Venus - Roses
Hi friend 🌹
I really enjoyed creating the last blog post about orchids and mom. Hope you enjoyed reading it, too.
I’m certainly not good at taking care of flowering plants. They still don’t bloom in my hands, but I enjoy their not long lasting beauty very very much. Perhaps that’s why I paint flowers?
Painting roses calms me down. There’s a zen feeling by starting with inner smaller petals and slowly building up to outer layers of bigger petals.
In this blog post, I dug deeper into the meanings of rose and the connection with grandma.
Let me share what I found with you!
Enjoy, my friend :)
🥀 ROSE IN HISTORY 🥀
Humanity’s love affair with roses can be traced back to ancient times.
Their cultivation most likely began in Asia about 5,000 years ago.
Confucius wrote of growing roses in the Imperial Gardens about 500 B.C. and mentioned that the emperor’s library contained hundreds of books on the topic.
Red roses feature in a number of legends in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, particularly in relation to the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite or Venus.
(Aphrodite and Venus are the same. The Romans just didn’t want to copy the Greeks.)
APHRODITE - Greek Goddess of Love & Beauty (Roman Venus)
It was connected with Adonis, the lover of Aphrodite.
One day, Adonis was gored by a wild pig during a hunting trip and died in Aphrodite’s arms as she wept.
The first red roses were said to have sprung up from his blood as it soaked into the earth,
staining the nearby white roses a deep crimson.
As a result, the Romans made the rose a symbol of beauty and love — a sentiment that endures to this day.
Venus wearing a crown of roses over the body of Adonis, in the Venus and Adonis (1637) of José de Ribera
The birth of Venus was a shocking story that I must share.
Venus was a creature, said to have been born out of an endless black night before beginning of the world. The earth goddess Gaia, sick of her eternal, joyless sex with her husband-son, the sky god Ouranos,
which left Gaia permanently pregnant (their children trapped inside her).
She persuaded one of her other sons, Kronos, to take action.
Gathering up a saw-edged stony sickle, Kronos crazily hacked off his father's erect,
rutting penis and threw the penis and testicles into the sea.
As the bloody organs hit the water, a boiling foam started to bubble.
And then something magical happened.
From the frothing sea-foam rose "an awful and lovely maiden", the goddess Aphrodite.
This broiling, bloody creature proceeded to travel the Mediterranean,
from the island of Kythera to the port of Paphos in Cyprus.
Venus – or Aphrodite as she was originally called by the Greeks.
(I wonder if this is why I’m fascinated by shells so much.)
Mother of Shell
貝殼之母
Mesmerizing and iridescent beauty
Created by nacre’s protection from suffering
Like mother’s love for children
迷人的幻彩之美
由珍珠層為保護免於苦難而創造出來
就像媽媽對孩子的愛
The goddess of Love and War
Despite her violent and salty start, the young goddess, as she emerged from the sea on to the barren,
dry land, witnessed a miracle: green shoots and flowers springing up beneath her feet.
Aphrodite, an incarnation of fertile life, was accompanied, as she made her flower-sweet progress through dusty earth, by gold-veiled Horai, the two Greek seasons of summer and winter, spirits of time and good order. Born from abuse and suffering, this sublime force is being described not just as the goddess of mortal love, but as the goddess of both the cycle of life and life itself.
Aphrodite-Venus is a complex creature – and in fact she has two births.
One was on those shores of Cyprus as an early spirit of fertility and breeding.
The other was as a fierce warrior-goddess who first showed up in a region that spans modern-day Iraq,
Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt.
From at least 3000 BC onwards, women and men watched one another and generated in their minds
a sex-and-violence goddess to explain the turbulent and desirous nature of human behaviour.
There seems to have been a sense that all lusts and urges
– to make both love and war – came from the same place.
Venus (金星)
Frequently portrayed as young girls, never settled, easily anxious,
Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte were also the celestial beings originally associated with the planet we now call Venus.
