Yellow Rose from Toledo, Spain

Moving through betrayal, reversals of fortune, loss and grief to a freedom to accept what is with a freedom from expectation. Finding the loyalty of the eternal self which is the real beyond the mutable

Part of forgiveness involves mourning. It involves facing that what we hoped would happen did not happen. Experiencing our grief frees us to let go of what was lost so we can see what remains. Losses can help us find the immutable inner reality of our eternal self.

Here is a tiny example of this process from the summer of 2024. I planted a vegetable garden that I wanted to reflect at least some of what I’ve learned about raising vegetables during the last 45 years. Kindness of the local groundhogs, I got a wasteland. Six string beans anyone? I needed to accept the reality of this, mourn the loss of my dreams and then forgive myself for my difficulty letting go of my dreams while also forgiving the world for not fulfilling my dreams. When we do this work, we are left unburdened by expectations. This is a great freedom. While I wanted vegetables this summer, my harvest was an experience of knowing I was okay even with a crap garden. I found a freedom to laugh after I had cried, a freedom to know it was just an experience and didn’t define me.

This brings me to Toledo. The history of Toledo includes the rise and fall of many different groups of people that flourished then were crushed in a dizzying series of events. At one point, Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities shared the city in a harmony so great one would have hoped it would prevail for all time, but it didn’t. Forces dismantled this tolerance with events like the Spanish Inquisition. Throughout Toledo’s history, any confidence that something external would endure was eventually destroyed. Now a Unesco world heritage site, Toledo’s ancient mosques, churches and temples are not so much a testament to a prevailing worldview, but a testament to our ability to survive and move on when our world is dramatically altered. When institutions failed the people of Toledo, they had to depend on their own inner resources. The city is now a testament to this inner resolve, and the vibration of the city is not so much the bitterness of defeat but a calm resilience and acceptance of an ever changing world and the knowledge that events can neither diminish our eternal selves or define us.

So why in 2024 when the Angels were focusing on forgiveness did they call me to a Yellow Rose Flower Essence made in Toledo, Spain? This Rose helps soften our way through the process of losing our dream, accepting and making peace with what is. It also encourages us to go within to the healing anchor of our own inner self, a self that can console us, hold us steady during upheavals and be loyal to us even when the world has proven false or unfair or just simply moved on from our point of view.

This Rose Essence helps us heal the wounds when the external culture cannot meet our needs. Born into the care of others, we are hardwired to look externally for caregivers in schools, hospitals, religious organizations, governments and other institutions that play caretaking roles in our lives. But organizations can’t always care for us in the ways we need. When we are let down and our innocent expectation of care shattered, be it by our original parent caretakers or later by institutions, our disappointment and loss gives us an opportunity to find a more complex understanding of the world. We can rage against these forces that have disappointed us, or we can mourn then turn and go within to our inner self, infinite and eternal, a self that is truly and completely loyal to us. This Rose Essence offers both a balm to our wounds of betrayal and also helps us turn to the infinite resource within us. Roses hold an energy of Divinity which is a bridge taking us to the eternal within us. This Rose helps us ground in our eternal self which rises above the mutable into the real and imperishable.