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The subject of roses as a sacred flower is extensive, so we will focus here on their relationship with Feri Tradition.
Feri Tradition has a unique affinity for the rose, witnessed even in the names taken by various Feri sects such as Bloodrose and BlueRose. The former of these takes its name from the Victor H. Anderson's collection of poetry titled "Thorns of the Blood Rose."
The name 'Mystic Rose' is used in Feri liturgy as one of the many names used to call on the Star Goddess; in Catholicism the name Mystic Rose is attributed to Mary, the Mother of God.
The Faery Rose tree is the symbol for the Axis Mundi in certain lineages of Feri. It serves as a portal through which astral travel and trance journeying to other worlds occurs.
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The single Rose is, in essence a symbol of completion, of consumate achievement and perfection... the mystic centre, the heart, the garden of Eros, the paradise of Dante, the beloved, the emblem of Venus and so on. More precise symbolic meanings are derived from the colour and number of its petals. The relationship of the white rose to the red is in accordance with the relationship between the two colours in alchemy. The blue rose is symbolic of the impossible, The golden rose is symbolic of absolute achievement. When the rose is round in shape it corresponds in significance to the mandala. -Cirlot
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ROSE FLOWER SORCERY
To Reconcile
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This spell will help reconcile former romantic partners as well as friends and family, simply use as appropriately colored rose to represent the relationship as it was and must return to. Red works best for lovers, pink for friends and family. You will require two roses, each of which you will name individually for those you seek to reconcile, such as Sam and Joe. You will pluck six petals from each rose, for a total of ten petals, and place these in a lightweight bowl. Your option then is to stir them gently with your fingers (careful, you do not want to bruise them), or to toss them by repeatedly jostling the bowl up and down. This motion represents the turmoil that the relationship between Sam and Joe has encountered. As you do this, speak the following charm:
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From two blooms
Once torn apart
A renewed union resumes
For a fresh new start
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Now that all the petals have been mixed together you will lay then on a blank, white piece of paper so that they form a single flower. Simply layer them together as shown at the right.
Follow the instructions on How To Press Flowers.
When it has completely dried you have a flower talisman that may be used in various ways. A spell unto itself, it may simply be stored wherever keepsakes are kept. Additionally it may be placed behind a picture of the reconciled couple in a picture frame, or have devotional candles burned upon them when some extra care is needed.
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Bathing With Rose |
It is one of five floral ingredients for an Iron Pentacle bath, which includes:
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Jasmine for Sex
Amaryllis for Pride
Dahlia for Self
Gladiolus for Power
Rose for Passion
Rose Water
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Rose water is an ingredient found in many spells, especially those seeking to invoke love or beauty.
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When making rose water, the first thing to consider is the cleanliness of the rose petals you will be using. Most commercially available roses have been treated with pesticides, so something from your own garden may be best. Either way, you will want to rinse your petals and lay them out to dry. After that, the following recipe is simple.
-Two packed cup rose petals
-Two cups of boiling distilled water
Place rose petals in a bowl. Cover the petals with boiling water. Cover your bowl (a simple plate may serve well as a lid). Let is seep until it becomes room temperature, then strain and refrigerate.
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The Faery Tradition manner of making waters magical is done through the act of Kala, and this may be done to the water after it has been strained. While there are different varieties of Kala blessing that exist, in its simplest form it involves the Faery Practitioner aligning his or her three souls, then drawing on their united will to purify and charge the water with life force.
Moroccan folklore instructs the use of a special ink obtained by mixing rosewater with saffron. It was this ink that was used in the writing of magic charms. Another text, this one Coptic, suggests that the cure for demonic possession is to pray over a bowl of rose water, which then is poured over the afflicted.
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Please note: The spells contained on this page are not intended as a substitute for any legal, financial, psychiatric and or medical services.
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ROSE MYTHOLOGY
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Venus presented the rose to her son Cupid, who in his turn gave it to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to induce him to conceal the weaknesses of the gods. Thus the rose became the emblem of silence without ceasing to be the flower of wine, love and beauty.
According to Zoroaster, the rose was free from thorns, until the entrance into the world of Ahrimannes (the spirit of evil).
On the tomb of Ah, son of Abutalib, the mighty hero and companion of the Prophet, grow roses of the sweetest smell and the finest colour, which it is superstitiously believed will grow nowhere else, all attempts to transplant them having failed. -Carruther
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Horace enjoins their unsparing use at banquets, when they were used not only as a means of decoration, but also to strew the floors, and even in winter the luxurious Romans expected to have petals of roses floating in their Falernian wine. Roman brides and bridegrooms were crowned with roses, so too were the images of Cupid and Venus and Bacchus. Roses were scattered at feasts of Flora and Hymen, in the paths of victors, or beneath their chariot-wheels, or adorned the prows of their war-vessels. -Grieve
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The ancients crowned themselves with roses at their feasts to shew that the outpourings of the heart at festal meetings should never be divulged; they also sculptured it over the doors of their banqueting rooms, whence came the phrase," under the rose," signifying a conversation held confidentially. -Carruther
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ROSE FOLKLORE
Selections on Rose lore from 'Folk-lore From Adam's County Illinois'
& 'Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork' Volume 3, by Harry H. Hyatt
Planting |
#1033: Roses planted on the last day of June will always bloom the following June.
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Rose Omens
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#1075: If in the country a wild rosebush springs up outside the door, the family living at that house will soon be rich.
#8980: How much a girl loves a sweetheart can be observed when she hands him a rose: if any of the petals fall off in the handing, her love is growing cold; if they stay on, her love is deep.
#8981: Any girl able to pop a rose petal named her sweetheart is loved by him.
#8982: If a girl while walking down a road slowly picks petals from a rose, she will marry the first single man met -- provided all petals have not yet been picked.
