Several hermetic images represent seven roses, or a rose that has corollas with seven petals. The number Seven recalls, among many things, the alchemical metals or planetary archetypes. They are Lead, linked to Saturn, Tin, linked to Jupiter, Mercury, linked to Mercury, Copper, linked to Venus, Silver, linked to the Moon, and finally Gold, linked to the Sun and all the qualities associated with it.
Often the alchemical rose is depicted surrounded by bees flying around it, since the symbol of the bee represents the industrious virtue and therefore also the alchemical operation for the extraction from the raw matter of the Quintessence, which is associated with the production of honey. For this reason, alchemists are also called the “honey collectors”. The flower is often depicted supported by a vertical stem with two horizontal branches perpendicular to the stem, forming the four arms of the cross, which represents the crucible where the four elements can be sublimated to transform into a fifth element of the metaphysical plane: the Quintessence.
The different corollas of the alchemical roses recall the different states of energy, or the different levels of perception and awareness of the researcher, which can be experienced during the Transmutation Work. In internal alchemy, one of the first transformations is the shifting of the ordinary self from the superficial and inconsistent layers of the façade personality to the internal, permanent, significant ones. This process crumbles the masks of an identified, alienated, incomplete personality projected into an idealized, changeable and illusory reality, revealing the authentic face of man who, thanks to the experience of a new perception and attention directed within himself, grasps the broad sensitivity of the purified soul that emerges from the folds of the personality and moves to the level of a broader Consxiousness.
The alchemical search within matter or its path within man in the world is represented in the initiatory world by Hecate, “She who holds the keys to the cosmos”.
Goddess of the Underworld or of the deep and unknown dimensions, she reigns over evil demons, the dark night, the moon, ghosts, the dead and Necromancy. Hecate is the Power force that science defines as “dark energy” (energy dark matter), the esotericists Shakti, the Hindus Kali and the occultists cellular consxiousness. This goddess of pre-Indo-European origin is generally represented in triple form, celestial, terrestrial and marine, with her head encircled by a garland of five-petaled roses which perhaps makes it the most ancient structure of this flower.
The five-rose crowns recall the number Five which follows Four, the number of completion in the material phenomenal world. Therefore, the number Five marks the beginning of a new cycle of synthesis in the dimension of pure intensity, analogous to the eight-petalled compass rose which expresses in its mean a complexity superior to the four cardinal points by overcoming the simple finite material dimension.
In its many varieties, the red rose also represents the cup capable of collecting, symbol of the Holy Grail, the renewed blood of the alchemist. The blue alchemical rose, which does not exist in nature, indicates an impossible result contrary to alchemical practice, which must conquer nature only according to nature. Instead, when it is pink in analogy with the Latin term ros, which means “dew”, the flower is a symbol of the distillation of the raw material carried out in three phases: first with overheating, then with cooling and finally through the condensation of its subtle vapors until obtaining its quintessences. The pink rose is the hieroglyph of those who have enriched their corporeality and their psyche, like the dew spread on the grass in the months of April and May and collected by alchemists for their operations. In fact, the spring dew is enriched by the golden brightness of the dawn, it is the condensate that contains the fertile richness of the salts that have risen from the depths of the earth mixed with the active ferments condensed in the sky and then descended to the earth. The rose is also a symbol of the wheel of time, of the wheel of the Zodiac, of the energy of the spirit that manifests itself in creation in a continuous cyclical movement. These esoteric meanings remind us of the architectural element of the rose window, made both in perforated stone and with painted glass, which we find in Romanesque and Gothic buildings. These rose windows are related to the circle, which also represents perfection, since all the points of the circumference have the same distance from the center of the geometric figure. They are based on Mesopotamian, Syrian and Coptic models, and even older ones, with the meaning of the wheel of the sun and the cyclical process of nature, which through four seasons and twelve months causes vegetation to be born, die and be reborn. They also refer to the Platonic harmony of the spheres, to the celestial revolution of the planets and the signs of the zodiac, with their influence on the life of man. In the Middle Ages the central rose window of churches was called Rota, “wheel” in Latin, and is the alchemical hieroglyph of the Fire of the Wheel. In alchemy, the Fire of Rota is the time required to process the raw material in the crucible: a repeated series of heating and cooling processes, twelve laboratory operations coinciding with the signs of the zodiac, called in esotericism the “twelve labours of Hercules”, which by analogy recall the path of perfection in Man.
