The unsealed rose

(I was interviewed for a TV show!) + When did you last smell an unblossomed rose?

Exciting news: I was interviewed and featured for a TV show called ‘Behold’ (season 5, ep. 15) by Salt + Light Media for my ‘Christ, the Pantocrator’ icon. Check out my interview clip by scrolling to the bottom.

When did you last smell an unblossomed rose? When did the bee ever collect pollen from a sealed bud?

There is no scent without bursting forth. There is no beauty without blooming. So too we are like unblossomed roses in the garden, holding back our love for others, clinging to our lusts, fearing the light of the Sun.

We refuse to bloom for fear of dying. Oh, the silliness of wasting our breath on ourselves, on our ego, on our insatiable attachment to this worldliness.

So long as the rose bud refuses to burst forth, it will never become a true rose. It will never be picked by the Gardener to be made into perfume. It will never produce a fragrance.

If we cling to our selfishness, competing against our neighbour, hoarding all our love for ourselves, we trap ourselves in a prison. A prison where we don’t realise we’re living in the garden. All because we’ve shut ourselves in, fearing the radiant light.

We can never be free if the Sun doesn’t cast light onto our petals. For it is only through the scorching light of the Sun—its purifying radiance—that our attachments and vices are burnt away. Leaving behind only what is true. To be unattached to the extremes: honour and disdain, wealth and poverty, glory and anguish.

This is freedom.

This is the beginning of wisdom.

In this garden, an eternal melody hums, swaying our existence to its divine rhythm. It’s the same music that guides a zygote to a fetus, a seed to a tree, a nebula to a star.

The Musician is playing this melody for us.

But we can’t hear this melody because we are deafened by worldly chains. We cling to the shadows as if they are real.

How then do we cast the deafness from our ears? How then do we peel these scales from our hearts?

My friend, we do this by blooming without fear of dying to our selfishness and stretching out our petals to bask in the light of the Sun.

For when the rose blooms, she is pressed into perfume. She gives up her breath in the embrace of the Gardener’s hands. There, she becomes one with all the roses to produce fragrance. She no longer defines herself by her otherness, her character, her achievements, her status.

Nothing can harm her because she’s slain her ego and walks in humility.

She sees the Truth: There’s no distinction between her and her neighbour.

So open your petals to the Sun. Offer yourself to the Gardner; dance to the Musician's tune; love your neighbour as yourself, and become one with the Eternal. Then you’ll behold the cosmos twirling in the boundless light. Witnessing the swirling eternal dance and the unfolding of this divine meditation. This is the unfurling of the rose. This is where meaning is found.

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My featured interview on ‘Behold’

Thanks to the Salt + Light Media crew for telling stories of hope to the world.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

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