Rosa Mystica

a symbolic quest from the West and the East

by Anne Baring

In this essay, Anne Baring will take you through a visual and historical journey of the symbol of the rose, from religious West to the Middle East from where we travel back to the West with the troubadours.

There is a line in a poem by Walter de la Mare that goes: “Oh no man knows through what wild centuries roves back the rose”. I first read that poem when I was at university and it haunted me until I began to write my book The Dream of the Cosmos.

Rose Window of Chartres

I did not know then that the rose was the primary symbol of the Feminine Archetype, the Great Goddess and the soul. Nor that it was dear to the Sufi poets. 

Now, I know that the rose is the greatest mystic symbol of the West, just as the lotus is of the East. Like the thousand-petaled lotus or the jewel in the heart of the lotus of the Eastern traditions, the rose came to symbolize not only the radiant love of the Divine Ground but the awakened soul that has been re-united with it.

In the Christian tradition, the rose was associated with the Virgin Mary and, in the gnostic and alchemical tradition, with Sophia, Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit. As an initiatory path, the Sacred Way of the Rose symbolizes the hidden feminine Wisdom Tradition and the Way of the Heart. The rose represents love, creation, fertility, wisdom, beauty, and also mystery. Its exquisite beauty, its fragrance, the soft velvety feel and symmetrical disposition of its many petals, and its golden centre made it a symbol of perfection, not only earthly perfection, but heavenly perfection. Drawing on ancient Mystery Traditions originating in Egypt and Persia, the rose was a central symbol in both European and Islamic alchemy: a symbol of the opening of the heart to the revelation and experience of Divine Love. It was immortalized as the white rose at the end of the Divine Comedy in Dante’s great vision of Paradise. The sublimely beautiful rose windows of Chartres could be seen as a vision of Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit, holding at their heart Christ and the Virgin Mary. 

Labyrinth at Chartres

There is a six-petalled rose at the centre of the labyrinth of Chartres. Whoever has walked or will walk the path of the labyrinth is treading the Sacred Way of the Rose from circumference to centre and the return journey from centre to circumference, taking with him or her, the experience of the central circle which is the direct communion with the energy and frequency of Divine Love.

Red Rose

The rose is one of the oldest symbols of Divine Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, radiating love to our world from the invisible ground of the cosmos. Its Christian origins and its association with an enclosed garden or sacred temenos go back to the words of the bridegroom in the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon: ‘A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride: a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.’ (4:12). But there is also the Persian image of roses within an enclosed garden representing paradise; the very word ‘paradise’ comes from the Persian word ‘paradis’. Imagine what the gardens of the magnificent city of Persepolis, filled with roses, might have looked like before it was burned to the ground by Alexander the Great.

Orbital Pattern of Earth and Venus around sun

The origins of the sacredness of the rose can be traced to the beautiful eight-year orbital pattern made by the planet Venus. Eight was the number associated with Venus in Sumer, addressed as ‘The Radiant Star and ‘The Great Light’ in a Sumerian poem. Astronomers and mathematicians noticed the geometric connection between the orbit of Venus and the distribution of the petals of the rose with its hidden golden centre. The outer rim of the picture on the left is the earth’s orbit round the sun and the inner circle with its 5-petalled rose pattern is the orbit of Venus. From ancient times Venus as the bright morning and evening star was associated with the Great Goddesses of the ancient world, particularly with Isis and Inanna, but also the Greek Goddess Aphrodite and the Roman Venus. 

Griffons in throne room at Knossos

Now I would like to take you back in historical time to earlier ages. Homer wrote of the rosy-fingered dawn but the image of the rose goes much further back to the temple and palace gardens of Egypt, Crete, Sumer and Babylon. I will show you a few images from that ancient past.

The rose was always associated with the Goddess in the ancient world. This is why the two griffons guarding the throne room in the palace of Knossos have stylized roses placed at their heart. Look carefully at these griffons. For the people of Crete, they symbolized the triple domains of the Great Goddess: sky, earth and underworld, represented here by the bird, the lion, and the serpent as the curved tail of the lion.  Friezes of roses also adorned the frescoed walls of the Mycenean palaces built near the coasts of Greece, but this throne room was a sacred place where a priestess presided over the shamanic rites of the Goddess.

