, we belong to the thing we have created. Think of a baby for example, once a person has created a child, they are responsible for responding to the child's every need and often every whim. A plant is not so different, only they require less of our time, though no less a quality of relationship. So what does it mean to participate in the life of another? To take shears in our hands and cut off parts of a being's body while listening not to what we want, or would prefer only, but to include the spirit of the being. To remember that a rose, as all living beings do, has a song and that this specific rose I am charged with caring for has her unique beautiful song that only she can sing, here in this courtyard. How can I help her voice to be heard? How can I help her to thrive and find her unique expression of "roseness"? How can I do that for myself? How can I care for my own soul so that it awakens and blossoms to its own expression of beauty?
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