#15088: A spring with an unusual crop of roses will be followed by a summer of many deaths.
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For Luck
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#10104: Red roses in the bridal bouquet bring happiness all through married life.
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To Heal A Wart
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#6631: "I am getting away from the wart. I had several warts between my thumb and first finger. I didn't believe this -- if you have a wart, take a dish rag, rub over your wart, then bury the rag under a red rosebush -- but I took my dish rag, rubbed over my warts good, then put my dish rag under the red rosebush we had in the yard. Well, one day my warts were all gone, even if I don't believe in signs."
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Roses Hidden In A Pillow To Curse With Illness
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#16302: "We had a neighbor... at last she did get a spell on my husband. He was sick all the time. We just could not find out what was wrong. One day I opened his pillow and found two white roses on a string, and five little roses, they were not on the string. I found them just in time, for if those little roses had of been on the string too, my husband would of died. But I burned them up, and after that my husband got well." The roses were growing. As each rose reached maturity, it joined the string.
#16345: "Years ago a man out here in the south part of town was sick all the time, nothing would help him, so he went to a witch doctor; and he said he was bewitch, because he had seven white spots in the top of his mouth. If you ever see seven white spots in your mouth, you are bewitched. So he told him, if he wanted to find out who bewitched him, to wear a red rose on his coat; and he would work on the person so that when they met him, they would try and take the red rose away from him. So the next day he put a red rose on and went down to a saloon, and a man there just tried and tried to get the rose, but he would not let him have it. He took the rose home and put it in the stove and burned it good, and the man got sick and the spell was broken."
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Rose Dreams
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#7413: Dreams in which you see a rose are always favorable.
#7414: If you dream of roses, it shows you have many friends.
#7415: A woman who dreams of a red rose will soon receive an offer of marriage.
#7416: A woman who dreams of a white rose has a faithful sweetheart.
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#9089: Dey claim that if yo' use God's Name three times aftah usin' three different kind of roses, one a red rose, a white rose, an' anothah a kind of a pink rose - after usin' those roses - they boil those roses an' get de juice out of 'em an' takes a bath in dat juice. An' den take dat juice an' put a little bit in a vial or sumpin like dat in de pocket. An' put a mixture in dat wit High John de Conkah an' bluestone an' aloes an' incense; an' den use de word, "God de Father, God de Son, an' God de Holy Ghost" fo' nine times in de courthouse. Dat'll be impossible fo' a judge to give a heavy sentence.
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Nor did the self-indulgent Romans disdain to wear rose garlands at their feasts, as a preventive against drunkenness. -Grieve
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ROSE IN THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
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Flowers vary their significance according to the manner in which they are presented—for example, reverse a flower, and its meaning is reversed; incline it to the right it means "I;" incline it to the left, "you." A rosebud with leaves and thorns signifies "I fear, but I hope;" stripped of its leaves, "everything is to be feared;" of its thorns, "everything is to be hoped." -Carruther
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A rosebud from which the thorns have been removed, but which has still its leaves, conveys the sentiment, "I fear, but I hope,"—the thorns implying fear, as the leaves hope; remove the leaves and thorns, and then it signifies that "There may be neither hope nor fear;" while, again, a single flower may be made emblematical of a variety of ideas; a rosebud that has been already used and deprived of its thorns, says, "There is much to hope," but stript of its leaves also, it tells, "There is every thing to fear." -Nelson
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ROSE POETRY
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Out of the seething cauldron of my woes,
Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung;
Where charmed music gathered from my tongue,
And where I chained strange archipelagoes
Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows
A curious bitumen; where among
The glowing medley moved the tune unsung
Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic Rose.
Its myriad petals of divided light;
Its leaves of the most radiant emerald;
Its heart of fire like rubies. At the sight
I lifted up my heart to God and called:
How shall I pluck this dream of my desire?
And lo! there shaped itself the Cross of Fire!
-Crowley
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Men saw the thorns on Jesus' brow,
But angels saw the roses.
-Howe
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"Legend of the Rose"
The angel of the flowers one day
Beneath a rose tree sleeping lay—
That spirit to whose charge is given
To bathe young buds in dews from heaven.
Awaking from his light repose,
The angel whispered to the rose,
"O fondest object of my care.
Still fairest found where all are fair,
For the sweet shade thou'st given me.
Ask what thou will—'tis granted thee."
"Then," said the rose with deepening glow,
"On me another grace bestow."
The spirit paused in silent thought—
What grace was there that flower had not?
'Twas but a moment—o'er the rose
A veil of moss the angel throw;
And robed in nature's simple weed.
Could there a flower that rose exceed?
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. . . |
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{replied the rose:}
"Young Love, rambling through the wood,
Fouind me in my solitude.
Bright with dew and freshly blown,
And trembling to the zephyr's sighs ;
But as he stooped to gaze upon
The living gem, with raptured eyes,
It chanced a bee was busy there,
Searching for its fragrant fare;
And Cupid stooping too, to sip,
The angry insect stung his lip;
And gushing from the ambrosial cell,
One bright drop on my bosom fell.
Weeping to his mother, he
Told the tale of treachery;
And she, her vengeful boy to please,
Strung his bow with captive bees,
But placed upon my slender stem
The poisoned stings she pluck'd from them;
And none, since that eventful morn,
Have found the rose without a thorn " |
A full fed Rose on meals of Tint
A Dinner for a Bee
In process of the Noon became—
Each bright Mortality
The Forfeit is of Creature fair
Itself, adored before
Submitting for our unknown sake
To be esteemed no more—
-Dickenson
No -wonder that cheek in its beauty transcendent,
Excelleth the beauty of others by far;
No wonder that eye is so richly resplendent.
For your heart is a rose and your soul is a star.
-Osgood |
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