Throne Room, Knossos

Phaestos Disk

Phaestos Disk

An eight-petalled rose is at the centre of this four-thousand-year-old disk from the palace of Phaestos, in Crete, whose meaning has only recently been tentatively deciphered. The disk is covered with a total of 241 “picture” segments created from 45 individual symbols and is thought to be a prayer or invocation to the Cretan Mother Goddess. It may also represent the labyrinthine path connecting this world with the other, invisible one, the path souls took as they journeyed from one to the other, into and out of the womb of the Goddess.

Apuleius & Pink Rose

It is beyond doubt that wherever the rose grew in the ancient world, it was associated with the Great Mother or Great Goddess. Roses may not have looked like our roses today but maybe ancient temple gardeners knew how to grow different and more beautiful varieties to adorn her statues, decorate her shrines, and strew on the processional way of the great ceremonies in her honour, such as the annual celebration of the sacred marriage. 

We know that roses were associated with the Goddess Isis through a dream that a man called Lucius Apuleius, an initiate of the Mysteries of Isis, recounts in The Golden Ass. It is a fascinating story of metamorphosis, brought about by the process of awakening or, in Jungian terminology, individuation. Apuleius tells the story of his transformation into the form of an ass – a punishment for profaning the Mysteries of the Goddess Isis – and how, after much suffering and remorse, the Goddess came to him in a dream and told him to attend a public ceremony held in her honour. She would send the high priest a dream instructing him to carry a garland of roses in her procession. She told Apuleius, in his ass form, that he was to push through to the front of the crowd, come up to the high priest as if he wished to kiss his hand, then pluck the roses from his garland into his mouth and eat them. He would then be transformed from an ass back into a man. Apuleius found himself watching the procession until he saw the high-priest approaching, holding up the promised garland. Carefully, he wriggled his way through to the front of the crowd until he came level with the high-priest. “My heart trembled,” said Apuleius, “and my heart pounded as I ate those roses with loving relish; and no sooner had I swallowed them then I found that the promise had been no deceit.” To his amazement and joy as well as the astonishment of the high-priest and the bemused crowd, he found himself miraculously changed back into his human form, covering his private parts in embarrassment until a cloak was thrown over him. Later he had an extraordinary vision of the Goddess where she spoke to him, revealing who she was. It is well worth reading this story in the original text and translation by Robert Graves. The apparition of the goddess in his vision of her is so vividly described that we could be seeing it ourselves.

White Rose

In Greece, we know that the rose was sacred to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and that her priestesses wore wreathes of white roses in their hair and that these same white roses were strewn over the approach to her temples. When, in Roman times, Aphrodite was transformed into Venus, roses were still sacred to her and would have embellished her shrines and been worn by her priestesses. We also know that in Rome, the statues of the Goddess Cybele were adorned with roses and that once a year her effigy as the Great Mother was covered with roses and carried through the streets on a chariot. As Jules and I wrote in The Myth of the Goddess, it may be at this time when her Mysteries were celebrated in Rome, that the rose began to evolve as an image of resurrection, and the rose garden as the sacred world or hidden dimension of the Goddess.

Shiraz

Turning to the East, to Persia, whose beautiful gardens were the earthly symbol of Paradise, the ancient and marvellous city of Shiraz was called ‘The City of the Rose’. The most famous poem of Sa’adi, the great Persian poet who lived in Shiraz, was called “The Garden of Roses”. Shiraz was saved from the terrible massacres that befell other Persian cities as the Mongols invaded Persia because its governor opened the gates of the city and invited the Mongol general to a banquet in his honour. No doubt roses adorned the tables laid out for the welcoming feast.

Rose and Sufism

In Islam the rose symbolizes the Prophet Muhammad and is known as the flower of heaven. The famous Sufi poet Rumi (1207–73) wrote many beautiful verses about the rose such as these:

“That which God said to the rose
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
God said to my heart
and made it a hundred times
more beautiful.”

“I’m created from the ecstasy of love
and when I die my essence
will be released like the scent of
crushed rose petals.”

“Love is the infinite rose garden;
Eternal life the least of its blooms.”