In the architectural allegory of the initiatory journey, the main rose window is generally positioned on the western facade of the church above the entrance, as a point of connection between the sacred and the profane. It indicates the starting point of human consciousness that, entering the sacred building, turns its back on the material world to look at the point of arrival, the altar oriented towards the East, where the Light arises and the union with the Absolute can take place. There are then various types of rose windows and each has its own specific esoteric meaning: with 6 petals it is associated with the seal of Solomon, with 7 petals it indicates the energies of the fundamental archetypes used in the Work, with 8 petals it represents the regeneration that leads to infinity, with 12 petals the Zodiac with the twelve fixed typologies of the emanation of the Absolute, with 24 petals the nocturnal and diurnal cycle of the sun and also the Work in black and the subsequent Work in white of the alchemists.
The rose windows are only apparently immobile, since in reality they are always in motion and in accordance with the cycles of the universe, which reflect two essential eternal movements: that of the projection of the inside towards the outside, of the center towards the circumference, and vice versa. This is well symbolized by the alchemical serpent Uroboros, which with its head eats its tail, so that the end of a cycle coincides with the beginning of the same.
The rose is the emblem of the courtly love of the Troubadours: in the Romance of the Rose we arrive at the vision of the mysterious tabernacle of the Garden of Love of spiritual Chivalry, which makes selfless Service to others the fundamental practice. The mystical rose is described in the Divine Comedy in the last canticle of Paradise, where Dante is accompanied by Beatrice and can finally contemplate it. But Beatrice is none other than the angelic woman of the Fedeli d’Amore, an esoteric group of men of letters who through symbolic poetry secretly express hermetic concepts, forbidden by the Church at the time. The alchemical rose is a constant theme in past and recent painting and literature.
All mystics who aspire to the realization of the Self are children of the Rose, and the spiritual alchemy of the Rose is one of the Three Ways of Fire that is particularly interested in this field of experimentation. The perennial Tradition is expressed in the Triple Way of Fire favoring the qualifications of each one, and is arranged on three operational lines: Alchemy is the way of the Fire of Life, the Love of Beauty is the way of the Omni-pervading Fire and the way of traditional Metaphysics is Colorless Fire.
The Self is what is most True in us and in fact represents the Imago Dei, the kingdom of God within us. From the psychological point of view, the Self can be considered as the experience of the Spirit within us. It constitutes what could be defined as the highest intensity of life. And it is following the progressive expansion of the field of consciousness that our inner Self can tend towards the Self, whose ultimate experience is the reintegration of the soul into Unity. And it is precisely this progression that the Initiates of the Rose refine themselves in daily life through three symbolic phases, learning from the living experience on themselves to expand into cosmic consxiousness.
I – The Rose is the symbol of the spiritual Aspiration to Self-Realization
In short, the inner path can be symbolized by the opening of the rose on the cross. This is why it is considered one of the symbols of this process of change, of this alchemical transmutation, like other similar symbols such as the diamond, the lotus flower, the golden sphere, the golden seed, the white light. We can find these archetypes in revelatory dreams, in the great myths of humanity, in some traditional children’s stories, but also in alchemical manuscripts or in the arcana of the initiatory Tarot, for example. However, let us remember that it is not enough to dream wonderful symbols or read the Tarot to be realized: these symbols or archetypal situations are above all to be considered as an encouragement and express a deep yearning to surpass oneself, not for the end of a process, but for a new beginning and a new turn of the “spiral”. The opening of the Rose with its many petals can translate this Aspiration, showing that new goals must be reached and that the impossible always contains an intimate Possibility.
II – The Rose as a symbol of “knowing how to give” and “knowing how to receive”
The rose can be perceived as a wonderful symbol of the harmonization between knowing how to give and knowing how to receive.
