By Lady Saoirse
Bright Blessings,
My little patio garden is thriving in the July heat. I have two lavender plants and two roses, one regular sized, complete with bristling thorns, and one dainty, thornless miniature rose. The thorned rose has been nibbled on by June bugs and the mini rose was munched on by rabbits. So far at this new location we moved to a couple of months ago, there have been no spider mites or aphids which were plentifully at our other apartment. Before that, we lived by the woods and while no rabbits or deer got my roses, the June bugs were mad about them.
Some years, I do the dish soap treatment to combat the June bugs. Some year,s I tolerate them, allowing them to make salads out of my rose leaves. I never use the chemical stuff that kills. I don’t believe in it. I will tolerate some pests but I won’t kill the planet. I always prune my roses often and pick off any insects I need to. I will never forget the day I went to sleep with perfect roses and awoke to an infestation of spider mites. I sprayed with an organic solution which killed the mites but I did not know to rinse it off, so the leaves withered. I pruned the roses back, and they grew back stronger than ever. I plant them in good soil, have them in the correct amount of sunlight, and water them often. I do my best to take care of them but bugs and critters get at them sometimes anyhow.
I had a revelation this morning when I beheld my mini rose with its first new bud after it survived being rabbit food – life is like my roses. There are ups and downs. There is tragedy like being eaten by pests and there is victory like the little bud managing to appear despite everything. That year the spider mites took over in the night and the spray withered the leaves, I pruned the rose back and kept watering the roses and they bloomed powerfully, despite it all. Roses never give up until they die. We shouldn’t either.
There are going to be times when life is hell. You will get hit from all directions. It will seem like you just can’t get a break and all you do is problem solve because there will be nothing but problems. You will wonder why you bother to try sometimes because the stress will feel like it is killing you. But you get up in the morning and go forward with your day anyhow because you are determined to survive. You might not understand why sometimes but you just do.
There will come a day when you feel like giving up. Whether it is a breakup or overwhelming bills, something going wrong in your life will make you wonder why it is worth it sometimes. You may stop and take a break and that’s okay sometimes. My rose drew strength for about a week before it grew a new bud. You might say you are throwing in the towel and you might quit certain things. That’s okay. Part of a rose plant retires itself completely sometimes before growing a new shoot.
That is perhaps one of the most important thing to learn from roses. The more you prune them, the more they seem to grow. We cannot keep old habits and situations in our lives when they no longer serve us. Like dead parts of the plant that must be cut away from the plant to grow, we have to cut away old things that no longer serve us. Maybe you used to long distance run but an injury won’t allow that anymore. Instead of just giving up, start something else. Canoe, play tennis, swim, and just do something else and keep trying new things until you find a new passion.
Roses never stop trying, no matter how many bugs eat them, no matter how weird the weather is, and even if they go without some water or nutrients, as long as they don’t die, they fight. So should we. Walking a magical path means trying things, failing somehow, and getting up and trying again. Before we bloom, we have to nourish ourselves, and before we succeed, we have to work at things with seemingly no progress sometimes. Like the rose sends down its roots deep into the soil and then grows little by little until it emerges, slowly at first, then blooming radiantly, so we work hard too.
Bloom when you can. Cut yourself back when you need to. Conserve your strength when you must. Overcome everything that tries to stop you, and keep being beautiful you with all your glorious beauty and magic, just like the rose.
Blessed Be.
Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own magical path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she is a member of the spiritual family at the Magical Druid in Ohio, and she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for Spiritual Blossom and Mysticsense and she writes for PaganPages.Org emag.