When the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III fell ill,
he requested that Inanna's statue be brought from her temple at the metropolis Nineveh (modern-day Mosul), hoping that the goddess's fierce power might save his life.
The brightest of all the stars, Venus inconsistently travels through the cosmos.
At one point, Venus was thought to be two separate Morning and Evening stars,
signified in the minds of ancient communities these goddesses' indecisive nature,
their need to travel and to conquer.
Two conflicted contrasts exist in one.
Venus of Willendorf statuette dating from around 25,000 BCE.
On the island of Cyprus there is a record of the celebration of the miracle of life, and of the sexual act,
long before the Classical Greeks conceived of a sexually attractive blonde they named Aphrodite.
The life-giving powers of a spiritual, highly sexualised figure can be found in the formidable form of the
so-called Lady of Lemba, a quite extraordinary limestone sculpture.
More than 5000 years old, this wonderful creature has fat thighs, a pronounced vulva,
the curve of breasts and a pregnant belly – and instead of a neck and head, a penis, with eyes.
The Lady of Lemba is in fact a mix of both female and male.
Somehow,
I feel my grandma looked like the Lady of Lemba 😂
In the Roman Empire,
Roses symbolised vanity.
Emperors were known to shower their guests with rose petals during lavish dinners.
The use of the rose as a symbol for silence or secrecy goes back to the ancient Egyptians or Greeks,
where initiates into the “mysteries,” or pre-Christian religions, wore roses during ceremonies to indicate that they would keep inviolate any secrets that were passed on to them.
The latin term “sub rosa,", which literally means "under the rose," dates back to ancient times when the Romans would hang roses from the ceilings of banquet halls and placed on the door to a room.
It meant that what was said under the influence of wine would remain confidential.
Grandma’s photo with her rose
The Romans even had a festival named ‘Rosalia’,
which was celebrated on various days in May and June every year in the Roman calendar and involved paying tribute to the spirits of the dead.
And speaking of festivals, Dionysian festivals in ancient Greece and Rome often featured roses,
which were worn as garlands because roses were thought to prevent drunkenness.
(Really?! Didn’t it make them happy and want to drink more?)
The rose also became the symbol of the civil wars that took place in 15th century England,
which would become known as the Wars of the Roses.
The House of Lancaster chose the symbol of a red rose, while the House of York chose a white rose.
Many years later, the two roses were combined into one symbol. The Tudor Rose became the "Rose of England," which continues to be one of the most identifiable symbols in the UK.
Framed print after 1908 painting by Henry Payne of a scene from Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 1, where supporters of the rival factions pick either red or white roses
Rose in Christianity
Jesus’s blood
Much like Adonis’ blood spilling into the earth and creating the first roses, so in Christianity,
the rose symbolises Christ’s blood shed at the Crucifixion.
In Christian tradition, then, the rose is closely related to the idea of resurrection and rebirth.
In ancient Greece, it was a common custom to lay roses upon graves for this reason.
Later, as the Virgin Mary became a more central focus of Christian worship, she became associated with the rose, and was often depicted surrounded by them.
SYMBOLISM AND MEANING OF ROSES
Since ancient times roses have been grown for their fragrance, beauty, and healing properties.
Roses, with their unique combination of thorny stems and fragrant blossoms, are often prized a symbol of achievement, completion and perfection.
After having met the long stems with the thorns,
you are rewarded with a flower of great beauty and mesmerizing fragrance. In other words,
roses act as a metaphor for life.
After overcoming difficulty, you will find inner harmony, union, and happiness.
The red rose symbolizes romance, love, beauty, and courage. A red rosebud signifies beauty and purity. A thornless red rose means love at first sight.
Yellow roses symbolize friendship and joy, and new beginnings.
Orange roses symbolize fascination, desire, and sensuality.
Pink roses indicate appreciation and gratitude, especially dark pink roses. Light pink roses are usually indicative of admiration and/or sympathy.
The white rose stands for innocence and purity; also silence, secrecy, and reverence. White rosebuds are symbolic of girlhood. Brides often select white roses for their bridal bouquets.
