The Red Rose Symbolism

The Rose, the Thorn and the Awakening

Photo by Gruescu Ovidiu on Unsplash

The rose is one of those symbols we think we understand. We associate it with love, romance and beauty. But, like most powerful symbols, it contains an opposite. Its colour, scent and softness draw us towards it, while its thorns remind us that beauty is not always harmless.

The Latin phrase sub rosa means “under the rose” and has long been associated with secrecy and confidentiality. A rose placed above a table was understood to mean that whatever was said beneath it should remain private.

There is an obvious connection with psychotherapy. What is spoken in the consulting room is also held sub rosa: within a private space where thoughts, feelings and experiences can emerge before they are ready to be taken into the outside world.

The phrase also provides a useful way of thinking about alchemical transformation.

The alchemists worked with substances inside a sealed vessel. The material was heated, dissolved, darkened, separated and brought together again. Psychologically, this can be understood as the inner process through which an old way of being breaks down and something new gradually begins to form.

Much of this happens beneath the surface. Outwardly, life may continue as usual. We work, shop, cook supper and answer emails while, inwardly, an old identity may be loosening and another trying to come into life.

Transformation often takes place sub rosa: privately, quietly and without much outward evidence.

The rose is also connected with rubedo, the reddening, traditionally understood as the final stage of the alchemical process. After the darkness of nigredo and the cleansing or clarification of albedo, rubedo represents a return to life, feeling and embodiment.

Something that has previously been understood only inwardly must now be lived. It has to acquire blood, warmth and substance.

I once had a dream in which I found a red rose. I reached out to take it and pricked my finger on one of its thorns.

At the time, I had been rather seduced by an offer. It was flattering and attractive and seemed to promise something I wanted.

To be seduced is not necessarily to be foolish. We are seduced through our hopes, ambitions, longings and vulnerabilities. Something catches the imagination and, for a while, we see the flower but not the thorn.

The rose in my dream perfectly conveyed the attraction. It was red, alive and desirable. But when I reached for it, it drew blood.

The prick of the thorn woke me up, not only from the dream but psychologically. It punctured the fantasy surrounding the offer and brought me back into my body. It made me wonder what accepting the offer might actually involve. What would it ask of me? What might it cost? What had I overlooked while enjoying the feeling of being chosen?

The dream did not tell me that the rose was false or that the offer held no value. It showed me that the beauty and the danger belonged together.

The thorn broke the spell.

This is where the dream connects with rubedo. Red is the colour of passion and desire, but also of blood. The rose was no longer simply an attractive idea. The moment it pierced my skin, the situation became real.

Psychologically, rubedo is not a state of permanent happiness or completion. It is the point at which insight must become embodied. Fantasy meets reality. What has been discovered inwardly has to be lived in the world.

The dream transformed seduction into discernment.

The psyche rarely presents its wisdom as a straightforward explanation. More often, it gives us an image: a red rose, a thorn and a drop of blood. The image arrives first. Its meaning may take longer to understand.

The work is not to explain it away too quickly, but to stay with it.

What is the rose in my life? What am I hoping it will give me? Where are the thorns? What becomes visible when the spell is broken?

The rose is a symbol of love, but not of love stripped of difficulty. It suggests a love that can include boundaries, risk and truth. It invites us to open, but not to abandon our judgement.

Perhaps transformation sub rosa asks us to see the rose whole: the blossom, the scent, the stem, the blood and the thorn.

Only then can attraction become wisdom.