Victorian Flower Oracle: Wild Rose

Well it appears that several of the cards I have drawn in the past or am starting with now don't have threads yet, so now I can actually help Traveller get more card threads up and running . This card marks the start of cards I started drawing in February of 2009 thanks to her initiative to start this study group.

The Wild Rose card shows a demure young woman standing out in nature. She is wearing a white dress adorned with leaves, thorny brown vines as the trim, and necklace and bracelets of some kind of fruit. Her dress comes accented by leaves adn teh ruffles on the short sleeves are made of pink wild roses. She also wears one really huge yellow rose (or wild rose) between her breasts tucked into her bodice. In her right hand she holds a sign, and a green something in the other (cannot make out what it is). In the background is a luscious wild rose bush with 4 flowers.

What I like most about the card are the thorny vines adorning the dress. Some of them avtually look as though they are growing from the ground which makes her part of the landscape. I also love how the thorns do not seem to hurt her in any way.

The emotional atmosphere of this card is a fake sense of serenity. Sort of like the calm before the storm. Her facial expression, the shadows and teh cloud in the distance indicate this to me.

The physical manifestation of this card would be a knowing sense of foreboding going into a meeting or conversation you know will be uncomfortable but you know you have to keep a good face through. Your body sort of tingles but not in a good way. It could also be that heavy feeling one gets when has to do something they really don't feel like doing but want to try and make the best of it though you can't quite shake the reluctance. For me that would be house cleaning, any kind of physical labor, or attending stuffy business engagements on my days off or after hours ... just the thought makes my feet and legs feel like lead *LOL*.

Mental characteristics would be those of resignation given that the situation is not going to go away and must be faced now, and making myself do them with a good attitude. Pretty much the mental and physical characteristics are tied together on this one.

Spiritually, I see a commitment and strength, purpose and determination. I pull on my spiritual, determination, and sense of purpose to make it through those things I don't want to do but have to do. So really I see this card as one of quiet strength.

What I like least about this card are the shadows and dark cloud. Just reminds me of the calm before the storm, and the heaviness I feel when having to deal with things I would rather not deal with.

The caption on the card reads "a thorny question." I see this card as being that and more, like thorny situations and encounters in general. Face it with strength and poise as it too shall pass is a phrase that comes to mind.

Upon reading the companion book, I learned that the fruit she wears as jewelry is a rosehip. I had a rosehip body wrap at a spa once, it was wonderful! So soothing and smelled so good. Also, the original language of flowers meaning for the wild rose is pleasure and pain which fits well with my thoughts on the card. It is a pain to get through the things you don't but such a pleasure to put them behind you for good.

Ahh, Wild Rose. This gal needs lots of room to be happy. Her face looks sad or pensive to me, she's not happy being confined to a garden bed.

One lesser known meaning of a yellow rose is betrayal or treachery, so it may be that she feels betrayed by the one she loves, she doesn't feel she can be herself, she must play a role not of her choosing.

.traveller. said:

One lesser known meaning of a yellow rose is betrayal or treachery, so it may be that she feels betrayed by the one she loves, she doesn't feel she can be herself, she must play a role not of her choosing.

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Ohhhhhh I like that. Reminds me of a friend that is going through some really tough times in her marriage (not due to physical betrayal), but the changes her husband has made have not been good for the marriage and she is often forced into situations that are not of her preference (i.e. his criticism of her friends and beliefs and trying to isolate her). For a couple of years she made excuses for him and has always tried to show a good face though inside she was all torn up. She is finally speaking about it and seeking help but that image reminds me very much of her situation.

When I was a little girl, daddy took us all to an auction. I had to of been all of 4 or 5.
They were given paddles to place their bid to the auctioneer. Somehow or another, I got ahold of a paddle. Needless to say, we WON a box of toys. Daddy argued with that man, that a child could not bid. The man said I won and that was it.

Now, I can actually remember doing it. Looking & feeling so timid, wondering if I was going to get smacked or if someone was going to let me have those toys. I didn't know what would happen.

This Wild Rose is concerned the answer won't meet her hearts desire. That she might be pruned away because she's not the beauty the other roses are.
So she doesn't raise her paddle to get the toys that she so desires. Will I be kept or discarded?

Barbara

Barbaras Ahajusts said:

This Wild Rose is concerned the answer won't meet her hearts desire. That she might be pruned away because she's not the beauty the other roses are.
So she doesn't raise her paddle to get the toys that she so desires. Will I be kept or discarded?

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You know that gives a really good meaning to the shadows and clouds in the card as well. That hidden desire, fear, and resulting brooding. She is ready to be disapointed in some way.

I think what all of us have picked up so far with this card is a sense of disatisfaction on some level or another, and that situations are either expected to go wrong, or are not of our choosing so there is an umcomfortableness no matter what.

Eglantine, Wild Rose, was the name that the faeries gave to the Sleeping Beauty as she was growing up. This reflected her beauty, her forest hideaway, the thorny situation she faced, and prefigured the brambles that would grow about the castle where she would fall asleep for 100 years. None of their faery magic was able to avert that fate.

It took the Prince - that is, an active and fiery principle - to cut down those thorns and reveal the sleeping rose within: and wake her.

It reminds me of what the early rose gardeners must have done to turn wild roses into the beautiful scented beauties roses became - pruning and hybridising and working hard at ridding the Beauty of her passive but dangerous trailing thorns, leaving just enough to give the Rose her characteristic self-protected beauty.

In a reading, I can't help thinking of the Sleeping Beauty, and how this lady will have to go through a test, maybe fall asleep for years (perhaps by accepting a bad situation and being unable to free herself from overgrown and painful thorns) - to be activated by a "prince" (a real or metaphorical one), who will cut down the invasive brambles with his fiery sword, in order to rid her of her thorny questions and flourish.

Fudugazi, that was beautiful ... gives me a new perpsective to add to this card. Thanks!