Many wise men have insisted on this need to balance within us the ability to give and the ability to receive. This balance results from a harmonious movement, from an alliance between these two components, a movement that constitutes a dynamic between the exterior and the interior of ourselves. In everyday life, of course, we do not select the “knowing how to give” from the “knowing how to receive”. Our psyche is made up of active or masculine energy, and passive or feminine energy. Masculine energy represents our capacity for dynamic action in the world: thinking, planning, speaking, moving for example. For men, as for women, it is the emissivity of male energy that allows action (dynamic emissive function), and “knowing how to give” participates in this process. Female energy instead represents our most intuitive part, that interior door that can open to welcome, manage, conserve, conceive. For men, as for women, it is receptivity (the receptive function), and “knowing how to receive” participates in this welcoming process. Taking the symbol of the Rose, we can observe that it has a central core from which the petals emanate. From this center everything unfolds as if in the rose there were both a gathering around the central point and a starry radiation emanating from the center. On the one hand, the energies coming from the outside, passing through the different petals and gathering at the center of the rose, represent in some way the “knowing how to receive” (from the outside to the inside, the phenomenon of internalization). On the other hand, the energies that start from the inside, from the center of the rose, spreading through the petals and opening towards the outside represent our “knowing how to give” (from the inside to the outside, the phenomenon of externalization). All this simultaneously represents the interior concentration and the union with the external world. This movement is analogous in the process of individual and collective evolution: knowing how to receive and knowing how to give. It may be useful to remember what these two concepts consist of in ordinary psychology.
Knowing how to receive: not everyone knows how to receive or be receptive because “we are sick of receiving”. Receiving gifts, pleasant reflections, compliments, loving considerations: even if it may seem surprising, many cannot stand these attentions. Receiving also means receiving questions, different opinions, new ideas, sometimes uncomfortable indications. Most human beings have a defensive attitude towards others and towards life in general, so when faced with what seems unknown to them, they immediately say no. There are very few who are truly open to difference and change, and this attitude is the cause of the difficulties of contemporary society, characterized by the massive intolerance in which it finds itself. The lack of tolerance is an ancestral fear, a closure, it is the smallness, the narrowness, it is the no that blocks the energy of receiving. Knowing how to give is nothing other than the reflection of knowing how to receive, so, just as we are infirm in knowing how to receive, so we are infirm in knowing how to give. Just as the rose can receive the light and the heat of the sun without reserve, so it can give its perfume and its splendor without depriving itself of anything. The balance of everyday life lies in this harmony, or if you prefer, justice, taught by the rose, this flexible and authentic adaptation in “knowing how to give” and “knowing how to receive” simultaneously. What we have said about the rose, we can apply to the symbol of the Rose blooming on the Cross. The cross is in some way our daily life, that is, a set of experiences to live, with its vertical arm symbol of spirituality, the horizontal arm symbol of materiality and their meeting point where the rose blooms, opening itself to the Essence of all things. We can reconnect to what was said above about “knowing how to receive” and “knowing how to give”, since materially and spiritually we receive from the outside influences, elements, information, energies that after having circulated on the arms of the cross meet in the essential nucleus, the rose, which in turn emanates in a radiation that spreads along the arms of the cross, impacting on our concrete life experience.
Let us not forget that what is valid for an individual is also valid for a group of individuals, a group that can be a city, a nation and therefore the entire planet.
III – The rose as a symbol of the opening of the heart
Let us keep this image of the rose, symbol of the opening of the heart, and in particular the image of the heart of the ordinary man who, like a bud, asks for nothing more than to open up and express all of his divine magnificence. As if he, although intoxicated by external influences, in his inner journey allowed the essential to blossom within himself. This essential presumably passes through the path of the heart and inner regeneration. The heart can be considered as the central symbol of this path because it indicates how important it is for man to know how to love at all levels of his Being. Knowing how to love opens many doors that essentially lead to True Knowledge; in this regard an Egyptian Gnostic wrote:
“You, the Children of the Knowledge of the Heart”.
The cardiac center, seat of the heart, is one of the 7 centers of consxiousness present in man. All 7 centers have their importance and the whole must be harmonized so that the energetic circulation can occur, from the top to the bottom and vice versa, from the inside to the outside and vice versa. Among the 7, the cardiac center has an interesting place, whether we start from the top or the bottom it is always the fourth. Its central place between the bottom and the top gives it a special role because the opening of the heart favors the expansion of
the other 3 higher centers and exerts a concrete pacification on the other 3 lower centers.