Rose and Nightingale

I found these words of a scientist and physicist called Suresh Emri, who must surely be a Sufi. Because his words give such an exquisite rendering of the significance of the Rose in Sufism, I will quote them at some length:

“Rose symbolism in Rumi’s poetry is breath-taking. Rumi used the ‘rose and nightingale’ symbolism of Persian literature to explain the central theme of Sufism: Divine Love. In Persian literature the rose symbolizes beauty and the nightingale is the lover of beauty. The Sufi loves God as a nightingale loves a rose. The lover wants to be one with the Beloved. The soul yearns for the ultimate union with God.”

“For me [the] rose is the symbol of the soul. The seat of the soul is the heart which is not the organ but the subtle center of our being. [The] Rose symbolizes the life-giving core of our being – the soul. The source of love is the Divine Center. There are many other names for the Divine Center: Cosmic Soul, Cosmic Consciousness, Parama Purusha, Self, One, Source, Atman. Our soul has this amazing capacity to reflect the infinite love emanating from the Divine Center. This reflection causes an irresistible attraction. This is Divine Love. [The] Rose symbolizes the Divine Love indirectly because [the] rose is the symbol of the heart which is the soul.”

“Cosmic Consciousness is at the core of each entity in its entirety. Entities owe their existence to this core – the soul. We can say it and perhaps partially understand it intellectually but the full realization of this secret is the subject of spiritual practice. We can talk about it but the secret remains secret. [The] Rose symbolizes the correct path to attain the secret. The correct path is the path of Divine Love.”

In Islam, the fragrance of a rose represents the sacredness of people’s souls. The Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), wrote this: “Just as the rose consists of many petals held together, so the person who attains to the unfoldment of the soul begins to show many different qualities. These emit fragrance in the form of a spiritual personality. The rose has a beautiful structure, and the personality which shows the unfoldment of the soul also has a fine structure, in the manner of relating to others, in speech, in action. The atmosphere of a spiritual being pervades the air like the perfume of a rose.”

The Alhambra

This brings me to the Rose Garden which has a long history, going back to the temple courtyards of the Goddesses of the ancient world, then becoming central in Persia with the idea of the paradise garden reflected in exquisite floral designs on carpets as well as walled gardens with crystal water flowing through channels from the fountain at their centre. After the Arab conquest of Persia, North Africa and Spain, the rose garden found its way to the courtyard gardens of the Alhambra and other Moorish cities and thence to the monastery gardens of Europe. When I was fifteen, on my first visit to Spain, I was fortunate enough to sit alone for hours in the courtyards of the Alhambra when there were as yet no crowds of tourists.

Virgin Mary in Rose Garden

We return to the West. The twelfth century was the century of the Crusades when thousands of men from all over Europe were leaving for the Holy Land. It was the century of Pilgrimage when tens of thousands of pilgrims set out on long journeys to sacred sites, like Vezelay or Compostela or the many shrines of the Black Madonna, such as Le Puy. It was the century which saw the dissemination of the Grail legends throughout Europe. And it was also the century which saw the rise of rose-symbolism and the association of the rose and the rose garden with the Virgin Mary as the Rosa Mystica and the hortus conclusus, or enclosed garden. But it was also the century which saw the rose associated with the exalted ‘Lady’ of the troubadours who may well have been Mary Magdalene. Because of all these events, Europe was in a turmoil of excitement and creativity. In 1969 a most wonderful book was published called The Rose-Garden Game by Eithne Wilkins. This beautiful painting called ‘The Little Paradise Garden’ by a painter of the same name is on its cover. The book is about the profound symbolism of the Rosary and the Rose. She writes that at this time, it was difficult to distinguish between sacred love and profane love because both are suffused with erotic undertones. “The troubadour and the monk are barely distinguishable from one another, each dedicated to his Lady, composing songs for her, aspiring to be crowned with roses at her hands, or kneeling to offer her roses.” It was at this time that the rose-garden and the rosary began to assume mystic significance — always connected with the heart. Mary was described as the walled rose-garden — ‘a garden enclosed’ as the Song of Songs described the Beloved and the Bride. 

Mary in a Rose-Arbour

Mary in a Rose-Arbour

Mary is the Rose without a thorn, the Peerless Rose, identified with the Rose of Sharon in the Song of Songs that had become the text for contemplation during this period. That is why roses adorn many paintings of the Annunciation and the Assumption. Mary is the rose and she also bears the rose, her son Christ. She sits in a rose-arbour, surrounded by angels. The rose is also a symbol of the Garden of Paradise where the souls of the dead reside, and is therefore associated with the idea of Resurrection. The sepulchre garden where Mary Magdalene met the resurrected Christ and took him to be the gardener, was seen as a reflection of the Creator walking in the garden of Paradise, among the souls of those who have left this world for another, better one. 