Roses are sometimes known as the queen of flowers, and they are perhaps the richest in symbolism, whether in Christianity, classical myth, or modern (especially romantic) literature. But the symbolism of roses is a curious topic, because red and white roses have attracted such starkly different connotations.
(Ahhh I’m always drawn to dramatic contrast!)This helps to explain how red roses came to be inextricably linked to romantic love and adorn millions of Valentine’s Day cards every year. The idea is that such love transcends death and lives on beyond the lovers’ own short lives.
I’d like to take it as a sign.
We used to joke that grandma was the queen of our family. The fact that we got to keep this photo of grandma with yellow roses is a sign of her having a new beginning with joy.
Let’s look at some photos of grandma when she was young.
Grandma used to have quite a good sense of fashion.
Looking at the photo in the middle, her style was quite wow.
She told me she made very beautiful clothes by herself as her own trousseau（嫁妝).
Now, I understand why mom and grandma’s younger sisters said they dreamed about grandma
after she passed away.
She always showed up in pretty clothes in their dreams.
Perhaps this is why I was attracted to fashion when I was in my early 20s?
Grandma was very good at knitting. She made the blanket cover behind her.
She also made me a couple of sweaters when I was young.
Grandpa & grandma
Grandpa was a handsome Chinese man who came to Taiwan with the KMT retreat in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War to CCP.
Grandma was a Taiwanese indigenous, Atayal.
Back then, the Chinese culture was stronger and superior than the indigenous.
No wonder grandma always worried grandpa having affairs with other women.
She had been feeling quite insecure all her life.
Growing up, I remember grandpa was not too loving towards grandma.
I resented grandpa for that and took side with grandma.
I never had close bond with grandpa.
Now, I understand it was that imbalanced dynamic in their relationship.
It was a cross culture relationship, now thinking back.
Rose Strawberry 玫莓
Abundance and juiciness
Sunkiss reflected on honey drops
Love is a hidden message
豐盛多汁
太陽之吻反射在蜜滴上
愛是一種隱藏的訊息
Grandpa was in the army and KMT government back then took care of him and his family, with little but stable income.
Grandma said she was the one working hard to save up money and decided to buy houses.
Grandpa was not so interested in buying houses because he was still hoping that he could go back to mainland China one day, but it never happened.
Grandma was an Atayal, Taiwanese indigenous.
She was born in the Japanese colonial time when indigenous people were suppressed.
The indigenous traditional living traditions were changed to adopt new ones.
She was proud that she could speak Japanese and Chinese as an indigenous person.
Sadly, none of us in the family learned how to speak Atayal
because the Chinese culture from my grandpa’s side was the dominant one.
In her late years, she spoke little Atayal language.
She almost forgot her own language.
(Now, I understand why she was more proud of speaking Japanese and Chinese instead of her own language.)
Growing up in a mountain village, she left the mountain life and moved to cities early on.
She kept her free, wild and playful spirit in her.
Grandma was illiterate, so she stressed the importance of study on me heavily,
which cultivated my serious attitude towards academic performance as a kid.
She liked to travel a lot. In her last few years when she couldn’t move freely, sitting in a wheelchair.
She often said to me, “So nice to be young and healthy like you, you can travel to so many countries.”
Now, I understand more her frustration of not being able to move freely.
It seemed like grandma liked to party.
She was the one that taught me to appreciate the little ordinary things in life.
She always smelled the flowers and said “what beautiful night breeze (晚風好美喔)!”,
even though I was feeling hot in bed in summer.
Ocean Floral
海洋花卉
Grand ocean
Forest floral
Little snail on the road is a subtle ordinary beauty
汪洋大海
森林花卉
趕路中的小蝸牛是細微平凡的美好
Not seeing that photo before,
I intuitively used it the same way as her to put plants on top.
Grandma was planty, so are mom and I.
Mom said grandma used to buy shitty vegetables to save money, so she could buy more plants.
I think I got this trait from grandma (chuckle).
The tribal looking pottery behind her is kept by me now.