We can add that the more we expand Consxiousness, or in other words, the more enlightened we are within our Being, the more we will be able to serve others and share with them those elements of metaphysical understanding, knowledge and revelation that we have become by assimilating them. In fact, the more this cosmic communion is refined, the more we can love and serve naturally and without burdens, since helping with an effort of personal will is still influenced to some extent by the concept of power and therefore by identification with ignorance. The opening of the heart, that is, this rose that opens little by little within us, initiates us onto the Path of Love for Beauty. This path, being a bearer of love, goes beyond the simple path of intellectual knowledge. It tends towards a deeper integration of the being to which it grants an expansion of the field of consxiousness and sometimes an opening to the overconsxious that can be translated as a spiritual aspiration of interior communion that induces us to become consxious of the sensation of universality of unity. Now, we find this simplicity of heart, this inner warmth in the Western initiatory Tradition, in all the great civilizations and cultures of which we have memory. The rose and the cross, through their different symbolic meanings, propose that we keep these Qualities intact as much as possible even during difficult experiences, and perhaps even more so in these. The Initiates know that living these passages is part of the very field of Initiation, and that adversities can be both individual and collective, but all must be considered significant, that is, integral with meaning. An adage says:
When you commit yourself to a path, ask yourself if that path has a heart.
We all, at different levels, feel that man must reconcile himself with his heart. Intelligence without a heart, science without awareness, produce planetary situations like the current one, with our societies that are both too superficial, analytical and emotionally immature and contracted and cold in depth. The opening of the heart can give a meaning and another point of view to the discoveries of the intellect, to daily life, and the heart, purified in the alchemical sense of the term, becomes capable of seeing what is in its Essence. A poet in a surreal vision would say:
“What is a pure heart if not that eye capable of looking at all things, without projections, without associations, with that quality of innocence that makes the joyful world reflect in itself as in clear water?”
The symbolism of the rose, therefore, is an immediate fact of total consxiousness, that is, of the man who discovers himself as such, and becomes aware of his part in the universe. These primordial discoveries are such that the same symbolism determines both the activity of the subconsxious (the activities of the ordinary man) and the noblest expressions of the supramental life (our Divine part). A triangle, whose apex is inscribed in a circle, is the symbol of such magnificence. We have seen three symbolic points concerning the rose in an esoteric approach, therefore a triad, or a triangle if you like, with: the rose as a symbol of the spiritual desire for the realization of the Self; the rose as a symbol of “knowing how to give” and “knowing how to receive”; the rose as a symbol of the opening of the heart. Three symbolic points that favor the profound perception of unity. Three in One.
Unity through Love and Knowledge helps to build new values.
The symbol of the Rose invites us to all this, which radiates in the spiritual sense of the term, but also in the psychological sense with the changes in values and behaviors that this induces in the world of thought and, of course, in the daily sense with the practical, concrete, pragmatic applications in everyday life. It can be said that the spiritual path and the depth psychology that refers to it (that is, the one that takes into account the metaphysical dimension) introduce the concept of an inner journey. Each one has within himself a particle of the cosmic immensity, of infinity, and tries to find within himself this possible harmony with the Cosmic, with the Immanence of Him and the Transcendence of That.
The inner journey consists in finding ourselves completely in this alchemical marriage, in this unification that brings us back to the starting point, but with a broader awareness and with the multiple experiences that will have marked our lives as necessary stages. The initiatory path is an immense journey of Love. It is an immense poem of Love for the life lacking the Absolute, a journey between the planes of awareness that cross the daily life, which remains our true Laboratory, to discover step by step the Sacred Reality of Light in us.
We are of terrestrial nature and within this nature
we must discover our celestial existence.
The Initiatory Tradition is based on the fact that the resources of wisdom, love and knowledge are hidden in the depths of the being and it is precisely these that will develop significantly when they are allowed to express themselves fully. In the scientific world of contemporary psychology, more and more scholars admit this reality, hence the attempts at psychological or psychotherapeutic models with a spiritual purpose to respond to the current needs of man.
“This will be, in our opinion, the way of the future, to restore to the transcendent faculties of the human soul their dignity and their social function by reorganizing them with the help of science and on universal bases open to all truths.
Then regenerated science will arrive, with open eyes, to those spheres in which speculative philosophy wanders blindfolded and groping. Yes, science will become clairvoyant and redeeming to the extent that the consciousness and love of humanity increase in it”.
Edouard Schuré
Then the rose, whose importance needs no demonstration, will be an authentic symbol of the highest form of consciousness and spiritual education. What more could we desire for humanity in this century than to see it expand its field of consciousness and its capacity for love?
The rose is the Flower of the Wise and during their mystical marriages the red rose was given to the King and the white rose to the Queen. The Flower of the Wise is a symbol of the Heart that Serves with devotion the expansion of Consxiousness.
“For he who believes with his heart is justified.
Romans 10,10
Dedicated to the Children of the Rose