The Mysteries of the Rosary (words)

Mary is also the Rosary and the Rosary itself is an enclosed Garden. The Rosary, which means “crown of roses,” involves offering a group of prayers to Mary as a spiritual bouquet, sometimes a series of Ave Marias or Hail Mary’s, sometimes the Pater Noster or Lord’s Prayer as well. There are usually 50 beads but the number can vary. The Rosary helps people to remember, to get in touch with the Virgin Mary, with the beads helping to remember how many prayers one has said. Other cultures, such as the Buddhist, Hindu, Tibetan and Islamic, also have strings of beads and use the beads in the same way, to focus their minds on prayer and their connection to spirit. 

Red Rose

Now we move to a different role for the rose and the rose-garden, for the Rose Garden was also the meeting place of lovers and the rose itself was the gift from  a lover to the lady of his heart. The exquisite texture, form and colour of the red rose as well as its delicious scent made it the supreme image of Love and Beauty. Obviously, in many cultures, it was associated with the beauty of woman. No young man of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance would have dreamed of courting his beloved without presenting her with a rose, the supreme symbol of his love. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Roman de La Rose

Dante & Beatrice

Spiritual love was closely intertwined with erotic love at this time. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish whether the ‘Lady’ addressed by a devotee is the Virgin Mary or a beloved woman, as when Dante (1265-1321), speaks of Beatrice. 

“Lady, you are so great, so powerful,

that who seeks grace without recourse to you

would have his wish fly upward without wings.”

There are many other texts where the exalted Lady becomes, as in Dante’s description of Beatrice, a spiritual guide, who is symbolized by a rose. This Lady is always beautiful and supremely wise – Madonna Intelligenza – imparting a spiritual teaching to her lover. Love is exalted as the desire of the lover’s whole being to be united with this feminine being who is essential to his completion. And that feminine being, who is variously addressed as Queen and as Divine Wisdom, Sophia or Sapientia, is symbolized by the rose and, in religious texts, associated with Mary and the Bride of the Song of Songs. The erotic tone of these texts is striking and all-pervasive.

Man presenting his heart to his Lady

I wish I could convey to you how these Courts of Love, inspired by Eleanor of Aquitaine, changed the relationship between man and woman from one of contempt and control to one of respect and admiration, even adoration. They initiated a code of chivalry, encouraging men to develop empathic skills, to learn to write poetry, to behave with grace and courtesy and respect towards women, to follow a different path from that of the warrior. This new concept of courtly love between man and woman was most highly developed in the most civilized place in the Europe of that time — the courts of the Languedoc, namely, Foix, Toulouse and Carcassonne.  The Grail legends, carried all over Europe by the troubadours, with their hidden message about the Church of the Holy Spirit, had the same effect. Woman was elevated to a position she has never before or since enjoyed in Christian culture. 

Man and Woman Embracing 

This is illustration is from one of these books.

In thirteenth century France, there was one famous illustrated book, an allegory of courtly love, written by two authors, called Le Roman de La Rose. It told the story of a young man who dreamt of a beautiful rose. When he awoke from his dream, his longing to find it sent him on a quest and led him to a rose garden where his beloved rose was held captive. Ultimately, after many encounters with different people, and many trials, he is reunited with his beloved rose. This was a book about the spiritual journey, disguised in elaborate symbolism.

Rose poem by Abelard

The rose inspired this exquisite poem by Abelard (1079-1142), the pre-eminent  philosopher and theologian of the twelfth century, whose forbidden love for Heloise, his brilliant pupil, came to a tragic end when she became pregnant and their love was discovered:

“Take thou this Rose, O Rose,

Since thine own flower it is

And by that Rose, thy lover captive is.

I suffer, yea I die,

But this mine agony I count all bliss

Since death is life again upon thy lips.”

Alchemy & The Rose

In the final stage of Alchemy – the Rubedo – the heart opens like a rose to reveal a fountain of Light which overflows with Love and Compassion towards all living beings. 

“And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”

— T.S. Eliot