Green Thumb 綠手指
Grandma’s green thumb and mom’s red cardigan
All nutrients in soil are dead things
The more diverse the dead things in soil,
the better a plant can grow
The rule of thumb is putting dead leaves back into pots
And banana peel water!
外婆的綠手指和媽媽的紅外套
所有土壤中的養分都是來自死掉屍體
土壤中的屍體越多樣化，植物長得越好
經驗法則是將所有枯葉放回盆內
還有香蕉皮水也很好用！
I remember grandma could be quite savage with her indigenous upbringing. She used to use her mouth to suck out the snot in my nose when I was a baby. She liked to chew the food before feeding to my mouth. She once tied me to the TV screen and took a photo of me as a punishment because I liked to watch TV too much, ignoring what she was saying. She was loving and fierce like the Venus.
Hospital trips
Often, our meet-ups would be in the hospital that she did check-ups every 3 months. She had those check-ups for many many years. I witnessed her condition to go down one after another check-up. This photo was taken at a time when I realised her condition was really bad without too much time left. It was early spring time when the Azeleas were blooming. Unlike my mom, who was good at hiding emotions and the truth from her, I’m too sensitive. I can never hide emotions on my face. My face showed grandma that I knew something was wrong. She still smiled so happily to comfort me.
RE- REMEMBER
The Jews believed that when people pass away, they are not really dead.
Only when people forget them, that’s the real death.
As long as we remember, they will always be a part of our family.
It’s been over a year since grandma left us.
She left on the early morning of May 16th, 2022 to be precise.
I still remember her last breaths vividly when she suddenly opened her eyes widely to look at me.
Not knowing death occurs when people start to breathe irregularly,
I was holding her hands and touching her face,
telling her to take one breath after another,
according to the tempo of her breathing, one breath after another, one after another…
,until there was no next one.
Then, I realised it was DEATH.
The moment she stopped breathing, I immediately stopped crying as if all the suffering in her had been lifted.
I looked into the air above her body, talking to the air as if I was talking to her spirit.
“ Grandma, I love you and we will still be together in other ways. I used to come home to see you.
Now, it’s your turn to come see me and keep me company with your spirit self.”
That was my way to cope with her death.
Instead of thinking it’s eternal loss, I want to think of it as eternal togetherness.
I wonder…
If it was a sign that I got to enjoy so many roses in grandma’s last few years with her.
She chose to get lots of roses in her garden before she passed away.
She said the newly bloomed roses are like me,
the peak blossoming roses are like Mom,
and she’s the withered rose that’s about to finish.
Hey grandma,
Just want to let you know. I will be like the flowers and bloom unapologetically.
Bloom Unapologetically
毫無歉意地綻放
Not every day is an opportunity to improve yourself
On some days, just exiting is enough
This is also growth and rising.
The flowers do so every day and makes the world more beautiful by just being.
不是每天都是改進自己的機會
有些天中，光是存在就足夠了
這也是成長與揚升
花兒們每天都這樣單純地存在著，就讓世界變得更美麗
We all go through cycles as the moon does.
We are ever-changing, ever-transforming beings.
Each Moon phase reveals us something about life and growth.
I’m entering new reality.
Rose Moon 玫月
Hand torn paper for color testing in 2019
Wilted rose and full moon from Taichung trips in 2021
Coffee beige for groundedness
Goddess moon light shines through the frame in 2023
2019手撕試色紙
2021年台中之旅的凋萎玫瑰與滿月
咖啡米色帶進大地氣息
2023女神月光透出老框
Thank you for reading here and letting me share my stories with you.
It’s my honor to be able to create this intimate and personal story to share.
I still burst into tears when I see grandma’s photos or think of the last moment with her.
My eyes are swollen from constantly crying during the process of creating this blog post.
I want to remember grandma with this blog post as part of my healing process, to serves as a closure.
Who knows how many more closures I will need to have to finally stop feeling so painful.
Perhaps, there need to be endless closures throughout the life for growth?
Anyways, till next time, my friend x