I have always loved flowers. Their beauty spoke directly to the femininity that lived deep within me. Even in my early creative work, everything bloomed — my jewelry designs were almost always floral, no matter how many other shapes I tried. Peonies were my first love, lush and extravagant. Tulips felt like small cups catching spring sunlight.

But the Rose… she was different.

I wouldn’t have called her my favorite. She carried a mystery I wasn’t yet ready to explore. Still, when she finally came for me, the dam inside me broke. Her spiraling petals pulled me inward — tender and wild at once. Her perfume wrapped around me like a memory I had forgotten. I ached to fall into her softness.

Around that time, I had just begun to realize I could communicate with loved ones who had passed on. When “Rose” appeared everywhere, I assumed it was my grandmother, whose middle name was Rose. But soon it became clear: this wasn’t about her. The Rose herself was weaving into my life.

Her name appeared on storefronts, in books, on signs, in conversations. I couldn’t escape her, though I had no idea what she wanted from me.

And then Rebecca Campbell — one of my teachers — announced a workshop on the Rose.
I laughed. The synchronicities were piling up.
Still, I hesitated. Back then, I hadn’t yet learned to follow the breadcrumbs.

But the Rose persisted.

At Newark Airport, inching through the slow security line, something jolted me awake — a luxury Coach handbag printed with an enormous Campbell’s soup can in blazing red. It was so absurd, so loud, so hilariously out of place that I actually laughed.
Campbell. Again.
In that moment, it felt like the Rose had tossed it into my path, whispering, “Are you paying attention now?”

Only later did I realize just how unmistakable that nudge had been — a humorous, theatrical shove from the universe pointing me straight toward the workshop.

By the time it arrived, I was in Buenos Aires. I sat in my hotel room, heart pounding, curious and open. Rebecca spoke about her own connection to the Rose and introduced us to “kything” — the practice of opening to the sacred presence within another being.

I let myself gaze at the Rose before me, at her curves, her velvet sheen, the quiet breath of her scent.
And then I heard it — clear as a whisper, steady as truth:

“Where have you been? We’ve been waiting for you.”

The words rooted me to the spot. My mind questioned, but my soul already knew: the Rose had spoken.

Later, during a chant — “Great Mother, my Ma” — something inside me broke open. I sobbed in a way that didn’t feel personal, as if ancient grief was moving through me, clearing space. I felt the ache of separation from the Divine Mother, the loss of the feminine in the world, the yearning for her return.

In the days that followed, another memory surfaced — a meditation from the year before. In it, I heard a message spoken with absolute clarity:

“You did not come here to attach to your biological parents.
You came here to connect to Mother Earth and Father Sky.”

I hadn’t understood the meaning at the time. But now, wrapped in the presence of the Rose, it clicked into place. My lifelong hunger for tenderness, belonging, and the sacred feminine hadn’t been a wound — it had been a compass. A calling toward the Great Mother.
The Rose had simply been the one to open the door.

From that moment on, she became more than a flower.
She became presence.
She became guidance.
She became home.